SA Flyfishing January 2019

SOUTHERN AFRICAN

AFRICA’S ORIGINAL FLYFISHING MAGAZINE

ISSN 1011-3681

OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF FOSAF

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 VOL. 32 NO. 170

CONTENTS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 Editorial — Andrew Savs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 The usual editorial guff and a little bit more First Bite — Andrew Savs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 A regular witty column on all things flyfishing and way beyond A Slovenian Summer — Andrew Savs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Blood, sweat and tears shed on magnificent waters Figuring out the Zambezi — Warren Koch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 How water flow affects your fishing style My First Fly Part 5 — Peter Brigg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 The final step in a five-part series Talking Back — Matthew Burnett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 How yellowfish help us manage our rivers Tigers by the Tail — Daniel Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 Fishing among the Zambezi River bait balls Tale of Two Waters — Clem Booth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Two vastly different fisheries close to my heart Just Being — Erik van der Berg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 Fishing the Ahr in Germany Die Kraai — Cloete du Plessis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 My gunsteling rivier My Own Backyard — Luke Saffarek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Learning to love Bulkley River steelhead Ogilvies Creek — Arno Crous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 Why flies and flyfishing shouldn’t mix The Highs of Highland Run — Andrew Allman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72 Brilliant river fishing at a family venue Flies for Africa — Simon Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Unveiling the Thendela fly factory The Fishy Smiths — Review by Ian Cox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84 Reviewing a biography on JLB and Margaret Smith Faults and Foibles of the Common Fisherman — Duncan Steyn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 Getting to grips with the vagaries that make us special Changing of the Guard — Cheryl Heyns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 South African Fly Fishing Association News In the Limelight — Stelios Comninos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94 Building a lightbox at home Meet Alison O’Brien . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 Profile on SAFFA’s Treasurer Tales of 2018 — Bridgitte Stegen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98 Lessons learnt by the Women in Waders Club Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 Details of South African flyfishing clubs Come join in our Madness — David Karpul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104 2018 Cape Piscatorial Society River Festival

Contents page photo by Warren Bradfield

NAVIGATING THE MAGAZINE You will note that we make liberal use of hyperlinks both to pages within the magazine and to websites outside it. Links to external websites will enable you to further explore these topics.

The idea is that you can navigate around the magazine from the contents page. Each item on the contents page is hyperlinked to the article in the magazine. This means you do not have to scroll through the entire magazine if you don’t want to — you can access specific articles merely by clicking on the link.

We also want you to share the magazine with your friends on social media — just go to the share button when you’re looking at the magazine on issuu.com and you’ll be able to send a link via email, Facebook or Twitter. There is also a hyperlink on the bottom of each page linking you to our website where you can download back issues.

Happy exploring!

WHO’S WHO SOUTHERN AFRICAN FLYFISHING: • Available free of charge online at www.issuu.com; • Published bi-monthly; • The official magazine of the Federation of Southern African Flyfishers (FOSAF); • Africa’s original flyfishing magazine.

PUBLISHER: Southern African Flyfishing Magazine (Pty) Ltd Registration No. 2018/356867/07 www.saflyfishingmag.co.za editor@saflyfishing.co.za EDITORS: Ian Cox (082 574 3722) Andrew Mather (083 3090233) Andrew Savides (081 046 9107) CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE: Andrew Allman, Clement Booth, Peter Brigg, Matthew Burnett, Stelios Comninos, Ian Cox, Arno Crous, Cloete du Plessis, Daniel Factor, Simon Graham, David Karpul, Warren Koch, Luke Saffarek, Andrew Savs, Bridgitte Stegen, Duncan Steyn and Erik van der Berg.

LAYOUT AND PRODUCTION: Angler Publications CC e-mail: sheena@mags.co.za COPYRIGHT Copyright in the magazine reposes in the Publisher. Articles and photographs are published with the permission of the authors, who retain copyright. The magazine and content may be hyperlinked and downloaded for private use but may not be otherwise hyperlinked or reproduced in part or whole without the written permission of the publishers.

DISCLAIMER While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the contents of this magazine, the publishers do not accept responsibility for omissions or errors or their consequences. The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the publishers, the editors or the editorial staff.

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EDITORIAL UMMER has arrived in Durban. Daybreak follows quickly after bedtime and is heralded by birdsong. The evenings breathe a humid sigh of relief after long sunshine days and our neighbourhoods are perfumed by the smells of braai fires and the melody of children plunging into swimming pools.

Every one of the several weather sites that I consult forecast almost daily evening thundershowers that just never arrive. As the sun dips the sky hangs low with dark clouds and reverberates with thunder. The wind picks up, but despite this, actual rainfall has been dismal. My favourite rivers are by now low and tepid but are in much better condition than many across the country.

Our sport and our very lifestyles are under attack as they have never been before. Climate change enablers and denialists now claim that they are too “intelligent” to believe the science.

Maladministration, corruption and pure lethargy are systematically transforming our waterways into ribbons of sewage and potential epidemic. New coal power station builds have resulted in our recording some of the most polluted air in the world. Micro-plastics and acidity levels threaten life in our oceans. Over-extraction desiccates our streams. Conservation and politics are inseparable. Through all of this we haven’t even begun to understand the effects of climate change.

The feeling of helplessness is disheartening. Sure, we fight where we can and we advocate for change but much of this falls on deaf ears, a symptom of the apathy that results from sheer weariness. There are so many causes to fight and so much over which to be enraged that we risk developing a callous over what was once a conscience.

Bob Seger sang “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then” and, on some days, it’s hard to disagree.

One tries to advocate for change, to clean up one’s own act and to spread the good word but it’s just as important to celebrate what we do have. It’s the holiday season, so take a deep breath, pour a glass of something cold and put your feet up.

In this issue we’ve asked friends and acquaintances from around the globe to reflect on their “River of Dreams”. The writing is intimate and light and the images are — see for yourself.

Ons is opgewonde dat Cloete du Plessis ons eerste Afrikaans stuk vir ons geskryf het. Ons beplan dat dit nie die laaste Afrikaanse artikel gaan wees nie. Cloete vertel ons van sy gunstelung rivier, die Kraairivier, in die Barkley Oos omgewing.

“Woz on Fly” and Protea Captain Daniel Factor focus on that most awesome of apex predators, the tigerfish. Erik van der Berg, well known on social media for his striking photography and love of finely crafted tackle, shares a plenthora of pics of his favourite stream in Germany, and we also have articles on beautiful rivers in counries as diverse as Australia and Slovenia.

Luke Saffarek spends his year migrating between North America, South Africa and the Zambezi as a guide and missionary and reminds us that sometimes what is most worth celebrating lies literally in your backyard. Matthew Burnett tells us about a fascinating tagging project that he has conducted on the KwaZulu-Natal yellowfish. If that’s not enough we have Peter Brigg’s final instalment of his guide to fly-tying, Simon Graham on an exciting community initiative in the Kamberg Valley, Duncan Steyn makes us blush and we of course have our regular features.

Till next time Savs

S

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FIRST BITE

TELLING STORIES

TAKE IT FROM ME You need a fly in the water and that’s all

By Andrew Savs

H

E arrived at the meeting point earlier than arranged, and as I got out to greet him I noticed that he was already dressed in full length waders.

“Dude,” I said in sincere concern for his health and well-being, “the forecast says it’s going to be in the upper 30s — don’t you want to change into something cooler?” He didn’t and so I shook my head, shrugged, muttered words in Afrikaans about stupidity being a formidable laxative and just got on with it.

On the drive in I could already see him starting to wilt. When we checked in at the gate to the reserve he swayed like a pendulum and almost collapsed. I pretended not to notice as I paid for the tickets. The warden raised an eyebrow but after dealing with endless processions of tour buses and their soft and pasty European passengers he clearly understood what may have to anyone else passed on my part for callousness. He gave me a surreptitious wink, the likes of which you’d expect from a death-row turnkey, but with a little less tenderness.

At this point the only person that I was worrying about looking after was myself and, judge me as you will, if he collapsed in that deep valley I would’ve left his gortex-clad ass for the carrion birds to peck at rather than trying to lug him out. Who the hell wears chest waders in the middle of summer on a stream that hardly ever develops enough depth to get your knees wet?

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“It’s the circle of life, dust to dust, etc,” I told myself to quieten my nagging conscience.

As it turns out he didn’t die, a circumstance that his wife described to me later as being “not a total disappointment”. He did however sweat so profusely that I could hear it sloshing around in his waders but, all things considered, he acquitted himself really very well for a man bordering on dehydration. Until later that afternoon I’d never seen anyone empty a two litre Coke in a single continuous motion and it was quite something to behold — him with his head tilted back, his throat gulp-gulping and carbonated foam issuing forth from his nose looking for all the world like the mythical beast from which the mountains on which we stood took their name.

You see, I try every so often to introduce other anglers to the fishing of streams for trout. Too many anglers have a misguided idea that regularly taking trout on a fly in a stream is too difficult for them to achieve. As a result of this they never even try and the whole thing becomes just another self-fulfilling prophecy.

That we who are already engaged in the pastime tend to obscure the whole enterprise in a cloak of total bullshit in order to give it the aura of some sort of deep religious cult doesn’t help matters much, but you don’t need to poke at it terribly hard to reveal the lie beneath.

Much of everything that is loosely defined as being an aesthetic is shrouded in what is only a paper-thin veneer and stream fishing is no exception.

Wader-guy fished really well for someone who had until then already tried several times without success to snag a trout in a mountain stream. He took a few wild browns that day under what were pretty trying conditions.

Being subjected to my vague tutelage had nothing to do with his achievement and I don’t tell you this in some imprudent attempt to assert myself as an angler of any singular skill. My system for catching fish in small streams is very easy: tie a fly to the end of as fine and as long a tippet as you can manage and with as few false casts as are absolutely necessary (zero is the target here) throw it onto the river.

If you are able to move with any degree of stealth and can get your fly to land on the edge of anything that separates something from something else then you’re onto a good thing.

But, critically, you have to put your fly on the river. This, despite what you may read in the earnest and well-meaning contents of the libraries of books written on the subject, is the fundamental starting point to fishing for trout, with a fly, on a river.

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Some people take to fishing rivers faster and better than others. “Better” is a relative term and it’s not for me to dictate to you on what you should float your boat, but this is what I’ve learned thus far.

The angler who spends the hour or so of the drive discussing the finer points of tackle — the attributes of various brands and models of rods and reels without having ever much fished with them — is doomed from the start. If the construction of a racing car determined the winner of a grand prix then it would not be the driver being celebrated on the podium.

The intention of tackle is to deliver a fly, delicately, to more or less the spot in which it was intended to land. If it can do that then it’s fit for purpose. Sure, some tackle is more refined than others, but the gap between the best and the worst in this age of technological advancement is narrow and there is very little crap out there to be bought, try as you might.

If our subject contends that his fly-boxes hold the panacea to a full creel then he’s just plain delusional and should be ditched immediately.

On the rarest of occasions, in this country at least, will a particular pattern, variant or colour of a pattern be preferred by a fish while it rejects all others.

A good angler knows that the where and the how of the placement of the pattern is as at least as important as what it is. On some days one pattern will fish better than others, but the jockey is as important as the horse. Carrying one hundred patterns gives you ninety-nine more things other than yourself to blame.

The best anglers that I’ve fished with are natural predators. They somehow seem to resonate in the same frequency as the stream and are tuned into and change with energy of the environment. They move with the stream rather than fighting against it, and when you stand back to look at them they take on an almost animal quality. Even the Euro nymphers that I so enjoy making fun of remind me of a heron as they move slowly and surely, poking a beak in here and there.

As soon as we have some decent rains I will again be taking a friend out to fish a river for the first time. He’s a good guy and I look forward to spending time with him between tall mountains and alongside champagne streams.

“Look,” I’ll tell him, “what I want you to do is to cast this fly onto the river.”

Over time he’ll get a lot of much better advice, but for now he’s just unsure of where to start. Given the circumstances it’s as good advice as any.

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PLACES

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By Andrew Savs

T

HE rise was crisp and efficient and barely visible in the dappled shade thrown by the almost continuous canopy of branches above. The rod tip rose without any conscious effort on my part and the line snapped taught. I played this one almost too carefully, but it wasn’t big and presently a wild brown trout with deep bronze shoulders and impossibly red spots was landed and then released.

