Floating Tenkara Line

Floating Tenkara Line gives US tenkara anglers just what they've been asking for. For years now, anglers have requested a floating line. I played around with a floating line when I fished with a TFO Soft Hackle rod but I decided not to offer one. I was too wrapped up in fluorocarbon line.

I have often written that to me the essence of tenkara is fishing with the lightest line you can get away with and keeping the line off the water's surface. A Floating Tenkara Line is not the lightest line, and because of that much of it will be on the water.

However, there are tenkara anglers for whom the essence of their tenkara is very different. They don't want a fluorocarbon line no matter how light it is. They want a line that floats - whether for fishing poppers or foam spiders for panfish, or for fishing dry flies for trout in pools or alpine lakes. They also want a line that is heavy enough to buck the wind and is easy to see.

Smallmouth bass with popper in its mouth

One of many

When I fished with the TFO rod, I discovered the floating line was heavy enough to fish bass bugs. Of course, I would recommend the Daiwa Kiyose SF rods which I think are better (and less expensive) than the TFO. They, too, will cast floating line quite nicely.

Unpainted bass popper with hen pheasant hackle and hen pheasant feathers for rear legs.

No Vise Bass Popper

Fishing with deer hair bass bugs or big poppers really is a lot of fun, and truth be told, a heavier floating line probably is the line you want for bass bugs. It has the mass and momentum to turn them over, and it won't sink like fluorocarbon. It is much harder to get a hook set if the bug is floating but the line isn't.

I no longer sell a floating tenkara lines but Google can find them.

Large redbreast sunfish with bass popper

Big sunfish will take poppers readily

Attaching the line to the rod

You cannot attach a floating line with the same arbor knot attachment used with level lines. A floating line will come with a loop with which to use a girth hitch. If you make your own from fly fishing running line, add your own loop made from braided fly line backing. You will need a knot in the end of your lillian to keep the line from sliding off.

Loop used for girth hitch, folded back over itself

Fold braided loop back on itself to form the girth hitch.

Lillian inserted through the loop caused by folding girth hitch loop back on itself

Tie overhand knot in end of lillian, insert lillian through the girth hitch, tighten hitch and slide down to knot.

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“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.