2 Years of Heritage Tenkara Project
- Heritage Team
- Aug 8
- 3 min read
In a way, it’s hard to believe it’s been two years since we went live with the website and made this thing official. Over the past year we have grown a little, and gained a bit more momentum. With the changes we’ve gone through and the changes to come, we still feel very appreciative of the support we get from the angling community! For that, we want to thank all of our friends that we work with, and our supporters!
We want to do a little recap of the year, and we think the best place to start is where we left off with the last yearly update post…
Events
As we finished our first year, we set our sights on doing more in-person events. We have explored a few different event styles since last August, with Amanda being a big part of that.
Among the events, we’ve hosted a meet-up, a camp-out, and a beginner’s workshop.
We also did some more collaborative events, including helping our friend Luong of Tenkara Tanuki with his booth at a few stops of the Fly Fishing Show, and also helped bring the Tenkara Tanuki Boot Camp to the east coast for the first time ever! There was also the “Tenkara Quest” event with Hendersonville Outfitters, and a few BHA events where Amanda helped out as an instructor.
This brings us to another big, recent change for us…
We recently introduced our “North-East Liaison,” Nate Camp. We’ve known Nate for a while, and we are both excited and proud of our new partnership with him. We feel he shares our values and goals, and will represent the Heritage Tenkara Project well through his BHA events.
Articles
Now, onto the website - Over the year we’ve added new articles to the blog. We touched on the basics of casting, flies, gear, and the most passive of fly presentations - the dead drift. There were also a handful of posts on other subjects and experiences, like fishing with friends, and chasing native brook trout along the eastern seaboard. Looking at all of the posts we published over the last 365 days, we feel that it’s worth sharing the top three most-viewed posts.
Here we covered the tools and gear needed for some time on the water. The list is short and simple, but leaves room for one’s own personal preferences.
This post was part of a three article series written by Kaz Okada sharing his perspective on Catch & Eat, Catch & Release, and Stewardship practices. All of them are great reads, but this one in particular details practices from Japan, and even addresses some of the challenges faced in preserving our fisheries and maintaining a healthy environment both in and around the streams in the US and beyond.
This was the first post of many to help introduce the people who run some of the privately-owned businesses that help supply tenkara anglers with the gear and tackle needed to get out on the water and have great experiences. If you’ve ever met Brent, you already know he’s a great guy, and we really can’t say enough good things about him or DRAGONtail Tenkara, but if you haven’t had that opportunity then this is a great way to get to know the man himself, and learn a bit more about his business as well!
On the lines of meet the vendor posts, we had a couple other brands that we were able to talk with and share a little bit more about the people who own and operate these small businesses.
To The Future
Moving forward, we plan to keep experimenting with in-person events. We also hope to do some online events as well. Of course, we will continue to expand on our articles as well, and hope to explore some different topics and build upon some that we’ve already written about. We’re excited to see what comes next for Heritage Tenkara Project, and where the paths will lead us!
With that, we want to say thank you. Thank you to the community, and those who send us messages and support us in our endeavors. Thank you to those who have worked with us to put together events, and help reach more anglers and people interested in tenkara! We have a list of people who have made our second year of HTP memorable!
Amanda Alexander
Brent Auger of DRAGONtail Tenkara
David & Ambre of Hendersonville Outfitters
Haley Beaupre
Headwater Outfitters (Rosman, NC)
Nate Camp
Casey & Kevin of Rocky MTN Tenkara
Ben Colonnese of Fixed Line Appalachia
Dre Fornasiero
Jim Hopkins
Victoria Hussey
Chris Jameson of Trout Trails
Kaz Okada
Tony Parmenter of Seiyu Institute
Payton Skidmore
Luong Tam of Tenkara Tanuki
Jared Willadsen
I have enjoyed reading everyone's contributions and participating in the cause myself. Cheers to another year! -Skiddy