Exhaling slowly I turned toward the source of the splashing over my left shoulder. A satisfied grin met mine. The sight of a rainbow flipping through the air etches itself, suspended a foot above the surface in an arc of burnished aluminium, into my memory.

Arrival, according to the numbers on the digital screens at airports, is defined as the time at

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which the wheels touch the runway. Arrival, in a less finite sense, is the time on a trip when your mind and your body align in the same place at the same time. Months of pent-up anxiety fades. Whatever disappointments may lie ahead, and on any trip there are bound to be some, for now you’ve found equilibrium and are fishing to a subconcious rhythm.

Over the course of the previous 24 hours Warren Bradfield and I had suffered the total sensory assault that is modern international travel. Leaving Durban the plane was almost empty, but our hopes that it would remain that way after a stop in Johannesburg were all but shattered when a large middle-aged German couple lurched down the aisle like an advancing Panzer battalion and settled voluptuously into the open seats in our row. I swear I have tattoos that aren’t that close to me.

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The 2am layover in Istanbul was like a recreation of the bar scene in Star Wars. It was the eve of the World Cup and the airport was crammed. Caricatures of Russian oligarchs in their heavy gold jewellery and national team track suits accessorised their look with sporadically over-inflated and fashionably bored trophy wives on their arms. They mingled begrudgingly with the mothers of crying babies, high-velocityhigh-impact children and your stereotypically bewildered looking transitory hordes. We lugged our impressive haul of duty-free booze to a table, ordered a coffee and wrestled unsuccessfully with the Wi-Fi. The hop from Istanbul to Ljubljana was quick and painless enough to have passed without using up much bandwidth on its passage to my memory and we landed at 8am on a glorious summer’s morning. Our luggage landed with us and, while this is most often the case, the sense of relief when it happens never gets old. Nina Bunn of Hunter Fly Fishing met us with smiles and hugs at the doors to the airport, made us fresh cups of solvent-grade Slovenian coffee and drove us the short distance to our guest house.

As we unloaded the car she instructed us to come down to a late breakfast fully kitted up in waders and with light rods. Seeing the confused look on our faces she rolled her eyes and led us to the front deck of the guesthouse where, some 15 metres in front of us, we were met by a wave and a shouted greeting from her husband and our guide, Simon Bunn, who was thigh deep in a chalk stream. With him was Piet, a wonderful Dutch gentleman of around 80 years old who spent the first half of our trip with us and who, having spent several years in South Africa, knew and shared our love for many of our favourite KZN rivers. After he tried to kill us on the first evening we never let him pour the whiskey again.

The river is the Krka. It is so beautiful that it remains in my mind the standard by which all chalk streams shall forever be measured. The river and the villages, farmlands, orchards and wooded valleys through which it runs vibrate with an energy that is palpable to even the most jaded traveller. Walking down to the middle reaches of the river I asked whether anyone would mind whether I picked some of the perfectly ripe cherries hanging from the trees beside the stream and was told, with a smile and tone of voice normally reserved for young children, that I was to help myself to whatever wild fruits I could find.

We fished down the river well into the evening, walking down its banks or short-cutting along the road and back through the properties 12 • Return to contents

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of local farmers, waving as they turned to greet us. The afternoon was idyllic and is captured forever in my mind in image of a timeworn old man on a timeworn bench, reclining against the stone wall of a century-old farmhouse, his toothless maw vibrating as he snored his way through the heat of the afternoon.

My only reservations ahead of this trip came from stories that I’d heard about the large number of stocked fish in Slovenian rivers. Fishing pressure is high with many local residents fishing to take their limit. Access to and behaviour on the rivers is strictly controlled through a permit system where permits are available either at local fishing clubs that have control of large quantities of available water or through the

“Institute” — a state body that administrates fishing and much of the stocking in the country.

You will hardly fish a river without a warden politely asking to check your tickets while he casts a sideways glance at your fly to check that it conforms to the barbless-only rule.

The number of stocked fish in areas can be significant, but the right guide and some physical effort will get you into areas where you will fish to almost exclusively wild fish.

Let’s just be clear about one thing — avoiding stocked fish entirely may not be in your best interest. Fishing to big, thick stocked rainbows in 10°C streams is something that’ll wrench the memory from your fly-line and your heart into your mouth.

T

HIS issue’s winner of the FOSAF members’ draw is Frank Cole of Honeydew, Johannesburg whose prize is flyfishing equipment kindly donated by Tom Lewin of Frontier Flyfishing, Bryanston Johannesburg.

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Day two saw us fishing club water on the Savinja. It’s a largely freestone stream that is home to the usual trouts, grayling and the Danube taimen or huchen. On this stream Warren crowned himself the “King of Grayling” while I had a session of the most sublime brown trout fishing that I’ve ever experienced. Warren ended the evening positively reeking from the unique smell of grayling I and had the egostroking pleasure of having two members of the national team shouting across the river to find out what fly I was using. “Zak,” I shouted, but they clearly didn’t take my recommendation and I continued to take roughly six fish to their one.

On the Savinja I saw both the largest brown and the largest rainbow that I’ve ever seen.

When Simon asked whether we’d like to see a 10kg brown we laughed him off. We were right to, but not in the way we expected — we saw at least half a dozen of them in an area restricted to club members only. Warren found it difficult to breathe and he stammered a little as he tried to explain to me that the 500 Euro season membership was not too much to pay for half an hour of fishing to these hogs. I declined. As we fished into the darkness Warren lost a rainbow from a plunge pool below a weir that left bloodied line burns across his fingers. He did well to get it close to the net and we got a good look at its massive bulk. It may not have been a once-in-a-lifetime fish, but you’d need to live to be pretty old to see another like it.

Long days after early starts were the hallmark of this trip. Breakfast is at 6am and you can expect your boots to be wet within two hours of that. In summer the sunset is around 9pm and we typically fished until we couldn’t see to change flies. After that it’s a shower, a fantastic dinner, a dip or three into the duty-free scotch and bedtime after midnight. We fished hard.

Too hard. Six months have passed and some of my toenails haven’t fully grown back yet. Simon is a flawless guide, excited for his clients, energetic and hardworking to the point that you start to feel bad about what you’re putting him through. The man has no off-switch. On our return he wrote to ask us what he could do to improve his customers’ experience. “Nothing,” we replied, “but if you keep going at that pace you won’t live to see forty.”

From a cave above a small village springs the Unica. It traverses gentle countryside, through grassy meadows and alongside ancient trees for several kilometres until a point where, through some device of hydrology or geology it disappears into the ground only to pop up again further down the valley. It does this several times 14 • Return to contents

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along its course until it conspires with other streams to become the Ljubljana River.

Close to its source you’d swear that it was a spring creek, which I suppose that it in some way is, while further down it is definitively a chalk stream. The Unica holds impressive brown trout, although I was most interested in its grayling, one of the species to which I specifically dedicated the trip. Despite a howling easterly wind and often frustratingly selective grayling we had a good day, landing several fish each. The joy of catching my first grayling on a bamboo rod made for me by a friend and on one of possibly the most unique rivers on earth is something that will stay with me forever.

Nina provided one of her trademark extravagant packed lunches and looking back at the photographs of us lounging under a bankside tree surrounded by empty plates and glasses I battle to remember ever feeling more fulfilled than I did in that sublime moment.

Our final dinner in Krka was nothing short of decadent. Trout smoked on a split aromatic log, Black Angus steak with wild asparagus and dessert made from wild berries were washed down with superb local beer and several bottles of wine. Warren, a sometimes breeder of horses, is game for most things but he graciously avoided the excellent foal pate.

A day of sightseeing in Ljubljana and a drive over the Alps to the small town of Bovec on the Soca River came as welcome respite from long days on the water. I would describe to you the scenery, but I don’t have the words to do so.

This goes for a lot of the country. Slovenia has

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very little industry and is two-thirds covered in natural forests. Deer and wolves have re-established themselves in good numbers, and birdlife is abundant but one doesn’t get over the sound of them singing in what sounds like the wrong language. Billboards on the roads into the capital advise you to not buy bottled water as the water from the city taps is spring quality.

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Bovec is a ski village in winter and in summer is a base camp for cyclists and paddlers. The lesser of the two evils is the cyclists, although they are each both a little more than slightly irritating in their own way. The only thing worse than having to stare into the dead centre of a sweaty spandex-clad ass for half an hour on a mountain pass is to have a tediously careful stalk ruined by a flotilla of luminous yellow and orange kayaks coming straight over your target.

How more of them aren’t found drowned at the hands of anglers is a mystery to me.

It was in Bovec that I nearly died. Okay, I didn’t nearly die, but for a few minutes I thought that I might. I stepped out of the shower at our apartment, pulled on a pair of shorts and went through to the kitchen to make coffee. From the table next to me Simon suddenly jumped up shouting something about blood and ambulances and when I looked down my shorts and legs were stained red and I was standing in a pool of blood. I dashed back to the shower (believing that I’d popped a kidney or something) and ruined two perfectly good bath towels trying to stem the bleeding. My partners were alternatively shouting through the door, running for car keys and looking up the numbers of emergency services. I survived, as you’ve gathered, and learned two valuable lesson in the process — don’t allow a fly to fall into your underwear and if you think that a facial cut bleeds profusely it is nothing compared to a nick to the twins.

I digress. When you see the Soca for the first time you are forced to revise in your mind everything that you believe a trout stream to be. The hue and clarity of the water as it flows over white limestone rocks reminds you instantly of a tropical reef. It is either invisible or tinged in shades of aquamarine. It makes its way from the tall peaks of an ancient mountain range, here and there capped with the last snows of winter, through a series of narrow gorges punctuated by wide gravel runs. It is astounding.

The Soca is also home to the marble trout, or mar morata, the primary focus of our trip.

Despite being cautioned by Simon as to the difficulty in catching this species we entered the river early and brimming with confidence. I had taken from its tube for the first time my new 10ft nymphing rod. I pulled protective plastic off the handle and tried to cast the damned awful 9m tapered camouflage French leader with which we had been armed. It didn’t go nearly as well as I anticipated. Warren in the meantime had crossed the river, mastered his tackle and was engaged in furious battle with a good rainbow.

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flicking casts in what I hoped was a more or less upstream direction and then squinting to try to work out where they actually landed. Finally landing the fly in a seam I hooked and landed a roughly 20” rainbow. Feeling a little more settled I moved across, bumbled a line to the head of the boulder and following the drift into the scour pool felt a take, set the hook, saw a flash of green and after a dogged fight I held in my hands for a photo my very first marble trout.

High fives and hugs were dispensed and I may have even wept a little.

When I had composed myself I shuffled around to the other side of the boulder, whipped the hideous rig out again and in a remarkable display of ass over class I took my second marble in a few minutes. In times like this it is important to display saintly levels of humility. I didn’t and smugly wondered out loud why this was considered a difficult species to catch when I could land a couple by 8am. I then crowned myself “The King of Marbles” and sat out most of the remainder of day to leave Warren with his best shot possible at landing one himself.

Marbles are indeed not easy to catch. We spent the rest of the day climbing through gorges doing our best to support Warren. He went from nymphing to fishing streamers and while the chases and hits were furious he didn’t land one. As far as anglers go he is by far one of the best that I’ve ever fished with but, well, some days they just don’t stick. He corrected this later but the day was tainted for me by the knowledge that despite almost superhuman efforts on the part of my friend and our guide we would not both be celebrating that evening.

The benefits of a hard-working guide (I’m assuming here that most of them are knowledgeable) was made crystal clear to us a few times on the Soca. Many of the renowned guides could be seen with a client at one spot in the river for the entire day. Sure, they caught a lot of fish, but that’s to be expected as they would lead their clients there early on the morning following a stocking. How the clients never realised that every fish was an exact squarefinned carbon-copy of the last is beyond me.

