Trip Report: Tenkara vs Machaca

Adapting tenkara to catch an exciting new species

The first and obvious question is “what the heck is a machaca?”. The short answer is “the most perfect tenkara sportfish species you’ve never heard of”. The more precise answer is that the machaca is relative of the piranha that inhabits rivers and lakes in Central America. They share the piranha’s intimidating dental hardware, but have a vaguely carp-like body. They take flies aggressively, and fight like
smallmouth bass...only angrier! And, dare I say it, stronger. 

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