A Little Bit of Recycling Can Go A Long Way

My new stream side tenkara pouch

In an effort to continually minimize the amount of tenkara gear I carry stream side and make use of some unused stuff.  I decided to work on this little project after seeing a post on Dispatches From The Middle River. Making lanyards from recycled old fly lines is a great idea an an inexpensive alternative to more expensive lanyards.  I figured with the FlyVine lanyard and some other items I had lying around I could make an inexpensive sports bag to carry a minimum of my tenkara gear.  To complete this sports pouch I also used an 3 1/2 " neoprene fly reel cover (I don't remember why I have one of these because I don't have a fly reel but I remember I picked it up for about $6), a couple of split rings used for keys (one of which has a break away feature), a sturdy pair of tweezers (instead of hemostats) with a small piece of fly line to tie it to one of the split rings, and a key-chain pill case like the one I described in an earlier post.  There's really not much to the construction..just punch two small holes in the side for the split rings and attach the lanyard and the pouch together.

The Velcro latch makes it easy to get access to the pouches contents but at the same time keep most of the items from jangling around the front of me.  Add a nipper to one of the rings and an extra moose antler line holder and I'm ready to go.  In the picture above the pill case/ fly holder is tucked inside the pouch but it could just as easily hang from the outside to accommodate a larger blue plastic tenkara line holder (currently I have one of the TenkaraBum smaller blue line holders in this pouch.

An inside view of the pouch

I have a BW Sports pouch (see below) that I have been using since the end of last year and I like it a lot and will continue to use it but there are a number of times that I find that for a few hours of fishing I really never use more than a single line, some tippet, and 2 or 3 fly patterns (a sakasa kebari and a killer bug cover most situations for me).  With this kit I can easily carry almost two dozen flies, in the pill case, and an extra line as a back up or different length for fishing.  This kit is essentially the same as my tenkara survival kit except that I can hang it from my neck and that I don't have to fumble around with a zipper while standing in the middle of a stream.  The best part is that the total cost was about $17...the cheapest price I could find for anything comparable. However, I really think I need to be careful...if I keep going like this I going to minimize myself right out of fishing gear altogether and will wind having to take up "noodling for catfish!"

This is now my "Cadillac" of tenkara fishing bags