ditchbanker

Tenkara. It's a Japanese form of fly fishing where the line connects to the end of the (In my case 12 foot) rod. No real, no extra fly line. Modern Tenkara rods are able to collapse by telescoping down to 20". Rod weighs next to nothing. I slid it into a side pouch of my very small day pack, included the spool of line and a spool of tippet (both about the same size), a small container of roughly a dozen flies, strapped it all to my rack and took off. Total fishing gear is WELL under a pound and takes very little room.

To be completely honest, I'm still struggling with Tenkara fishing. I'm much more productive with traditional fly fishing, but the gear doesn't collapse down as small. I can fish dry flies with Tenkara pretty easily but I'm still struggling with the wet flies. I think I need to experiment with different styles of line. Still, the small size/weight of the setup, along with the utter simplicity (the fixed gear of fly fishing? And no, I don't happen to be a fixed gear rider) keeps me working on mastering the new skill. The portability is awesome for backpacking, day hikes and, I'm learning, bicycling.