Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2017 - 76

How I Got Here: w/Daniel Galhardo
week vacations. That year, we also started planning a vacation to visit
Margaret's grandparents and other relatives in Japan. While I was excited to meet her family, what I really wanted to do was to fly-fish.
The Land of the Rising Sun is known for many things: sushi, anime,
samurai, economical cars, even powder skiing. But fly fishing? That's
what you do in the streams of the Sierra or the Rockies, but not in Japan,
right? Here's the thing: Look at a map of the island nation and you'll notice that about 70 percent of the country is covered in mountains. Look
even closer and you'll see a lot of blue squiggly lines-mountain streams.
Plus, I learned that all streams in Japan belong to the public, and you can
walk through people's farms and land to fish practically anywhere you
want. You can't do that in Colorado or Montana.
Digging deeper into my research, I learned about a traditional method of fly fishing in Japan called tenkara, which uses a rod but no reel and
flies that do not necessarily attempt to match hatches as in Western fly
fishing. When we got there, I bought myself a tenkara rod to give it a try.
No standard fly wand, it was telescopic. A 12-foot-long rod collapsed
down into a mere 20 inches. The clerk in the store showed me the other
items I needed: a tenkara line, a small spool of tippet, and some flies.

76 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ Summer 2017

THIS WAS UNLIKE ALL THOSE OTHER
IDEAS I HAD MULLED IN THE PAST. IT HAD
LEGS. I REALLY WANTED TO SHARE THE
STORY OF THIS METHOD OF FLY FISHING,
WHICH HAD BEEN HIDING AWAY IN
JAPAN FOR CENTURIES, WITH THE REST
OF THE WORLD.
That was it. It was very simple and also very appealing to a busy financial
industry worker from the U.S. It occurred to me that this was the perfect
setup for my backpacking and climbing trips, when I would have the occasional chance to fish small streams and lakes but didn't want to haul
in all of my fly-fishing gear. A lightbulb went on in my mind. This was far
better than on-demand topo-map bandanas.
When we returned to the U.S., a couple of friends-who are also our
main backpacking and climbing partners-picked Margaret and I up at
the airport and we went out for brunch. I enthusiastically started talking
about this super simple Japanese method of fly fishing I had discovered.
I told them the rod was in my carry-on and that it would be so perfect for
our wilderness outings. I excitedly explained how I could catch trout for
dinner by carrying a mere six ounces of gear. Our friends were not fly anglers but they were intrigued, interested even.
"Maybe I should start a business with it," I declared.
They had heard that before. And I didn't think much about that statement myself until a couple of weeks later, when I realized I was still
thinking that, yes, perhaps I really should start a business to introduce
tenkara to anglers and backpackers and climbers in the United States.
At this point, I had been practicing the art of fly fishing for about 13
years. I loved the sport and I was involved with a fly-fishing club in San
Francisco, where I helped teach casting classes. I also tried to get friends
to take up fly fishing, to share in my passion. But I kept hearing the same
complaints from the people I tried to get into the sport: Fly fishing is too
complicated. There's just too much stuff to buy. It's so expensive. It's pretty intimidating. Fly fishing has a certain mystique and aura to it, and it
sure has a way of scaring people.
I had found something that made fly fishing simple, however. I told
my naysayer friends, "This is tenkara. All you need is a rod, line, and
a fly." When I taught them how to cast, it took a matter of minutes to
pick it up compared to all the work you needed to put into summoning the perfect fly cast loop. I was certain that tenkara could bring
people into the sport.
Over the next few months, I started figuring out what it would take to
actually start a business that would make tenkara rods, lines, and flies.
This was unlike all those other ideas I had mulled in the past. It had legs.
I really wanted to share the story of this method of fly fishing, which had
been hiding away in Japan for centuries, with the rest of the world.

http://www.olympiausa.com

Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2017

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