The New York Times sports subsection reports today that Japanese tenkara fishing, a form of fly fishing without a reel, ” has begun to attract anglers in the United States .”
Poaching on Jack Shafer’s hunting-and-fishing grounds , I counted a whole three Japanese-style American anglers in the would-be trend piece. One is Japanese-American and “is captain of Japan’s national fly-fishing team”; she started using the Japanese method in 2008. Another is married to a Japanese-American and has traveled to Japan; he also started in 2008. The third one doesn’t specify whether he took up tenkara recently or long ago.
How do we know the sport is growing in the United States? One of the three people, Daniel Galhardo, said so. Galhardo runs a business selling tenkara fishing rods online—”the first company outside Japan to introduce tenkara.” How many rods has he sold, in the 17 months he’s been selling them? The article does not mention. Has a second or third tenkara company appeared, to compete with Galhardo’s for this growing share of the market? Who knows?
Sorry, Times editors. Next time, make sure your lure has a hook in it.
