An Eastern Cape caper - Andrew Savs Trout, bangers and platters

Savs

“Be the ball” - Ty Webb, Caddy Shack

Between Mount Fletcher and Maclear, not far from where the hills are painted crimson by the blooms of wildflowers and just before the turn to short-cut to Rhodes lies the village of Chevy Chase.

It’s an unremarkable rural village, save for it having been named after the star of eighties comedy movies like Caddy Shack and European Vacation. The only reason that we even became aware of it is that it’s where we stopped for an unscheduled toilet break.

The village of Chevy Chase plays no further role in this story.

Rapture

From there to our destination in Barkley East the sights along the way comprise of a mix of breathtaking mountain passes and untidy little towns, each long past their heydays. They exist now solely as testament to ongoing municipal mismanagement. The towns, that is. The mountains are ancient and as beautiful as they ever were. They defy description and, for that matter, municipal mismanagement.

This was a trip that was long in the making, to the point that we were starting to believe that it would never happen. The foundations for it were laid some three or even fours year ago with the establishment of the now ubiquitous WhatsApp group to help with planning and to keep things organised. Much turbid water has passed under that bridge and the group became a collection of memes and comments that you probably wouldn’t want your dominee, as forgiving as his occupation requires him to be, to scroll through.

Somewhere in the hazy mists of total lockdown, when even a trip to the grocery store felt like an exciting expedition and we were at our lowest ebb, we capitulated and accepted that a long road trip to the quiet backwaters of the Eastern Cape lay in our collective futures. Dates were agreed and a rough itinerary was planned. You know that shit, as they say, got real when a second, independent, WhatsApp group was formed. Before too long, at around midday on an unexceptional Sunday, we pulled up the truck on a farm just outside of Barkly East and stretched the inevitable aches of seven hours of driving from our middle-aged joints.

The afternoon was spent with our host, Cloete “Pikey” du Plessis, driving short distances to look at a few of his favourite local rivers.

The area around Barkly East, Maclear, Rhodes and Lady Grey have too many streams to name. The history of the stocking of the area and early fishing is immortalised in Sydney Hey’s book “The Rapture of the River”. It was first published in 1957 and the most current reprint is widely available at angling stores. It’s somewhat outdated but is a good primer for a trip to the area. More contemporary authors like Sutcliffe and Brigg have also written extensively about the area and a lot of information is available through a Google search.

The Barkly East Angling Society, Maclear Fly Fishing Club and the Wild Trout Association in Rhodes are good starting points for planning

a trip. Booking through one of the several excellent guides in the area will get you up on the learning curve quickly, give you insight into the idiosyncrasies of each stream and ensure that you get the most out your trip. Accommodation is available throughout the region and we can’t recommend the guest house on Cloete du Plessis’ farm more highly - it offered space, comfort and views for miles.

When visiting a new place it is important to assimilate into the local culture. If you want to be taken seriously in the Eastern Cape the guidelines are simple. It’s a given that all drinks are doubles and that you don’t sit out a round. But more important than this is general braai etiquette. You braai on wood. Kuphela. Briquettes or charcoal will earn you sideways glances. Mentions of gas grills will have you ostracised. Make a note of this. Access to the best private water has hinged on less.

Barbed Wire and Behemoths

Despite a few days of rain the rivers were still subprime but there is no need to guess as to how good they can be under better conditions. The Langkloof was at that odd inbetween point between being blown-out by a recent squall and too low to fish. One good flush and the passing of a few days would see it returning to its celebrated best.

We fished for a few hours on the Kraai that first afternoon and managed between us a few small yellows. It’s a mixed fishery that holds both smallmouth yellows and rainbow trout.

Another fine rainbow and only a week under two years old

From the bridge where we accessed the river we could see substantially sized smallies finning about but, other than for one that broke Warren Bradfield off, we used the afternoon to decompress from the trip and the inevitable expectant excitement that goes with it.

Dinner was a pile of lamb chops straight from the farm we were staying on - not that herby Karroo stuff - and braaibroodjies over hardwood coals. The drinks were dark doubles. We were fitting in just fine.

Over our meal the discussion turned to where we were to fish the next day. Much of this trip had been set aside to fish the stillwaters for which the Eastern Cape is renowned. We raised our eyebrows when we were told that we would fish a dam most recently stocked two years ago with seven centimetre fish that now exceeded eight pounds and topped out at around thirteen pounds.

The dam is one under the curatorship of the Barkly East Angling Society. They have a refreshing attitude towards stocking and stock only quality fry in low numbers, far below the bearing capacity of the water. As a result the fish have plenty of food in an environment with low competition and at altitudes that provide a long growth season.

It wouldn’t be easy, we were assured as we slipped into our waders on the bank, but at least one of us should get a solid knock and may even land an eight pound fish. Surreptitious nervous glances were exchanged. This wasn’t what we had signed up for. We could just as well stay home to not catch fish.

No, we took between us in a morning session five fish on or exceeding ten pounds - and lost another five to heavy weeds and being simply outgunned by what are the most powerful rainbows we’d ever connected with.

