Good Success with Keiryu

by Jason
(Conway, Arkansas)

I've had good results fishing a keiryu-like technique. I use my Tenkara rod and a fly tied small (#16) on a #14 barbed dry fly standard hook. This leaves a small amount of space to thread on a live nymph or sow bug below your fly.

Flip a rock over and catch a critter(s). I like to add to my sparse arsenal (rod, line, forcep / scissor combo, small home-made Altoid fly box, tennis shoes) a small aquarium net.

Use a gentle cast or just drift it downstream. If the critter flings off you still have a fly. Usually you get a strike every cast.

I carry two fly patterns a Killer Bug and a Sow Bug.

Had a great day on the river last weekend (catch'em every cast) but I got some weird looks. Finally a well equiped dude with a particularly disapproving frown asked what I was using. I gave him a Killer Bug. He took the fly but couldn't hide his disgust when he saw my home-made Altoid fly box and my wet tennis shoes.

Said he hadn't caught anything all day...

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” - Benjamin Franklin

"Be sure in casting, that your fly fall first into the water, for if the line fall first, it scares or frightens the fish..." -
Col. Robert Venables 1662

As age slows my pace, I will become more like the heron.