Tenkara fishing

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, founded by Daniel Galhardo, introduced and popularized tenkara outside Japan.

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. 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).