How does one explain a day of fishing that seems to defy reality? What words could I use to convince you of the singular quality of experience that day? Let me put it to you this way: I saw two ten pound double-ups in the space of an hour. Let that sink in. Take as much time as you need.

I’m not implying that the fishing in these dams is easy. It’s not. You need to have a plan and need to execute it flawlessly. Big fish don’t get that way by being suicidal.

In these dams where weed is prominent and the fish are over-sized Andrew Mather took the right approach. When they run for weed they’re hard to stop and if they get into it you’re all but done for. When they turn towards you and you don’t have tension on them it’s game over, period. Positioning on the water and choice of tackle make all the difference.

Mather fished a seven weight rod with tippet that is of a diameter that I think has a negative X rating. He hooked fewer than half the fish that Warren and I did, but he landed them. To illustrate my point, from slightly behind me he called out “there’s a small fish in a hole in the weeds”, to which we together shouted “well then catch it” and after a few casts he landed an eleven pound cockfish from deep inside the weed. (On a different note, I shudder to think what he considers a big fish.)

Lunch was German sausage on a barbed-wire grid over another wood fire. It felt just right.

A smllmouth yellow for the author

The Apothecary

The town of Aliwal North lies on the Orange River and about halfway to our next destination, Gariep. It’s an interesting town, steeped in history. On the high street there’s still an old wooden shopfront bearing in thirties style gilded sign-writing the word “apothecary”.

Cloete popped in to the apothecary to get a few bottles of ‘gout remedy’, a dubious assortment of a dozen or more nameless pills. He gave me a bottle. It’s been next to my bed for weeks. Just having it there and knowing that at some point I may be tempted to use it has frightened the gout clear out of me. Ironically, it has turned out to be the most effective gout treatment I’ve ever been recommended. Who would’ve thought it?

The drive to Gariep is a relatively short one and the change in scenery is interesting. The Drakensberg sort of rolls away behind you to become the Karroo the further one travels East.

We crossed the Orange at a point on the journey and there being a bridge we stopped to peer over it. What a sight. Muddies and smallmouths proliferated in the rapids. Massive barbel worked an equally massive eddy. Several species of buck moved through the general area and an enormous leguaan creeped across the wide gravel beach, adding a prehistoric feeling to the place.

Our rods were packed too deeply in all of our gear to get at them in the time available to us. It wasn’t our first schoolboy error of the trip, but it was one of the worst.

A second largemouth yellowfish for Cloete - right below the Gariep Dam wall.

Journey’s end was the resort of Waschbank on the banks of the Orange. It is, to use awful modern vernacular, a ‘venue’. Comfortable rooms, a large sundeck, a bar and restaurant are all situated not more than a few metres from the edge of river. It’s a cool place and I recommend it highly.

The river in front of Waschbank is wide, not too deep and is fairly featureless except for three ridges of rock that run obliquely across it. These ridges are separated by some distance and each serves to create some broken water below them in which the smallmouth yellowfish hold. The area is also full of muddies, a species which Warren crowned himself king over. That’s ok, he can lord over them all he wants; they fight hard, but they frequently foul-hooked and are a pain in the arse. Cloete says that you catch them so often in the pectoral fins because they eat with their hands. It sounds farfetched, I know, but based on the evidence he may just be right.

The fishing was neither fast nor furious. A few kilometres upstream the sluices of the Gariep Dam were being opened wider and for longer than usual and intermittent blasts of large volumes of cold water through the system put the smallmouths down.

We didn’t mind too much, we hadn’t come here with the specific goal of catching smallmouths and angling for them was just a really pleasant midday interlude after and before the main attraction.

I landed one very respectable smallie though while wading out of the river on our first session. I drifted a nymph through a hole that we had all overlooked on the way in. I’m not much of a contact nympher and my first decent drift all day was met with a gentle nudge. I set and, not being able to lead it upstream nor follow it downstream, had to hope for the best and play it out. My luck held and it was only two metres from the net when it stopped dead.

In a game of inches I managed to move it towards me and finally landed it. At some point during the fight it had picked up fifteen or twenty metres of thirty pound mono, complete with sinkers, that was obviously lost by a previous angler. It happens that we lose tackle, but it put a bit of a downer on what was a pretty good fish.

Be warned, wading this section of the Orange is treacherous. The bottom is hand polished rock covered by algae with a layer of used motor oil, some KY Jelly and ball bearings. You get the picture. Felt boots and a staff are mandatory.

Not unlike traffic cops, largemouth yellowfish are ambush predators and hang around structure in wait for a prey item to swim by. They’re the apex predator in their environments and together with tiger fish are as good as you’re going to get on a fly rod without heading to the beach.

Having pushed our way through the bush and onto a bank consisting of rocky outcrops and boulders along a deep channel Cloete pointed out his favourite spot. Warren lost no time in annexing it, his face a picture of concentration. Neither he nor I have caught a largie and remedying this fact was a singular focus of this trip.