On the other extreme was a guide with three clients who he set up alongside a deep bend pool. At the bottom of the pool was a pod of large rainbows and one, if not two trophy marbles. The fish were within easy casting distance and about 3m down, holding tight to the bottom. Cast after cast and hour after hour saw the poor anglers drifting nymphs under indictors at least 2m above the depth of the trout. While we might have occasionally cursed our guide www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

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for leading us miles up the river and through gorges and ravines we were more than satisfied with the results that it returned.

Our last day on the Soca was spent lower down on the river swinging streamers at big, fat stocked rainbows. When hooked they are explosive. I took a few and Warren and Simon absolutely excelled but, to be honest, it is not a style of fishing that I enjoy and my petulance at the time was regrettable.

As any angler worth his salt does we spent a great deal of time peering between bushes and over the railings of bridges. Sight-fishing opportunities abounded and we would typically scout a piece of river for the lies of good fish and then return to try to tempt them to our flies. On the Sava Bohinjka we walked perhaps 100m up the river and saw many good brown trout. Walking back down to our rods they simply disappeared.

The reason for it was soon clear as two huchen, about a metre in length, moved from their lies into the middle of the river. The trout, like a kid when his mother is in a bad mood, knowing that nothing good was going to come of it just made themselves scarce. Huchen were out of season for angling and we were lucky to see these. This is a frightful animal, so much so that they even have teeth on their tongues.

Back at the car an approaching trio of anglers walked up to make small talk and one greeted me by name. Social media has indeed made the world a small place, a feeling that got positively eery when we bumped into him again at a burger bar a few days later.

Our day on the Sava was made difficult by an approaching storm that blew it out overnight and we made heavy work of the few fish that we did catch. Still, we were better off than the anglers that we met whose trip to Slovenia was a hurriedly cobbled together affair after their initial and fully paid for plan, salmon fishing in Russia, was cancelled due to last minute military manoeuvres in the area.

The storm stuck around overnight and before daybreak we made the call to spend our last day on the Krka. Warren and Simon moved off downstream to throw streamers for large browns while I ended where I’d started the trip and blissfully took full advantage of a continuous daylong hatch of small mayflies and the trout that sipped them innocently from the surface.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Slovenia is a member of the European Union. A Schengen visa is required but is easily obtainable in most of our major cities through either the Slovenian embassy or the German consulate. Currency is the Euro. In summer there is 18 • Return to contents

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no difference in times between there and home.

Don’t even try to learn the language; it’s ridiculously difficult to the point that half of the population find it hard to communicate with the other, and this in the country the size of a postage stamp. If you can say “dober prijem” you can wish your partners good fishing and, after all, what else matters?

We flew direct from Durban to Istanbul, albeit with a brief stop in Johannesburg where you do not leave the plane. From there it’s a quick hop into Ljubljana. We left Durban at 16:00 and lamded at 08:00, which is as good as it gets.

Turkish Airlines is better than average and have a great benefit in that they gladly accept sporting goods in the form of bicycles, rod tubes, golf clubs, and similar gear, provided you do not exceed your total weight allowance. I’m not sure where they stand on kayaks.

Food and drinks wherever you go are on average of far better quality than we have at home. A dinner at a restaurant will cost you no more and probably less than at home. Their beers and wines are superb; the schnapps causes temporary blindness, but it wears off after a few hours.

For trout you’ll need a 3-wt and a 5-wt, a reel with a solid drag and a floating line. For fishing streamers you may want a slightly heavier rod and even a suitable sinking type line. You’re in Europe and can Euro nymph if you want, but honestly, what sort of a savage fishes a chalk stream that way? Bring wading boots and put studs in them. The rivers are treacherous and we were infinitely more comfortable and safe when we fitted studs to our boots a day or two into the trip. Waders are a must. The air temperatures were in the low 30s a lot of the time but the rivers didn’t get much above 12 degrees.

The country is remarkably inexpensive and a trip there is a fraction of the price of similar international destinations. You can do a DIY trip but as a cost-benefit exercise you’re doing yourself no favours. Hunter Fly Fishing catered for us beyond our needs and expectations and tailormade for us a package that not only suited our limited finances but which also ensured that we maximised our fishing time and minimised faffing about. Simon would typically be up before dawn checking flows and conditions on several rivers and would adjust the plans for the day to ensure that we were in all the right places at the right time. Nina, with a smile, took infinite care of the smaller details and even made chores like applying for visas a breeze. There is no doubt that we’re going back and there is no doubt who will be taking care of us.

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FEATURE

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By Woz On Reel (Warren Koch)

I

HAVE been privileged to become a seasoned visitor to Africa’s mighty Zambezi River system, fishing from her upper stretches to Victoria Falls, below the falls into Kariba, and beyond.

As a person who loves the technical aspect of most things in life, I often find myself offering advice on what lures and flies to use including nformation on their respective sink, colour, retrieve rates, etc. and, more importantly, at what time of year. This article will give you some insight into how I view the river and fish her.

As a maths person in my day-to-day life, I have been inspired to start collecting daily information regarding the water flow strength at various key stations along the Zambezi. I primarily target the Upper Zambezi as this is just my personal preference and the most natural section.

The Lower Zambezi’s water flow is dependent on Kariba’s engineers and not the annual flooding, so predicting flows on this basis doesn’t really make sense.

SO WHY THE WATER FLOW? I determined early on that many predictors will indicate what the expected fishing will be like (in particular for tigerfish) for an upcoming fish-

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ing season, from perceptions around netting to moon phases and so forth. I found over time that a key predictor is the water flow strength and started to collect and collate river station data from the 1970s (a general premise in statistics is the larger the sample size, the more accurate the based projections).

Data is collected from many sources including the Zambezi River Authority for three main stations. The first station is at Chavuma, which is close to the source of the Zambezi River, and figures are representative of the rain catchment and floodplains area for this eastward flowing river. This area is key as this water in time flows down to the other stations. This is the beginning of the journey of most of the water.

The next station is further downriver, at Sioma where the river becomes a concentrated channel and the river flow finally passes the Victoria Falls station. With these three stations, one is able to use the daily water flow measured to build a picture of how the river is going to behave. For example, in fast moving flow months, the river water from Chavuma reaches the falls in about 25 days and in the slower months about 50 days. When one compares the daily station information with the 20-plus years of development patterns of past seasons, we are able to confidently predict the behaviour of the river with respect to flow rate.

Taking a bigger picture view, when one further combines the world weather systems which are split into EL Nino and La Nina, the expected picture can be drawn with more accuracy. In the southern hemisphere these two concepts can easily be summarized as follows: • El Nino — expected drought conditions and low water expected in the Zambezi catchment.

• La Nina — expected flooding conditions and high water expected in the Zambezi catchment.

These two events are graded from moderate to severe.

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Daily data from three measuring stations used to predict future flows.

Generally, from December to April the rains lift the Zambezi water levels and just after this period the water levels drop again. This drop on the Upper Zambezi generally indicates the start of the tigerfishing season for lure/fly angling until the river drops to a fairly constant rate in October when we wait for the onset of the rains.

If one fishes uses bait techniques the emphasis on water flows has less impact.

So now we can see that statistics can be used to predict the varying water levels which all directly affect fishing. For example, if the expectation is a strong El Nino and the expected drop rate is fast, the following assumptions can be inferred: • Low rains in the catchment area.

• The Zambezi will start to drop earlier in the season.

• The Zambezi will experience faster water and generally clear up sooner, so you might want to use fluorocarbon.

• Expected bait balls will occur earlier and sometimes not at all.

• Winter months will have colder and lower river levels.

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level.

These expectations should determine how a fisherman will tackle his year of tigerfishing.

From the above example of expected low water, I would personally advise the following: • Fish more natural colours.

• Quicken overall retrieve.

• Colder water infers that tigers will be at the bottom so bring your jigs and fast sinking lines.

• Have an open mind about the early netting — this is natural and has been an annual occurrence for decades.

• Try not to post pictures on Facebook of Vic Falls running dry in October — the Zambia side has run dry under these conditions for thousands of years.

As with everything in life, fishing is an art and not a science. However, we live in the age of technology and data where, if certain political elections can be predicted/altered by using statistical methods, why not use them for fishing? A clever fisherman will always position himself on the positive side of the balance of of probabilities to yield the best fishing experience.

Consult the stats, book and prepare for the trip accordingly, and I’ll see you all on the Zambezi for a cold Mosi.

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FEATURE

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By Peter Brigg

I

T never fails to amaze me that such fickle fish as trout are fooled by some of the creations fashioned by fly-tyers. Some are intended to imitate insects, and others designed to trigger the ever-present predatory instincts of the trout.

However, it is through the sheer enjoyment and satisfaction of tying and fishing one’s own creations that so many of us have become hooked on the pastime — as the fish will hopefully become hooked on the fly.

An understanding of the variations of insect life peculiar to our lakes and streams, both in and out of the water — as well as the seasonal conditions which affect their natural life cycles — will help to determine the manner in which to construct the fly and to tempt the fish.

Careful observation of recognisable features which distinguish the species in its natural form will enable the flyfisher to create reasonable representations of this insect life. Whilst many flytyers aspire to exact imitations, I have found that this is not necessarily the recipe for success. The fly created should rather be simple in design, but representative in general shape, features, colour, size and movement. Give it a buggy appearance and you won’t go wrong.

The following patterns will allow you to try out some of the techniques and tying methods that have already been described in this series.

Follow each recipe step by step and, importantly, copy the dressing sequence suggested. The flies I have selected are relatively easy to tie and are proven catchers of trout. Once you have mastered these you will feel confident about proceeding onto more complicated patterns.

However, you will find that even in the more difficult tyings, the techniques you’ll need to apply will be much the same as those you’ve learnt here.

As you navigate the steps in each of the following recipes, if need be, consult previous parts of this series where the techniques are described in more detail.

• Brass bead (if required) • Silver tinsel or copper wire ribbing Tying instructions 1. Dress the hook with tying thread to the bend opposite the barb. If you are adding a beadhead you must fit this before securing the hook in the vice.

2. If you want to weight the fly, add. five or six turns of lead wire over the front third of the shank.

3. Return the tying thread to behind the eye in loose turns and add the black hackle feather. To create a sparse hackle, strip the fibres from one side of the feather, but do not wind the hackle on at this stage.

4. Take the thread back to the bend and tie in a bunch of fluffy fibres stripped from the lower portion of the marabou feather. They should be tied in by their butt ends to provide a tail about equal to the length of the shank.

THE WOOLLY BUGGER Materials • Nymph hook #8 to 14 • Black/olive wool or chenille. Five or six peacock herl twisted together also make a good body material in smaller sizes.

• Black hackle feather • Black/olive marabou feather • Lead wire (if required) 26 • Return to contents

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5. The next step is to tie in the ribbing at the same point as the tail.

6. After the ribbing, tie in the body material and return the tying thread to where the hackle is secured behind the eye.

7. Wind the body material forward in touching turns, overlapping slightly as you create the thorax, and tie off immediately behind the hackle.

8. Now, using hackle pliers to grip the hackle, wind it back towards the bend in four to five even turns.

9. Let the hackle pliers, still attached to the hackle tip, hang down at the tail.

10. Trap the tip of the hackle with the ribbing and carefully wind it forward in the opposite direction to the hackle turns to secure the hackle against the body. Now tie off at the head.

11. Complete the Woolly Bugger by forming a neat head, tie off and varnish.

THE NYMPH Materials • Nymph hook #12 to 16 • Squirrel dubbing — choice of colour is yours, but dark/light brown, olive and black are the most popular.

• Pheasant tail feather • Hackle (colour to match the body) • Copper wire • Lead wire Tying instructions 1. Dress the hook with tying thread to the bend opposite the barb.

2. Add the required lead wire to the front third of the shank.

3. Strip three fibres from the pheasant tail feather and tie in as the tail. The tail should be no longer than half the shank length.

4. Tie in the fine copper wire at the same point.

5. Dub a thin rope of squirrel dubbing onto the tying thread and wind on back towards the eye, carefully building up a tapered

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abdomen. Stop at a point just beyond half way back to the eye and remove any unused dubbing material from the tying thread.

