Tenkara fishing

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Tenkara fishing (Japanese: テンカラ釣り, literally: "fishing from heaven", "sky fishing", or "empty sky fishing" as ten = "sky" and kara = "empty") is a type of simple rod angling traditionally practiced in Japan. Primarily used for mountain stream trout fishing, tenkara is still a fairly rare method even among freshwater anglers in Japan, and was largely unknown outside Japan until 2009, when the company Tenkara USA,^[1] founded by Daniel Galhardo, introduced and popularized tenkara outside Japan.^[2]

Although there are similarities between tenkara and traditional Western-style fly fishing, the two techniques developed independently of each other, with tenkara being purely Japanese in origin.^[3] In addition, fly fishing uses specialized rod, reel and line and a type of ultralight fishing lure known as artificial fly, while traditional tenkara is reel-less and mostly uses real insects as bait (although modern tenkara tends to use so-called Japanese Flies).