From Curiosity to a Twelve-Year Journey of Learning, Testing, and Writing
Around 2014, I picked up a tenkara rod for the first time and landed my first fish. What began as simple curiosity about this traditional Japanese style of fly fishing quickly became something much deeper. I wanted to understand why such a minimal setup—a rod, line, and fly—could be so effective.
I had no idea that one fish would change the direction of my life.
Curiosity gradually turned into obsession. It wasn’t enough to simply fish tenkara—I wanted to understand every aspect of it. That curiosity eventually led me to begin designing and building my own rods, and before long, I found myself becoming a tenkara rod maker.
In March 2017, I met Dave Hughes at the Northwest Fly Tying Expo in Oregon. Dave, the author of more than twenty fly-fishing books, encouraged me during our conversation to write a book about tenkara.
I laughed it off.
I told him I wasn’t ready.
But every time I saw Dave after that, he asked the same question:
“How’s the book coming along?”
He never pressured me, but he never stopped encouraging me. Every time we met, he reminded me that I had something worth sharing. He even offered to help whenever I felt ready.
His confidence meant a great deal to me, but I still believed there was more to learn before I could write the book I envisioned.
At that time, most discussions about tenkara centered on simplicity and preserving traditional Japanese methods. I respected those traditions, but my own background naturally led me to ask different questions.
How could I combine decades of Western fly fishing and fly-casting experience with the elegance and simplicity of tenkara?
Could engineering help explain why fish, rods, and techniques behave the way they do?
Could careful testing replace assumptions?
Could complex ideas be simplified without losing their depth?
Those questions became the foundation of my journey.
Over the years, I learned from many generous anglers who willingly shared their knowledge and experience. I fished with people like Ken Reinard, whose practical approach to fly fishing broadened my perspective. I studied with Japanese tenkara master Masami Sakakibara, one of Japan’s living legends of tenkara, learning techniques refined through decades on the water.
Each person influenced me in different ways.
At the same time, I realized something important: I wasn’t trying to become a copy of anyone else. I wanted to develop an approach that reflected my own experiences—as a fly angler, a rod designer, and an engineer. I wanted to understand not only how to fish, but why certain methods worked and how they could be explained more clearly.
That journey led me to experiment with countless rod designs, spend thousands of hours on rivers, lakes, mountain streams, and casting ponds, and test every idea I could imagine.
Some ideas worked.
Many didn’t.
Every successful day on the water—and every broken prototype—taught me something valuable.
Looking back, I’m grateful I didn’t write the book in 2017.
I wasn’t ready then.
The book I wanted to write wasn’t simply another guide explaining how to fish with a tenkara rod. I wanted to understand—and explain—why things work.
Why do trout choose one holding lie over another?
Why does one presentation consistently outperform another?
Why does one casting stroke feel effortless while another doesn’t?
Why do some rods simply feel “right” in your hand?
What really happens when a large trout surges at the net, and why do so many rods fail at that moment?
Those questions led me far beyond simply catching fish. They led me into engineering, observation, experimentation, and thousands of hours on the water searching for answers.
Over the past twelve years, I’ve had the opportunity to present more than 200 seminars and clinics and answer thousands of questions about tenkara. Teaching others taught me just as much as fishing did. Every question challenged me to think more deeply about why something worked, not just how to do it.
More importantly, I kept searching for ways to simplify every part of fly fishing—from casting and presentation to reading water, understanding trout behavior, selecting flies, fighting fish, and landing larger trout. The simpler an idea became, the easier it was for anglers to understand and apply on the water.
Over time, I realized that many parts of fly fishing only seem mysterious because no one has explained them in a simple, practical way. That realization eventually inspired the title of the book I’ve been quietly working on over the past several years: Demystifying Fly Fishing with a Tenkara Rod.
Writing the manuscript has become much more than organizing chapters. It has been an opportunity to revisit the people who influenced me, the mistakes that taught me the most, the prototypes that broke, the theories that survived years of testing, and the lessons that slowly came together through experience.
It isn’t a book built around one philosophy or one style of fishing.
It is a collection of lessons learned from fly-fishing authors like Dave Hughes, Japanese masters like Masami Sakakibara, friends who generously shared their knowledge, years of designing rods, my engineering background, and countless hours spent fishing, experimenting, teaching, and learning.
Every chapter began with a simple question.
Why?
Why does this work?
Can it be explained more simply?
Can it help another angler enjoy fly fishing a little more?
Over the coming months, I’d like to share some of those stories here—not as previews of the book, but as the experiences that shaped it. Some posts will be about rod design. Others will explore trout behavior, casting, reading water, fly selection, engineering concepts, or the lessons learned from success, failure, and years of experimentation.
If you enjoy following the process behind creating a book, I hope you’ll come along for the journey. Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing the stories, experiments, successes, failures, and lessons that have shaped Demystifying Fly Fishing with a Tenkara Rod.
If you’d like to follow the book’s development and be the first to hear about new journal posts and future updates, I invite you to subscribe to the newsletter. I’d love to have you along as this project continues to evolve.
When Demystifying Fly Fishing with a Tenkara Rod is finally published, I hope it feels less like the release of a new book and more like the next chapter in a journey we’ve been exploring together.