6. Bring the copper wire ribbing forward in three or four even turns and tie off.

7. Strip about five fibres from the pheasant tail feather and tie in at this point with the butt ends facing the eye.

8. At the same point, tie in a suitable hackle feather, preferably with the fibres stripped from one side.

9. Add a further portion of dubbing and wind forward to behind the eye, building up a thorax in the process.

10. Using hackle pliers to grip the hackle feather, wind it forward in three to four even turns over the thorax. Tie off at the same point behind the eye and trim the excess.

11. Bring the wing case (pheasant tail fibres) over the top of the thorax, tie off behind the eye and trim the excess.

12. Complete with a neat head, tie off and varnish.

You can tie the popular flashback nymph in an identical fashion, except for the wing case use a strip of flashabou. You can also experiment using peacock herl for the body and wing case.

THE DDD Materials • Dry fly fine wire hook with wide gape.

Although this fly is sometimes tied in large sizes, preference is given to those in sizes #12 to 16.

• Deer hair • Reddish-brown hackle.

Tying instructions 1. An important point to remember is that when spun deer hair is called for, you do not dress the hook. All that is needed is to secure the tying thread in the usual way where you will begin with the spinning process, in this case at the bend.

2. Attach a small bunch of deer hair as a tail — approximately half a shank in length. Do not over tighten or allow the hair to spin. The tail should lie directly on top of the shank. Use a small paper clip or similar instrument to hold the tail separate from the deer hair in subsequent spinning.

3. Cut a bunch of deer hair from the skin — about the diameter of two matches — lay it 28 • Return to contents

The DDD

vertically over the shank and take two loose turns of thread around this.

4. Now pull down to tighten the loops. The deer hair will begin spinning around the shank. Let go of the hair at this stage and allow it to spin freely.

5. Make another four or five turns of thread, working forward to the front of the deer hair.

6. Keep adding bunches of deer hair in this manner until you have filled the whole shank except for a small space behind the eye.

7. Between each spinning, push the deer hair back to compress it as much as possible.

8. After you have covered the shank, tie off with a couple of half-hitched turns, cut the thread and remove the fly from the vice.

9. Remove the clip and hold the tail whilst you trim the deer hair to the desired shape (see sketch).

10. When shaping is complete, put the fly back into the vice. Add the hackle feather and wind on with not more than three turns and tie off.

11. Make a neat head, tie off and varnish.

This is the final part in this series. I sincerely hope that it has stimulated an interest in this rewarding pastime and that the techniques described will be of benefit as you progress.

Happy tying. www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

ENVIRONMENT

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Photo by Matthew Burnett

By Matthew Burnett

R

UNNING through Pietermaritzburg, the uMsunduzi River was once described as a “cheery sight, the beautiful, limpid pellucid river” by Sir Henry McCallum in 1903. His comments are a far cry from the reality of the river today. It does not take a keen eye to see the “plastic fish” migrating downstream or the black water coming from some tributaries or solid waste floating downstream of burst pipes.

News headlines highlight this state: “Sewage Spill Threat to Dusi” and “Duzi Dirtiest in Years”.

And yet, do we see it? Does our daily hustle and bustle leave us without time to observe what is happening around us?

The once focal-point of the city now seems to silently crawl beneath us, only making an appearance when treated and re-designed as a form of “the beautiful, limpid pellucid river” flowing into our bath tub or kitchen sink at the turn of a tap. Fishermen (and paddlers) are regarded as heroes for taking an interest in the state of the river and highlighting its plight, while they venture near it with caution.

These concerns extend to the greater catchment, the uMngeni River, to which the uMsunduzi River is an important tributary. The uMngeni River is economically important for the uMgungundlovu and eThekwini Municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal. This river continuum fluctuates between healthy and unhealthy sections as it meanders down to the Blue Lagoon in Durban.

Within this river continuum, one group of inhabitants, the fishes, go about their daily and seasonal routines interacting with what gets washed downstream and contending with barriers that stop them from moving upstream. One must ask, with the increase in human impact on

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these two rivers (uMngeni and uMsunduzi) are these fish still around? If so, how are they coping? How do they navigate this now altered environment? Importantly, do they have any reprieve from the unhealthier sections of the river? How do these fish deal with what gets channelled downstream from the city? Do they seek out pockets within the river suitable for them? These questions spurred on a study at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in collaboration with Umgeni Waters to look at fish behaviour and their response to water quality and quantity variables within these rivers.

Behavioural studies have historically used telemetry techniques — attaching a radio transmitter to an animal to be researched — to determine their movement and habitat requirements. With telemetry on fish there is often an application conundrum with the size of the tags and attachment methods. More recently, however, telemetry tags for fishes in South Africa have gotten smarter, smaller and more readily available. In fact, the FISHTRAC programme developed here in South Africa can monitor water quality variables such as flow, temperature and electrical conductivity alongside of fish movement, all in real-time and remotely. The application in the field is ground-breaking towards understanding ecological responses to environmental variables. In fact, researchers are looking at using fish to alert water resource managers about changes in the freshwater environment that need to be monitored. Data acquired from these sensors is sent to a Data Management System (DMS) through a network set up specifically to receive the signal from these sensors within the river. The data is then acquired from the DMS and alerts can be set up to inform managers of important events taking place in the river.

The fish species selected for the UKZN study in the uMsunduzi and uMngeni Rivers is the wellknown KwaZulu-Natal yellowfish (Labeobarbus natelensis), also known as the “scaly”. It was a good candidate because of its mobility within rivers and that it grows large enough to be tagged. Although the uMsunduzi River around Pietermaritzburg is not currently thought to be a good angling spot for ‘scallies,’ there are suitably-sized Yellowfish within the reach. It is an ideal place to study how they respond to Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) and other urban impacts on the uMsunduzi. Another area of interest and more pleasant angling spot is the section between Albert Falls dam and town of Howick. This area also lies downstream of a WWTW and urban impacts on the uMngeni River. www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

To date, 30 yellowfish have been tagged on the uMgeni River with external transmitters.

Several of these yellowfish have moved out of range of the established network, but those that have remained behind continue to feed data into the DMS. Eleven water quality probes have been set-up to relay information about the aquatic environment to the DMS. These probes are stationed from Midmar Dam to the uMngeni inlet to Albert Falls Dam. Preliminary results show that yellowfish have diurnal activity patterns responding to day-night cycles. We called one of the tagged fish “Kobus”. Kobus showed abnormal daily cycles for two days before it swam upstream and out of Albert Falls Dam.

Kobus moved between stations 9 and 8 regularly before moving up past station 7 on November 6, 2018 (Figure 1 and 2). The cue to this movement still needs to be analysed to understand why it moved upstream at this time. A few days after Kobus’ movement, while manually tracking the fish, we came across a large pool with hundreds of yellowfish milling around the surface.

Kobus was not found there, but there may be a correlation between these events. Behavioural changes like Kobus dispplayed are important to try to understand as they can be caused by changes in water quality or engraved behaviour that respond to a series of cues provided by the environment.

Figure 1: The activity of yellowfish (in green) showing diurnal behaviour up until 4 November, abnormal behaviour from 5 November until it leaves the day on 7 November.

The temperature (in blue) shows a steady increase over the period from the tag on the fish. The shaded areas (in blue, orange and red) depict the stations the fish is at the time the variables are measured, these are stations 7, 8 and 9 depicted in figure 1.

Figure 2: All variables from water quality and quantity probes and fish tags measured remotely and in realtime overlaid onto the same graph to visually present the results from the same time frame as in figure 1 (1-8 November 2018).

Added here is the water depth (in blue, presented as pressure), electrical conductivity (in grey) and water temperature at station 7 (in orange). Notable is the temperature change of the fish tag showing similar result to the probe at station 7 as it moves past.

The shaded area represent the location of the fish at the time variables were measured.

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Part of the remote and real time FISHTRAC network (including stations and water quality probes) in the uMngeni River .

Figure 3 shows a lot of information from both the fish tags and water quality and quantity probes used. This figure overlays the behavioural data from Kobus for the same period he left Albert Falls Dam, added is the environmental variables monitored by our water quality probes.

The temperature of the probe and the fish meet

when Kobus swims past station 7, where the probe is situated. The electrical conductivity during this period drops, while the temperature of the water slowly increases, also show by the temperature is a low pressure (ie. cold front) system present a few days before Kobus moved upstream.

Close up tagged fish.

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These deductions still need to be analysed for significance, but for the first time they can be plotted on the same timescale, in real-time and sourced remotely.

Observing behavioural data alongside of environmental variables will enhance our understanding of fish behaviour. Temperature sensors on the fish tags show a direct relationship to water temperature recorded by the nearest water quality probe to the tagged fish. This information is important because it shows how upstream impacts can directly affect fish downstream. A gradual change of water quality between Midmar and Albert Falls dam was reflected on the data acquired from the water quality probes. Water temperature, for example, increased on an average of 8°C from our upper site (Midmar Dam) to our lower site (Albert Falls Dam) in this study area. The change in water temperature during different seasons is visible as water temperature increases in summer. Weather plays an important role in water temperature as dips in water temperature occur when cold fronts move through. For the uMngeni reach, the water flow has remained consistent. The nature of the reach, being between two dams, shows relatively little change in discharge unless there are releases from Midmar Dam or heavy localised rainfall.

The uMsunduzi has Henley Dam regulating releases but this is on a smaller scale. With the success obtain from the uMngeni River, the next step in the study is to start a tagging fish on the uMsunduzi River. The continuation of the study for both rivers will shed light on the effects of dams and WWTW’s on yellowfish. This is still largely unknown, but the use of radio telemetry will help to bridge this knowledge gap.

It is with these results and future developments in telemetry that researchers hope to improve the way river ecosystems are monitored. To do this kind of behavioural work remotely and in real-time far exceeds the expectations of scientist a few decades ago. It is exciting to think that water resource managers may be alerted by fish to go out and detect issues with water quality as they happen in the catchment. As managers “listen” to the data coming in, yellowfish have an active voice in the way our freshwater ecosystem are managed. What these yellowfish “tell” us in this study could be a turning point in the way we manage and understand the freshwater ecosystem. And maybe, the uMsunduzi River around Pietermaritzburg could once again be referred to as a “beautiful, limpid pellucid river” by the inhabitants living along its banks and within its waters.

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Creating a cross section.

Water quality grab samples.

Photo by Matthew Burnett.

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FEATURE

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TIGERS

BY THE TAIL Fishing among the Zambezi River bait balls

By Daniel Factor

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Another $10 tip for the guide!

I

T all starts with a 9:30am check in at Johannesburg’s O.R Tambo International Airport for Flight BA6291 to Livingstone. An hour and 45 minutes later you arrive in what seems to be a different world. A Sekoma Island Lodge transfer is waiting on arrival with a truck full of beers, and a short transfer is followed by a quick boat ride to the Island. The excitement gets to everyone as soon as the boat hits the island in what seems to be a marathon to see who can get their rods rigged up first; it only takes four hours from take-off to getting your flies swimming in the line of danger!

The Eastern Caprivi (or Southern Barotse) floodplain is approximately 100km in length and is located between Sesheke and Kazangula.

This section boasts a wide variety of fishing water that seems to be teaming with these incredible monsters. From big pools and shunting river banks to rapids, back eddies and channels, Sekoma seems to have it all.

Each year this amazing river system experiences a flood where the water flows onto the flood plains creating a watery wilderness. This flooding rejuvenates the vegetation on the floodplains and brings a wealth of fauna and flora to the region. The annual flooding also acts as a natural restocking system and replenishes these precious fishing grounds. This year they had a record rainfall season and this creates a vast area for baitfish to breed. Once the water starts to drop and the water starts to 38 • Return to contents

recede off the floodplain the tigers get ready for a feeding frenzy. Millions of baitfish get forced back into the main river and the bait balling phenomenon begins. At this time of the year the tigerfish and large bream congregate in large numbers to feast on the thousands of bait fish entering the system.

Depending on the rainfall this happens between June and August every year. The more rain during the wet season, the later the frenzy. Even if you miss the bait balls you can still have some exceptional fishing. Understanding the techniques and listening to your guides can take you a long way.

BAIT BALLS

These are very easy to spot. You can see flocks of birds going mad, diving into the water and the nervous scattering of baitfish in panic. Not all the bait balls have tigers under them, but when they are there you can see explosions of red and orange fins everywhere. I wish it was as easy as driving your boat on top of them and having a cast, but unfortunately chasing bait balls is like chasing someone out of your league, the more you push the further they run.

