Back to Shoal Creek

by Mike Schelp
(Gladstone, MO)

Kansas City has built a lot of paved walking trails, many of them along small creeks. This is where I go tenkara fishing. This is the Shoal Creek Trail from the Maple Woods trail head. About 1/2 mile down the trail is one of the spots where you can easily access the creek. Even though we’ve had a LOT of rain the last three weeks, the water was low and I was able to fish along about 1/2 mile of creek. I was using my Shimotsuke Kiyotaki 18. The line was about 3.5 meters off the heavy end of a Daiwa Tenkara Taper 0.8 - 4.0 go. This is an inexpensive (2 lines for $10) line that is 7 meters long. The Kiyotaki cast the heavy half beautifully! About 4 feet of 7X tippet and assortment of size 18 and 20 killer bugs and Kebari rounded it all out. I caught about 30 fish in two or so hours.

“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.

We've all had situations where seriously chewed up flies kept catching fish after fish after fish. It is no sin to tie flies that come off the vise looking seriously chewed up.