French Partridge Tenkara Style

[tie2fish]

tie2fish, Howdy;

Beautiful tye.

How did you 'strip' the hurl off the shaft?

hank

Hold small end of herl down with forefinger of one hand and stroke lengthwise repeatedly with an eraser. I lay the herl on a piece of flat craft foam so it doesn't slide around so much.

[Old Hat]

Looks very enticing. Long before I heard about Tenkara, the reverse hackle has had a place in my box. The first of this style I tied and fished was in larger sizes for sea run cutthroats when I fished the Oregon coastal streams. The preferred method was to strip them in the slower water to get the hackle to really work. Most of these were tied in the #6-#10 range. This was about the time I was getting into wingless wets and was attracted to the design. I started seeing possibilities in smaller sizes then came across Donald's site on Alpine Spiders. Most of the Alpine water that I was fishing was steep gradient and I really didn't notice a difference in catching between the reverse hackle and standard hackle on these faster pocket water fished streams. Then I went back to the sea-run idea of stripping the fly. Where I have really found this design to excel is in alpine lakes. Little to no current, long leader, and slow short strips just under the surface makes the fish very interested and for a happy fisherman. So I can see where the Tenkara would really produce well with no line really on the water and in a slow current section of a small stream, where you can get the hackles to work in an very productive manner. I think this is where the Tenkara reversed hackle design and fishing method is going to make the difference. From what I've seen so far most of the "Tenkara" designs are wingless wets not much different from what most of usually fish. It's the simplicity and method of fishing that's attractive. At least to me anyway. Although I may have a hard time fishing the reversed design on an alpine lake with a Tenkara set-up. So, now I'm going to have take two rods into the wilderness with me. Does this defeat the purpose?

[tie2fish]

I expect that you're right, Old Hat ... the "reach" with a tenkara is limited to roughly double the rod length, and you'd have to be mostly ghostly to get within that range of the fish in those Alpine type lakes. The collapsed size and neglible weight do make a tenkara the perfect hiking companion though.