There are two options when hunting these explosions of teeth and muscle.

The first option is to find an interception point where you park off and wait for the ball of bait.

These bait balls seem to move down the river very, very slowly, especially when you have a www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

Wading is not recommended!

Inset: The Barotse floodplain.

rigged rod ready. Sometimes they follow a pattern; we had a bait ball that happened at the same spot, every day at the exact same time.

Local knowledge is key, so listen to your guide and, like a friend on our trip did, promise him a $10 tip for every fish over 10 lb.

The second option is trying to find bait balls in the middle of this majestic river. Waiting for bait balls in this torrent of a river is not that easy unless you anchor with a couple of 18 wheeler trucks. Drifting onto the bait balls can be done with a very careful and well thought out approach. Controlling your nerves when you’re casting at the balls of magic is easier said than done. Everything that can go wrong does when the excitement gets the better of you. There are a of couple things that I’ve found that prevent these things from happening.

First off you need a line tray. When those fish are busting the surface in front of you and your line looks like a bowl of spaghetti and you can spit further than you can cast, it is the most heart breaking moment. Either a stripping basket or some kind of tray will work as long as it is wet.

Keeping your fly-line wet prevents the line from sticking and causing knotting. The lubricated line also shoots out the rod tip with ease. If you don’t have a stripping basket, a wet towel on the deck works like a charm.

Second, have some pre-rigged flies. A tigerfish can completely destroy a fly. Even a tiny tiger can do more damage than a human with Join us on Facebook

a chainsaw and a blow torch. You don’t want to be twisting wire while fish are busting, so have some flies pre-tied with wire and a swivel for quick and easy fly changes.

FLY PATTERNS

These fish are in a feeding frenzy and will have a bite at almost anything, but at the same time I did find some tricks that really did make a difference.

Size — I prefer smaller and more natural sized flies. Most of my patterns are tied on a B10S size 1 or 2. Most of the baitfish in these balls are very small. I did try the standard 1/0 and 2/0 patterns but there was a big difference in the number of takes I had and the confidence of the takes.

Colour — you can’t go wrong with red/black and olive/grey.

Weight, weight and weight — the trick is to get down as quickly and as deep as you can.

Casting dumbbells isn’t easier, so I would suggest casting as much weight as you can cast a decent line with. Don’t sacrifice distance and presentation for weight, but a heavy fly definitely makes a difference. Find your balance and make sure you feel comfortable.

I am hosting very reasonable trips to Sekoma next year during this epic phenomenon, and if you’d like more information feel free to drop me a mail at <dfflyfishing@gmail.com>. Very few tiger fish fisheries produce this type of wonder!

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FEATURE

TALE OF TWO WATERS Two vastly different fisheries close to my heart

by Clem Booth

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I

Top: Stalking trout on the Avon.

Above: Bending bamboo on the Barrancosa.

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N a family, children most often have very different characteristics and personalities. It’s not an issue, of course; complementary diversity enriches the family unit and you love them all with equal and endless intensity.

In a way, when it comes to flyfishing, “home waters” share some of these characteristics.

Each cherished corner of piscatorial paradise might be totally different, yet each captures a piece of your soul. I think of “home waters” in the same way as a true friend; even if absent for a lengthy period, you pick up just as before, as if you’d been together all along. In a world of change, I find this unbelievably comforting.

These are special, safe places; places that draw me back time and again, they often remain filled with mystery, yet are as familiar and comfortable as a well-worn chamois glove.

Being without a “home water” would, in my case, leave me bereft and piscatorially rudderless and I would miss them terribly. I simply have to have places I call home. It’s what makes me tick; a delightful combination of adventure and being “at home”.

In the beginning, it was the little Liesbeek bubbling through Bishops Court and Newlands in Cape Town that captured my heart. Over a few years, I came to know every nook and cranny, the currents, pools and riffles and even individual fish, many of which remained uncaught.

It was a special place; still today when I visit Cape Town I love to stand on the bridge adjacent to Newlands Swimming Bath and gaze down at the Sans Souci pool that gifted me a wonderful 2.5 pounder in 1969.

Life moves on and with it along came new “home waters”; among them the Zwartkops River in Port Elizabeth, the incomparably lovely Mpumalanga with its many lovely waters and the Untere Wurm running out of Starnberger See in beautiful Bavaria. All captured and still own a place in my heart.

Over many years now, two diametrically opposite corners of this incredible planet have joined my list of wonderful “home waters”.

The first is Lago Strobel and the Barrancosa River at ELV Lodge in Patagonia and the other is the River Avon downstream of West Amesbury in Wiltshire. They are polar opposites in every sense; one being akin to rumbustious, unpredictable, Tyson-like champion boxer and the other a sensitive musician fostering harmony and calm and feeding the soul. I love them both, for the same and different reasons. It’s what one might term a comfortable paradox.

I love Lago Strobel because it challenges every aspect of my flyfishing. Simply put, it’s a water I’m never likely to master although it www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

Another strong Avon brown.

Bloody hell!

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occasionally does share one of it’s myriad secrets. Strobel is a cross between river and saltwater flyfishing. More often than not one has to contend with an angry, vindictive wind yet at the same time Strobel can be as delicate as any chalkstream with fish gently sipping your offerings off the surface. And then there’s the fish. It’s hard to find the right words to describe these chrome giants. “Bloody ’ell” might just be as good an exclamation as any.

Rainbow trout of another ilk that’s for sure.

You might be watched by a puma or eagle as you pursue these mighty fish and I can promise just one thing, once you’ve been there, you’ll hanker after another trip, and another, and another. For me, Lago Strobel and the Barrancosa River have become every inch a home water. As I pen these few words today in the Madrid airport lounge, I smile to think that the next Patagonian odessy is no more than eight weeks away.

And then there’s my beloved Avon. Ever reliable and accommodating yet never easy, it’s a the epitome of a glorious chalkstream.

Brown trout and grayling will afford you a chance of success but don’t expect overstocked, instant gratification. It’s the antithesis of that.

There are some very big trout to stalk. Two seasons ago, I spent a full two hours on a single rising fish before it finally sipped an emerger fly. This fish, which still makes my knees wobble, weighed in at 7.5 pounds and it was a creature of inestimable beauty. Not sure that I’ll ever have another fish like this and extraordinary fun on a bamboo rod and 6x tippet.

I’m told that our chalkstreams have the slightest gradient of any trout stream on the planet. I’m sure that’s right and they meander rather than rush through the meadows and green fields of our gentle English countryside. Over the years, many of my friends from all over have joined me for a day on the Avon, most suggest that they can’t imagine a finer stretch of chalkstream. Neither can I. It’s the place I feel totally at home and at ease whether stalking a great trout or sitting quietly on the bank sipping my Argentinian Yerba Mate out of a gourd gifted to me by Luciano from ELV Lodge.

Both of these very different places have become “home waters”. I have others too and feel truly blessed, for now however, my thoughts are with the raw magnificence of a Lago Strobel and the gentle caress of the River Avon. Home waters are a special part of my flyfishing life. I hope yours too!

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FEATURE

By Erik van der Berg “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” — A. A. Milne

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T’S Friday and I’m on my way to the office, the usual daily commute. My mind wanders off to tomorrow, when I am going to fish “my” river, the Ahr, again. It’s a gentle trout and grayling stream which flows through an ancient mountainous area called the Eifel, only 50km www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

away from the Ruhr valley, the largest urban area in Germany with a population of over 5million people. Some of the Eifel Mountains emerged as a result of volcanic activity in the Tertiary period, about 66 million years ago. The river rises in the basement of a timber-framed Join us on Facebook

house in the middle of Blankenheim, a wonderful little village which dates back to the year 721 AD. There it starts its river life in an enclosed spring and first flows through a pond full of wellfed lazy carp below Blankenheim Castle before it finds its way into the Ahr valley.

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From spring to river mouth, where it flows into the Rhine, the Ahr is about 90km long. Way downstream, the valley sides are dominated by vineyards, especially on the south-facing slopes north of the river, around the villages of Mayschoß, Rech and Dernau. Some of those vineyards produce wonderful gentle red and crisp white wines which we often enjoy in combination with Italian sausages and French cheese during a streamside lunch.

The beats I fish are mainly in the upper region of the valley, where the water stays cool even during long hot summers thanks to hidden springs and overhanging trees. Yes, I’m a lucky man. And I am a happy man, wandering through the bordering fields full of wild flowers and colour ful insects with my 6ft bamboo fly0rod in my hand. The upper beats are not easy to fish. The overhanging trees have no mercy. Every mistake is punished and sometimes it’s just as well I swear in Dutch. On a good casting day I can fish with one and the same fly for hours. On a bad casting day a fly is lost at the first attempt. I carry a travel tying kit.

I also carry a pair of waterproof binoculars to watch the magnificent high-circling buzzards and red kites. Or to get a close-up of kingfishers which are plentiful because of the clear water and many overhanging branches. The small bird’s iridescent turquoise blue wing and bright orange breast always cheers me up. But my favourite bird of all is probably the dipper; a short-tailed, plump bird with a low, whirring flight which feeds on Insect larvae and freshwater shrimps by diving under water. I can easily “waste” half an hour of my precious fishing time just watching one. I told you I am a lucky man.

The river offers splendid strong wild brown trout which rise eagerly to a bushy dry fly like a Humpy. I especially enjoy watching a newly tied Humpy, fresh out of my Wheatley box, floating high on the current ready to be surprised again about the speed of an eager brown trout grabbing it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Even when there are no rising fish, the Humpy will bring them up. They seem to be irresistible.

Quite often I am pleasantly surprised by the size of some of the brown trout which are hiding underneath the hollowed out banks. The smaller the rise, the bigger the fish. And when ill prepared, they always snap my leader, just like that.

Bugger.

Every season I enjoy the way the valley changes colour. Hungry for a first fishing day in the new season I enjoy the casting freedom the bare trees offer me during a bleak March day.

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see how the different type of trees get back to life at different speed. I’m not sure which month is my favourite. May, when the young people in the local villages are putting up their “Maibaum”, a maypole, which represents budding nature and awakening love. Or October, when the valley changes into a sea of dark reds and copper and the almost purple-coloured grayling are keen to grab a deep fished Pheasant Tail Nymph or a floating Jassid.

It seems the older I get, the shorter the fishing season becomes. But I’m also enjoying the river, the flora and fauna and the flyfishing, more and more intensely each year. Gone are the days that I was hurrying, almost running, from pool to pool, eager to catch as many fish as I could behaving like a blind fool. During the last couple of years I quite often start my fishing day with driving up to a mountain top to enjoy the splendid views of the awakening valley, looking forward to the day and maybe also visit a local vineyard, restaurant or castle. To me, fishing this river, any river, is about “being there”.

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RIVIERE

MY GUNSTELING RIVIER: Deur Cloete du Plessis

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S ek ’n rivier in die Oos Kaap moet uitsonder as ’n gunsteling rivier sal ek stewig vashaak in die Kraairivier naby Barkly Oos/Lady Grey omgewing. Die is meestal te danke aan die diversiteit van hengel

A

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kondisies wat die rivier bied maar ook die verskillende spesies wat bereidwillig is om jou vlieg te vat. Die vlieghengelaar het ’n keuse van kleinbek geelvis en onderbek as ook trofee rivier forel. Mens kan ook vlieghengel in die dieper stil www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

poele vir daai ontwykende skim van die dieptes naamlik ’n grootbek geelvis.

Die Kraairivier offer sy waarderende besoeker kilometers van ongerepte water waar daar nóg ’n mens nóg ’n vlieg deur is. So daar is altyd ’n Join us on Facebook

verassings element van wat jou vlieg gaan gryp of wat om die volgende draai is. ’n Persoonlike beste van die skrywer was ’n mannetjies forel van ses pond gevang 5km onderkant die Kraairivier brug by Donneybrook.

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Jy is in vir ’n behoorlike geveg in die sterk vloeiende water want die vis se kondisie is wereldklas. Daar is al groter gevang ook en ’n ideale tydperk om in gedagte hou as jy die unieke area wil besoek is September tot April. In die tydperk is die geelvis ook baie aktief.