In stark contrast to Warren and I, Andrew, having just returned from a largie trip further down the Orange, was carrying an altogether lighter rod than our seven weights and was determined to land a smallie on a dry fly. This is a feat considered impossible where we were. He hooked one, but broke it off. In my mind he has still earned bragging rights.

Cloete and I moved into positions close to one another and as I was about to make my first cast he turned to me and suggested that we trade places. He had a good feeling about where he was standing, he said. Not seeing any marked different between the two positions, not wanting to reel in and start over and not heeding my own often repeated advice about listening to people who know more than I do I laughed him off. He insisted. I didn’t listen. He insisted some more. I started casting.

You don’t need me to tell you where this going, do you?

A few casts later and Cloete went tight into a fantastic largie. Apologising and chastising himself all the while he landed it and we took a few photos. I was overjoyed at his success but he kept shaking his head and apologising.

I moved back to where I had left my rod, made some casts and while Cloete walked around to see how we were all getting along I managed two very aggressive smallmouths. When they hit the streamer your heart pounds like a steam engine but after a very short while you realise that what you have on the other end is not what you came for. Look, it’s a strong, aggressive fish but just not the droids I was looking for.

Cloete moved back to his original position after Warren and I had both fished from it for

You don’t need me to tell you where this is going, do you?

A cast or two later he was into even a better largemouth than turned out to be his personal best. There weren’t any apologies

Muddie, muddier, muddiest

this time round.

Andrew in fine form

We returned to this spot a few times over the next day or two. Andrew landed a nice largie and Warren a great carp - an unusual fish to catch on a muishond. I had two big largemouths follow my fly until they ran out of water but I could not induce a take. It happens. That’s fine. I’ll be back before too long.

Driving back to the farm from Gariep we stopped to look at the Karringmelkspruit, a stream that flows within minutes of Cloete’s farm. It is beyond a shadow of doubt one of the most beautiful streams that I’ve ever laid eyes on - and I’ve been lucky enough o have seen a few. It had risen and cleared somewhat after a storm that passed through since we had left and plans were changed in favour of fishing it for the afternoon.

Having just alighted on the stream a fish rose, I covered and landed it. This isn’t how I usually go about things and was well pleased and even probably a little smug. In the time it took to release the small rainbow the air temperature dropped several degrees, thunder boomed through the valley and we ran like hell to ride out the storm in the relative safety of the truck.

It never really fully stopped raining but an hour or two later we braved it and were rewarded with a few fish each in a short period of what was pretty unsatisfying, cold

The KMS, as it is known to the locals, haunts me. It’s only been a few weeks since it disappeared in our rearview mirror and a return to it has already developed into something of an obsession.

Hold Onto Your Hat

We ended the trip in the Queenstown / Dordrecht area with the brothers Webster.

Our plans were twofold: catch a few more trophy trout and try not to be led astray.

Our success rate was a solid fifty percent.

We were fishing waters secured through the Queenstown Fly Fishing Club. They have some excellent dams that regularly produce astounding fish. Some of the dams have accommodation alongside them and the dams in their stable are not spread too far apart to visit more than one in a day. It’s a fair arrangement for the travelling angler.

The wind is known to blow in that part of the world and, brother, did it blow. We met alongside a dam where Gareth, Warren and Andrew each took a fish before we packed it in favour of cold beer and lunch in our cottage. We would wait for evening to fall and the wind to settle before putting in a session in the gloaming. Wind always settles at sunset, right?

Beers became a cheese platter and a case of white wine. Evening fell and still the wind blew. We braaied monster streaks with all the trimmings. We raised toasts to fish, to friendship, to good times, to the Queenstown

A7lb rainbow from a QFFC water

Club, to a moth on a pelmet. The evening was a spectacular mess. I contemplated taking my gout pack.

Morning came and the wind hadn’t let up. Warren attempted a session on the dam but it was in vain. I never thought that I’d say that a dam would be too dangerous to fish on a kick-boat, but it was.

We set the day aside to alternatively nursing our hangovers and working on new ones. The Webster boys are as outstanding caterers as they are excellent company.

The Webster boys are the kings of the cheese board

Home, James

I’m not going to bore you with the whole “all good things must come” schlep.

We had an incredible week of fishing in the company of outstanding people.

Guided Services

Our trip was prepared with advice from Gareth Webster of Dead Drift Guiding Services while he was taking a forced break from his usual guiding gig in the Seychelles

All dressed up and nowhere to go

The Eastern Cape was my childhood home so perhaps I’m a little biased when I speak of it. I will guarantee you though that you will not find people more hospitable, honest or authentic however far you travel across this

country - the fishing doesn’t suck either. water guiding and advice.

Contact him to set up a customised itinerary for your trip in the area or for custom flies that work.

072 508 3381

Useful Resources

Barkly East Angling Society -

Cloete du Plessis, https:// web.facebook.com/BEAnglingSociety

Wild Trout Association, Rhodes -

Dave Walker, www.wildtrout.co.za

Queenstown Fly Fishing Club -

Andrew van Wyk, https:// web.facebook.com/groups/ 167722159919380

Waschbank River Lodge -

https://waschbank.co.za, 072 4747 465