Die skrywer se grootse kleinbek geelvis was ’n 8 ponder van 64cm gevang by Die Wit Geut.

Dieselfde hengelplek het ook onderbek van 57cm opgelewer. Die Wit Geut is verseker ’n gunsteling hengelplek op die Kraairivier. Dit beslaan ’n 2km lange kloof waar die water sy weg deur sandsteen gekalwe het om pragtige versameling van stroomversnellings en diep poele agter te laat. As die kondisies idiaal is jy verseker van ’n groot riviervis om jou stok sekelnek te laat staan. ’n Betroubare 4x4 is ’n moet om die area te

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bereik wat dit natuurlik meer van ’n avontuur maak vir die hengelaar wat ongerepte natuurskoon geniet.

Vergenoeg by Oom Tauber Van Zyl is defnitief ook ’n besoek werd. Hier kan tyd vlieg as die vis begin byt. Laas jaar tydens ’n hengel avontuur saam met Lex en Gareth Webster was die tellingbord al op ’n stewige 30 vis. Die aktiwiteit van die vis het al hoe meer intens geraak en die skrywer moes homself uiteindelik verskoon en haas na ’n troue in Barley Oos om ’n gewiste skeisaak te vermy.

Dis ook dieselfde strook van die Kraairivier waar Andrew Clark aka “The Otter” ons uitgestof het tydens ’n Oos Kaap proewe sessie deur vir twee ure lank op een onproduktiewe stuk van die rivier te staan en toe die grootste onderbek gevang het vir die dag, wat in jare

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gesien is. Die vis was mooi In die mond gehaak om die sout behoorlik in almal se wonde te vryf.

Hier leer ’n mens gou hoe vining die Kraai jou kan aarde toe bring! Waar jy een naweek 40 vis kan vang op ’n gegewe dag sal die volgende uitstappie jou met lee hande vol frustrasie los.

Gaan probeer dan FK’s waar almal gaan om te murmereer oor kleiner stroompies soos die Diepspruit, Joggem of die Happy Valley damme waar jou voorslag nie genoeg spiere gehad het vir die “duikboot” wat jou gebreek het nie.

Die hengelmaats van die omgewing het ’n staande grap waar geld insamel gaan word om die Kraairivier by Rhodes op te dam sodat niemand weer in hul visvang vermoens hoef te twyfel nie. Dan keer jy terug na die rivier die volgende dag en word beloon met ’n mooi geelvis of forel of albei en jy is weer opnuut verlief op

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die Kraairivier. ’n Paar gunsteling vliee om uit te sonder vir die Kraai sal wees: • 3mm GUN of ’n Hotspot PTN (Golden Gun) • 3mm Golden Gun op die middel vlieg en ’n 3.5-4mm RockWorm met ’n swart of silver tungsten kralejie op die puntvlieg — dit werk vir geelvis en onderbek.

• 2.5mm tot 3mm ZAK op die middelvlieg en ’n 3mm GUN op die puntvlieg. Dis bes vir forel.

• Spietkop Woolly Bugger in 3mm of 3.5mm — ideaal vir groot- en kleinbek geelvis.

Die vliee is baie produktief vir die area en behoort die hengelaar deur baie te dra vir ’n dag op die water.

Ten spyte die uitdagings en frustrasies by tye is dit ’n fantastiese stuk water en area om in te hengel; dit is verseker my gunsteling.

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FEATURE

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by Luke Saffarek

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BELIEVE that to truly appreciate something you need to have at least a basic understanding of it. For us anglers, at the most basic level, it may be a fish being bigger than average or the success of catching a fish on a specific water. However, if we can delve a little deeper into understanding a specific water body and learn, even just a little, about the fish that occur in that water we will not only gain a greater appreciation and awe of such a place, but we’ll begin to better understand the incredible value of each and every fishery we get to experience (as well as those we may never fish).

The Bulkley River in northern British Columbia, Canada is exactly such a fishery. The Bulkley is a tributary of the mighty Skeena River and just happens to flow through my hometown of Smithers. I grew up with the river in my backyard and took it for granted. However, fortunately for 60 • Return to contents

me, I lived overseas for about six years and when I retur ned to Smithers everything changed. The day I landed back in Smithers I had a new appreciation for the mountains, but it was when I was introduced to steelhead that my love for the river was born.

Many anglers have heard of steelhead but most of them are ignorant about what they are and how unique they are, as was I, even though they were in my own back yard!

Simply put, steelhead are anadromous rainbow trout. Lost you with that big word didn’t I? Anadromous translated into angler speak simply means “sea-run”. But what’s so special about a sea-run rainbow trout? Well, a lot actually!

Going back to the basics of appreciation, this means that steelhead get big and strong because they go to sea, and enjoy a lekker high-protein diet.

Along with that, in terms of their life story, they are an enigma. Unlike the five species of Pacific www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

salmon, steelhead have no set life cycle. A steelhead may spend two years in freshwater before heading to the sea for four years, then returning. Or they may spend four years in freshwater and two at sea or three and one, or one and six. So, this means their returns are extremely unpredictible, and unpredictable returns mean that some years finding one in the river is like finding a unicorn in the forest.

So, that’s a brief “brief” on steelhead, but let’s get back to the Bulkley River and my ignorance.

I grew up in a fishing family and we did fish the Bulkley, but we didn’t target steelhead, primarily because my parents were meat-fishers and for most of my life steelhead were protected fish throughout British Columbia — catch and release only. I was getting into flyfishing in my late teens my dad did mention occasionally that we should try for steelhead, but it never happened.

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So I knew about steelhead. I knew they were trout, but I had never caught one, tried to catch one, or even seen one for that matter. However, when I returned to Smithers in 2012 I met some fellow fluff-chuckers who introduced me to steelheading — the art of catching, and sometimes not catching, steelhead.

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As I returned to Smithers in March and steelhead don’t typically show up in the Bulkley until late August I had a decent amount of time to learn how to tie some basic steelhead flies. So I did. I tied a lot and soon it was August. After a number of afternoons blanking on the river a friend took me out to a run he promised I’d hook a fish in.

As skeptical as I was, it didn’t take long that day for me to hook and land my first Bulkley River steelhead. It was a beautiful 8 lb hen. I

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clearly remember cradling her in the water and marvelling at her bright silver sides, clear fins and saying “Wow! This is a special fish.”

In the brief moment it took for the fish to swim out of my hands this profound feeling came over me. I could not believe that I had grown up in that town, on the banks of the Bulkley and had never experienced catching one of these fish! How had I missed this all my life?

That season turned out to be one of the best steelhead seasons on record for the Bulkley and

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I was fortunate enough to catch many fish that year including my biggest to date – a 25 lb buck steelhead.

I have been privileged to fish the Bulkley every year since and can honestly say that each year my appreciation grows deeper, and it’s not just about the fish. The Bulkley is a beautiful forest-lined river with mountainous views on nearly every bend.

Black bear, deer and other wildlife are frequently sighted along its banks as it flows

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through forests, fields and canyons toward the Skeena.

In 2017 I began guiding on the Bukley for steelhead. I’m so grateful that after years of being ignorant of what was in my own backyard I now get to share my deepening love and appreciation for the river and its fish with all kinds of people.

May we never take for granted the run of a river, the tug of a fish on the line, or our own backyard.

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RIVERS

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OGILVIES

CREEK Why flies and flyfishing shouldn’t mix…

By Arno Crous

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HERE was a chill in the air under the grey clouds, which flowed in strong contrast to the late summer heat we fished in the days before. After crossing the Murray River from Victoria into New South Wales, the road snakes, loaded with hairpin turns, up the contour lines making for slow going as we headed for the higher, more remote, parts of the snowy mountains. The lengthy trip has been considered worth it, based on what we’ve heard about our destination. It was a fair climb in altitude in the old faithful Nissan Patrol to reach this glorious alpine stream called Ogilvies Creek. At this altitude it’s not uncommon for snow to fall in any month of the year and it felt like the weather gods planned a demonstration of the “not uncommon”…

The road crosses the stream a few kilometres after passing the Tooma reservoir on the way to the highest Australian town, Cabramurra, but even on a busy day the traffic is sparse in this hidden away corner of the snowy mountains. In winter this area is snow-bound and the road closed to the public. After parking at the convenient and scenic picnic spot close to the road bridge, Daryl Human and I suited up with half an eye on the darkening clouds and occasional rain drops that may have been snowflakes not too much earlier on their journey down to earth. Being mindful of the notoriously deadly and venomous Australian wildlife, we made doubly sure our lower legs, up to snakebite reach, were sufficiently covered in gaiters and protection, which would make a medieval knight’s armourer sit back in satisfaction. Both Daryl and I have seen too many of the “wriggly-sticks” around, and at times in, the streams to take chances.

We couldn’t help but walk over to the road bridge to have a sneak peek at the downstream pool. We quickly spotted a couple of trout working the clear water — polaroids not required.

A brief debate couldn’t confir m whether these trout were indeed the target species that contributed heavily to this venue’s selection. Ogilvies Creek has a standard issue popula66 • Return to contents

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tion of wild spawned rainbow trout but is, more importantly, apparently known as one of only two rivers in Australia that holds a healthy population of wild spawning brook trout. Up till then both Daryl and I had a fishing species bucket list with a glaringly empty tick-box next to brook trout…

This put an excited haste in our step as we headed out. Hours of research and eager fingers tracing thin blue lines on maps had us walking downstream for a number of kilometres on a gravel service road that paralleled the creek. This service road is locked for park ranger vehicles only, but an angler-friendly part of the gate allowed us through; you’ve got to love it when the authorities recognise and provide for recreational anglers! According to the map it runs for about 8-9km down to a small dam that robs that creek’s water for the mighty Snowy Mountain Hydro Scheme. The creek itself meanders in the “open” snow plains while the road hugs the less boggy higher ground in the tree line a couple of hundred metres from the water. The snow gums with their patchy smooth white bark look twisted and deformed by bitter winters, but this gives them a stark beauty of their own in this harsh alpine climate.

Our access point to the river, roughly halfway to the dam, was substantially more difficult to negotiate than it looked on the maps and Google Earth! It warmed up just enough to make the winter clothing too warm for the excursion. Very thick undergrowth and steep terrain down from the road was replaced by buggy, marshy rough ground on the open tussock grass snow plain, but it was all quickly forgotten once we reached the creek. It was picture perfect!

Crystal clear ankle to knee deep, narrow water running smoothly over dark pebbly gravel, undercut the tussock-lined banks. It meandered so much that at times it looked like the creek was running back towards its source more than away from it. All along the banks spirally clouds of small snow-flake caddis were dancing above the water tight up against Join us on Facebook

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the over hanging grass and stringy scrubs.

About size 16 or so would do the trick…

The water was icy cold as we dropped in and started to work the runs, making turns as each of us hooked either a fish or part of the scenery, and plenty of each was had. To our “slight” dismay the brookies remained elusive and only rainbows came to the party. The healthy, lively fish weren’t too choosy about the pattern, as long as it had no drag and it was better received if it drifted close to the undercut banks.

As would be expected from a small, alpine stream, these weren’t pushovers nor monsters, but they all looked fat, healthy and hovered around 12- to 16-inches in size. The stream is obviously in a healthy state.

The overcast conditions made spotting the speckled bodies very difficult and only a rise here and there would give away a feeding trout’s location. Sometimes the meandering nature of the creek had the best part of a pool hidden around a grassy corner, making for some creative casting over tussock grass tufts, blind fishing and sometimes striking on sound rather than sight. Other times the runs were dead straight and the fly had to land close up to the undercut to entice a resident.

Every turn in the stream had us gasping with amazement as it opened up challenges and conditions that small stream flyfishers dream of.

Luckily we were tooled up for this type of fishing.

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Daryl’s 00-wt Sage threw razor sharp loops, while my 6’6” 3-wt Echo Glass slowed things down nicely to perfectly turn over the long, light tippets. Both rods bent smoothly under the eagerness of the trout to protect the delicate tippets that go with this kind of fishing.

We mixed between dries and lightly weighted nymphs, but this was prime dry fly water and the smaller flies got the nod from the local connoisseurs. Some stream bends have deeper pools with current seams coming in from the sides making for precision mending, while other runs had granite boulders strategically placed to favour prime trout lies. Due to the narrowness of the stream together with overhanging grass, casts had to be accurate and tight, and we got there most of the time. With the dark streambeds, lazy breeze and grey skies the water, at times, looked like liquid stained glass created by a master Venetian glass blower.

This should all be a small stream flyfisherman’s dream come true, a day of walking in heaven, if only it wasn’t for some of the grassy snow plain’s other inhabitants!

Soon after dropping into the river on my first cast, as I closely watched every dip and spin of the small light coloured elk-hair caddis, my subconscious finally broke down the door to my conscious with the news that things were not well in the region of my right shoulder. A sharp pain indicated something making good effort of www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

bite me through my shirt. I gave the area a vigorous slap and checked to see what I had killed.

I found a horse fly (locally called a March fly) alive, only slightly stunned and annoyed, briefly looking up from its attempt to bite me and then busying itself again with the task of applying maximum pain! Another, much stronger hit still didn’t kill it, it just staggered backwards with a slight concussion before I flicked it off into the water. I have never seen as many horse flies as I did that day!

This set the tone for a fair part of the fishing, detracting slightly from the experience. I have thus come to the understanding that in some cases, flies and flyfishing shouldn’t mix! Only afterwards did we discover that our choice of fishing the month of March in March-fly country was not entirely wise and likewise for our choice of blue coloured clothing, that (supposedly) attracts these little biting monsters. A few tips from the locals should have us better prepared for next time.

Notwithstanding that, the fishing was world class, with the amazing scenery coming in a close second. We overestimated the distance that we walked down the service road, as we didn’t take into account the meandering of the river. For every kilometre of service road there were a good couple of kilometres to walk in the meandering stream bed (mostly facing away from our end destination as we followed the Join us on Facebook

meander). Thus we were well short of the road bridge before we had to exit the river as the sun started making hints that it was heading for the horizon. The hike back to the Patrol across the boggy, tussock-grassed snow plain was strenuous enough to ensure a good, well-earned night’s sleep that night after recounting the day’s fishing next to the camp fire.

We lost count of the number of lively, pretty rainbows that came to the net that day, plus countless more that we weren’t fast enough to hook — mostly because it’s hard to concentrate when a hungry horse fly is making a meal of your neck! Sadly our brookie tick-boxes remained empty, but that’s not entirely a bad thing, as it gives us a good excuse to come back to this little portion of heaven, albeit better prepared next time.

The mind boggles to think that there are a few dozen similar, pristine alpine streams scattered across Australia’s Great Dividing range that see very few, if any, fishermen sampling their awesomeness. Other than a handful of accessible ones like Ogilvies, they are just too seriously remote and difficult to reach for the average person. If you are a top skilled, level 11 out of 10 multi-day hiking adventurer, looking for a challenge and perfection, pull out a map of these areas and let your finger wander along the thin blue lines up the contours to the empty snow plains…

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PLACES

By Andrew Allman

I

T was August 2018 and the winter months on the Highveld had been long and severe. Our family unanimously agreed it was time to escape the cold and the aggravating traffic of Johannesburg, find a warmer sun, slow down and hopefully partake in our favourite family past time of flyfishing.

It was also a sad time as we were saying goodbye to my younger son and his partner who were leaving the country for a work opportunity in Holland. My elder son, never one to let a flyfishing experience go begging, made up the party together with his wife and their new-born babe.

And of course there was my better half, there to provide superlative nourishment to the hungry mouths but also to take time out for herself with some warming log fires and those never-ending crossword puzzles. The big attraction for us all was that there was little or no cell phone coverage.

What better location to relax and reconnect with family than in the Drakensberg mountains â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that part of the escarpment that extends through Mpumalanga. In particular, we are talking here about the part that lies within the Mount Anderson Nature Reserve which is home to a few flyfishing resorts, most notably Highland Run. We chose to drive to Lydenburg via Dullstroom, breakfasting at the Rose Cottage, with the women checking out the cheese and confectionery stores in the madly busy town, whilst my sons searched for the best buys in billies and an assortment of liquid refreshment. I made the mandatory pit-stop at Mavungana Flyfishing Store, mostly for a chat and a catch-up on prevailing weather conditions, but also to check on the state of the fishing in the area. I have a concealed cavity in my 4x4 that permanently houses my flyfishing kit, and despite the fact that I had two sling-bags bursting with every conceivable commercially manufactured fly known to man, I ended up buying more flies!

Okay, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have every conceivable fly known to man, but I can assure you that while I have more than a few thousand rand invested in flies, only two or three patterns seem to really work for me. Prior to our departure I contacted Doug Starling, the owner of Highland Run, and he suggested a few army-green winter eggs; I also added a selection of small dry flies doing the rounds in Mpumulanga rivers.

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Highland Run is reached through 17km of acceptable dirt road leading off the R36 to Ohrigstad with the turn-off being around 7km from Mashishing,otherwise known as Lydenburg.

There are two security check points along the way which give one a sense of comfort. The meandering gravel road was recently graded and, with little or no rain, it was a smooth trip for our 4x4, but if you’re travelling in a normal sedan I suggest you take care of the run-off humps which are excessively high. There is also a light powdery coating of sand covering the shale in places, and this road may be somewhat of a challenge for the city run-about in the rainy months. For us it was a pleasant trip and quite scenic too, so save yourself from the protest cries of the backseat driver, slow down, pause or even stop a while and you might be rewarded with sightings of game that teem the area.

I have fished a few rivers in the past, both here and abroad, and my hardest fishing day had to be the one experienced in Rhodes in the Eastern Cape, so I was keen to compare that to Highland Run. The weather prospects were not looking great, but then we all know those forecasts have been proved wrong in the past, so I was as positive as a one-eyed bull dog in a butcher shop. I therefore gently pushed the pedal down where prudent and we arrived at our destination some five hours after leaving Sandton, albeit with a moderate wind at our tail and some low lying cloud to darken the afternoon rays.

First up was a casual meeting with Doug, the spritely 84-year-old who started both Finsbury and then Highland Run. I suspect he wanted to know for himself whether we knew our triple Ds from our micro midges and if it was safe to let us 74 • Return to contents

loose on his waters. He has built up a reputation as a man who is passionate about the environment, custodianship of his streams and sustainability of our favourite species. Having passed muster, we were shown the morning and afternoon beats along the Spekboom streams. Doug then kindly loaned us a very light-weight rod to add to our collection of 5/6-wt rods.

Doug explained that at this time of the year the trout have sex on the brain and pointed out the white spots marking the heads of some fish in his hatcheries. This, he explained, was because they’d been “fighting mates for mates of a different kind”. We saw one or two really big trout of about 9 lb, but they were closely ensconced within the confines of the hatchery.

I silently wondered if they had any mates of similar size swimming freely outside of those enmeshed surroundings. Time would surely tell…

Doug did say he lets the stock free to roam the streams during a certain month of the year, and for a reasonable fee I am prepared to disclose which month!

Day one ended with us, walking beat four directly in front of the Mchichi Lodge which was exclusive to our assigned accommodation. The water was clear, shallow and slow flowing; there were a few trout cruising and that gave us hope as we headed back to the warm fire and our families.

The accommodation was acceptable although it probably needs a bit of a spruce-up.

The four bedrooms each sleeping two in the lodge all having their own bathrooms and there is a nice spacious lounge with fireplace, kitchen and dining area. There is another room directly behind the kitchen in an annex that could sleep another two, so in all ten could be accommowww.saflyfishingmag.co.za

dated in the lodge. Phindi, our attendant, was on hand to set the table, and the evening meal provided by my daughter-in-law was a welcome second to none.

The next morning I was up earlier than normal despite the cold bite in the air. I had set up two rods the previous night, one with floating line and the other intermediate. Doug, is a flyfishing purist and made it very clear that fishing on floating line was the only way it should be done, but conceded that he did not mind me trying the easier option as well.

That being said, I ventured off alone on our allocated morning beat, starting with the new green line I had purchased. I was immediately rewarded with a small trout of half a pound. A nice fight with light tippet caused me to play the fish with due care for the potential water

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hazards that could snap the line at a flick. The beat was short-lived as all the fish seemed to disappear immediately after I had released the first. I moved along slowly through my beats, taking care not to announce my approach to a new stretch of water and sight-casting to the cruising fish. You literally had one chance, and if you fluffed it you had to move on!

Around mid-morning I came to a beat where the flow slowed appreciably and the water ran through a deepish gorge. There was no surface activity, yet it looked promising and I was hopeful of a bigger catch. I switched to intermediate line and my favourite orange bead. On the first cast, as my fly was descending it was hit by something large. I lost the contest due to my inattentiveness and a slack line, but on the second cast I hooked and landed a two pounder

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brown cock trout. I caught a few more but lost a few too due to the barbless hooks and my failure to stay in contact with my fly. The fish then went off the bite!

I felt there was still potential in that particular spot and so switched to the floating line with a 15 foot tippet and the army green winter egg.

The fly was once again taken on the drop, but this time I landed six rainbows, all of around a pound or more, using the same tactics as earlier.

My sons tested the waters later when the day had warmed, but by then the fun was over and they only landed two between them. Our total caught on day one was 12, in windy and cold conditions.

Day two was completely different. The weather was far warmer for a start and the wind had dropped. After rising at a more dignified hour, I had breakfast with the family and then took the short walk down to the stream in front of the lodge. I knelt far from the water’s edge and sight cast to cruising trout. They prodded the egg pattern and then moved on without eating.

After a while I was joined on the opposite bank by a female bush buck, lazily feeding and stopping every now and then to look at me.

She seemed unworried by my unsuccessful attempts at catching a fish and eventually we both stopped our separate activities and just looked at one another. It was quite a special moment.

The boys subsequently arrived and we decided to head further downsteam to some deeper waters. We caught a few fish at the same spot where I was successful the previous day and then that also cooled off so we moved onto the last beat of Highland Run. At midday, one would have expected the 76 • Return to contents

fish to be holed up and lying low but there was activity on the surface aplenty. Our position was fronted by shallow, clear water for about 20 foot and then the river base dropped off into much deeper water for about another 10 or more feet until weed took over. Both grassed banks seemed semi-submerged and I ended up standing barefoot in calf-deep water, casting long towards the far bank.

We had found a honey hole in the channel — heaven on a winter fly! We had practically a take with every cast and 17 fish were landed in an hour or so with a few lost to the weed. They ranged in size from around a pound to just under two but were a feisty bunch who jumped and dived with the best of them.

It had to be the best river fishing we have had in South Africa on a floating line, and all the trout were safely released to hopefully fight another day.

All good things unfortunately come to an end and the flurry of activity died after the fish’s lunch hour had truly run its course. We men had been joined at the last beat by our better halves who had travelled down to the spot in a vehicle and watched amazed for a short while. The women offered us a lift back to the lodge, but we lingered on and caught a few more before we trod on home together.

We chatted enthusiastically along the way, enthralled at our good fortune and bonded by the fishing, yet sad at the imminent departure of one of our own. “Perhaps they have flyfishing in Holland,” ventured the elder brother.

I smiled contentedly, grateful for the wideopen spaces and the mostly blue skies, and thought about the rivers and dams that are home to our favourite fish.

Will I return? Do fish swim? www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

FEATURE Screaming Tokalosh

FLIES FOR

UNVEILING THE THEN

by Simon Graham

I

ARRIVED back from a ten-year guiding stint in Scandinavia at the end of 2012 and in 2013 started working with my now good friend Richard Khumalo at a flyfishing company in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. It was around the third week of us working together when he invited me to join him for a day’s fishing on a section of the Mooi River which runs through his rural community at Thendela in the Kamberg.

From that very first visit when he showed me around the community centre, Richard talked about how he would like to set up a small but productive fly-tying house for some of the community members. He asked whether I’d be interested in teaching them how to tie the flies necessary for them to make a living, and I agreed to do just that.

Fast forward five years down the line, and I received a call in early April from James Martin 78 • Return to contents

saying the project was a go. I set aside two days out of my week for the project and then set about organising proper lighting as well as vices and a basic set of tools for each tying bench.

Word spread rather rapidly within the Thendela community that we were going to be looking for eight community members to head up the tying team and that anyone interested needed to report to the community centre.

The next two weeks would be spent choosing those eight lucky members that I felt had the necessary skills to take the project forward to the next level. In all honesty I had my doubts at the beginning whether I’d be able to find eight competent people to teach the necessary skills for them to construct a decent fly to market, but those fears were soon put to rest when I saw the quality of the flies they were tying.

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#16 Midge Hoppers

R AFRICA

NDELA FLY FACTORY how to tie large, bulky, synthetic baitfish patterns for targeting Northern Pike, but there’s a massive difference between teaching guys who already have a decent understanding about the materials used and who are already proficient around a vice and tying tools, to teaching people who have no comprehension or concept what flyfishing is about, let alone what a fly is used for!

Fly-tying is such a multi-faceted pastime with numerous disciplines within the sport and, with only eight tyers to work with, you’re never going to be able to produce large quantities of flies to market to cover all these disciplines, like many of the large tying houses are able to do. With thtat in mind, Richard and I decided from the get-go that quality was what we would strive for and that producing quality flies would be the best way for the team to make a living from flytying.

The next big decision was what flies to tie with Join us on Facebook

the limited materials and tying tools we had available. Funding still hadn’t come through to buy a substantial array of products and barbless hooks, but fortunately I had plenty at home for the group to start practicing on.

The first thing I decided to teach was how to produce a lasting and well presented head to a fly using a couple of turns with a whip finisher and a generous blob of head cement. Some of our applicants picked it up rather quickly while other didn’t have the dexterity in their fingers to use the whip finisher, and I have to say that out of all the things I’ve taught them over the last five months the whip finisher has produced the most grey hairs for me. It was probably the reason why I chose the eight tyers that we have now — purely because they could whip finish a fly correctly.

Limiting waste was something else I had to instil from the start. This became evident after the first two days in training when we’d gone Return to contents • 79

#12 Klinkhamers

Booby blobs

The team: Busisiwe Masango, Tombi Hlela, Koli Ndlovu, Nolwasi Mchunu, Boniso (Rasta) Ndlovu, Nomfundu Zuma, Lungani Majozi and Pretty Zuma.

100mm sardine baitfish

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PTNs

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Nymphs

#16 Adams dry

Foam beetles

Micro hoppers

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Elk Hair Caddis

through six packs of strung marabou, enough dubbing to cover a yak and had dropped enough beads on the floor without picking them up to sink a battleship. Phrases like “Less is more”, “Manage your waste management” and “nice tight wraps” were bellowed out regularly in the tying area. I’m the ultimate tight-arse with regards to my own materials, so it was important to get into the tyer’s mind-set from the start that wastage was a loss of profit.

After that first week we put every offcut strip of rubber legs (regardless of their length), every half-used strung marabou feather and pieces of foam found lying on the benches or floor into separate packages to be used again at a later date. To be honest, the tyers grasped it rather quickly and by the end of the second week there was very little being swept away at the end of the day.

I split the days up into halves. The morning session is mainly spent tying a dry fly which entails half an hour in front of the laptop watching a video tutorial a couple of times, after which I tie that same fly on my vice in front of the group. This gives them a better understanding when I explain the amounts of materials to use and their correct positioning along the shank.

Body length and uniformity of each fly has been extremely challenging to teach and to get through, but the old adage “Practice makes perfect” has come into effect and our team soon started to produce similar looking flies to 82 • Return to contents

Deerhair ants

the person sitting next to them. I was strict from the start regarding quality control and would go through each fly with a fine toothpick, pointing out the good and the bad aspects of each of their ties. By the end of each session, all of the tyers had tied somewhere between four and six flies which I deemed perfect enough to go on to the selling pile.

During the afternoon sessions we either tied nymphs, hoppers or synthetic baitfish. It was important to get the group to tie not only on different sized hooks, but also to get them working with and combining different materials, an opportunity that tying damselfly nymphs, foam hoppers and of course Papa Roaches afforded them.

What has surprised me the most with the Thendela team is how easily and quickly they picked up and grasped some of what I would call the harder techniques in fly construction, and yet have battled with some of the easier aspects. Take for instance the tying in of a parachute. It’s not the easiest of things to master, even for a seasoned fly-tyer, yet out of all the Para RABs, Para Hoppers, Klinkhamers, Foam Para Ants and Foam Para Spiders they produced over the last five months, only eleven hackles were wasted through poor tying-off techniques.

Working with synthetics to construct baitfish patterns was also easier than I’d expected and out of all the flies that they’ve learned to tie these baitfish patterns were the most fun for www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

Brigg’s Foam Wolf spiders

them to construct.

Getting the team to have equal uniformity with the segmentation of the foam abdomen and thorax has been another story though!

Coupled with that, applying the minimal amounts of dubbing to each twisted noodle before wrapping around the shank to construct a super thin tapered nymph’s body has also been frustrating at times.

We as flyfishers understand the concept of having a thin body in place only because we’ve either been told, shown, read or have seen images of correctly constructed nymph imitations. For someone who has never done the sport, with little or no access to the internet, and very limited, if any, knowledge of a water system’s entomology, repetition and correct material application has been the overall winner in getting them to knock up some truly stunning fishable looking flies with limited resources.

So, after 39 days with the Thendela team, spanning a short five months, they are exactly at the standard of fly-tying that I was trying to get them to.

Bear in mind that there were mornings in the tying house where the average temperature was zero Celsius and the tyers could hardly hold the bobbins in their hands, and with electricity non-existent most days we were unable to turn on the heaters or lighting for them either.

The idea is that they will eventually have a range of 25 to 30 dry flies, the same amount in nymphs for both yellowfish and trout and Join us on Facebook

around 25 streamer patterns. They will also eventually hold a range of synthetic baitfish streamers, Clousers and poppers for both tigerfish and saltwater applications. All of these will be available to buy from a website that is currently under construction.

Yes, the flies will be a couple of rand more than those you buy from your local fly shop, depending on your location, but that’s because they will be using Nano silk to bind the materials onto barbless hooks and each fly will be finished off with two coats of head cement. Flies are never meant to last forever, but at least the Thendela flies won’t fall apart after the first fish.

Now all that is needed is for the initial funding to come through from the government so that the team can acquire all of the materials and hooks to start building up some stock. I don’t have the details of all of the politics that are involved, and let’s not forget this is South Africa, so they could be waiting a couple more months before that happens. I just hope for the Thendela team’s sake that this rural job empowerment project gets off the mark soon because they are eight truly wonderful people looking to produce quality flies so that they can make a small difference in their lives.

To keep abreast of what they are up to and with future funding developments, like their Facebook page “Tendehla flyfishing flies”. And if there’s anyone interested in getting involved in some small way, drop them a private message on the Facebook page.

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BOOK REVIEW

THE

FISHY SMITHS A biography of JLB and Margaret Smith

By Mike Bruton Reviewed by Ian Cox

S

OMEONE had to discover the coelacanth.

It is South Africa’s extraordinary good fortune that this tropical fish was discovered in South African waters about a thousand miles from where it should have been. The treasure in this find was not so much the fish, although that was huge, but rather the people involved in the find and the country altering events that it triggered.

South Africa became famous because of the discovery of this prehistoric fish. The news grabbed headlines across the world and put JLB Smith and what was then a very small South Africa’s scientific establishment on the world stage and center stage.

But this is not another celebrity tale. JLB Smith was aware of the mileage that was to be had from this discovery and exploited it ruthlessly. However, he was no celebrity figure. He used fame but did not live to be famous.

He also gave credit where 84 • Return to contents

credit was due.

At one level it is a story we can all relate to of the fisherman who wants to know more. Smith was reputed to be tough on his colleagues and not to suffer fools or foolish conversation, but he was a different person amongst fisher folk. His easy-going communion with a community who loved and respected him is evident in his numerous articles published in the fishing magazines of the 1940s to his death in 1968.

And stirring stuff it was to. What scientist says of a fish: “Covered with leprous yellow spots on a sickly green background with a sinister scarlet eye and a heavy powerful lower jaw it looks like an evil beast.” Which of us cannot relate to a man who takes the profits derived from his fame as an ichthyologist and invests it in securing his exclusive access to a favorite fishing spot?

But it is also a tale about the women who helped Smith achieve the greatness he believed he was destined for. The book is just as much about his wife as it is about him. Many describe Margaret Smith as long-sufferwww.saflyfishingmag.co.za

ing, but she certainly did not see it that way.

They were a couple and a team which makes this a peculiarly modern story for people who grew up at the dawn of the 20th century.

Margaret was not the only woman to enrich his life professionally. The news of the discovery of the coelacanth was brought to him because he had befriended the young Marjorie Courtney-Latimer who, aged 24, had been given the job of running the East London Museum. It was she who persuaded the city’s trawler fleet to look out for interesting fish and it was Hendrik Goosen who brought her the coelacanth on 22 December 1938. And she was properly recognised. As Smith’s “literary daughter” Shirley Bell pointed out in 1967, the scientific name of the coelacanth is Latimeria chalumnae. JLB Smith named it in honour of the woman who brought it to him.

The coelacanth is a big part of this story. JLB Smith believed he was predestined to identify the coelacanth. He thought of it as “his fish” and in a way he was right. But that is not the whole story. This is a story about the angler who becomes a scientist who becomes an ichthyologist to marry his profession with his passion. It is a story about a complex man who had the extraordinary good fortune, albeit second time round, to find a wife who had the stuff necessary to make his dream their legacy.

It is also a story with its fair share of controversy. JLB Smith was not an easy man. He worked alone, often confiding only in his wife. He was a hypochondriac who had good reason to be concerned about his health. He was also superbly fit while also not being very strong. He courted fame, sometimes ruthlessly, but never

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for its own sake and always after giving due recognition to others. He was prone to eccentricity. When I asked my mother, who knew the Smiths when she was a child about what he was like, she exclaimed: “He lived in a blue house in the middle of a swamp!”

This all lead to several detractors, as did Margaret Smith’s determination to protect his legacy after his death. Mike Bruton deals with these issues forthrightly, agreeing with some while disputing others. Happily, he does not fall into the academic’s trap of running every accusation to ground. That would have resulted in a long and boring read.

There is plenty of space left for such a book, but truth be told I don’t think it is necessary. JLB Smith’s real work, his true legacy, if you like, had little to do with the coelacanth. That find made his true legacy possible. His real legacy which he shared with his wife and what is engagingly covered in this book is that they brought the world of marine fishes to ordinary South Africans sharing with him the excitement and adventures of doing so.

This is also a story of adventure. JLB Smith liked wild places and the book is full of stories about fish hunting trips to Mozambique, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands.

What is more, he did it not as an ichthyologist but rather as a fisherman who also happened to be a scientist. That South Africans care about our marine fisheries is largely because of the pioneering work he did in bringing scientist and angler together. They were and still are the “Fishy Smiths”.

The book captures all this and is well worth the read.

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FEATURE

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Green River, Wyoming.

By Duncan Steyn Foible (foi-buh l) uk noun: A weakness or failing of character, a strange habit Join us on Facebook

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The author fishing with his father.

W

E all have them, there is no point in pretending we don’t — these oftenmisunderstood failings and so-called foibles of character are one of the many traits of a bona fide and unapologetic hunter of fish.

Why do we believe cows can predict the weather? Why do we think the next fishing trip will be different if the small children and dogs tag along? These are some of the more difficult questions I shall try to make sense of in this short study on the faults and failings of the common fisherman. As always, it’s probably best read with tongue firmly in cheek.

GETTING LOST The journey is half the adventure (true) and getting lost just adds to it (false). There was a time — if I’m honest it still happens — when I would deliberately leave the GPS at home and navigate with a map and that built-in sense of direction we all think we possess. The truth is, getting lost eats into precious fishing time. If you really want to feel like an explorer perhaps throwing away the GPS after going fishing is a better option.

Years ago my wife and I drove to Maun in Botswana to look at the possibility of me taking a job flying tourists in and out of the Okavango Delta. On the way home my GPS batteries were almost flat so I relied on my wife convincing me we were on the right route; this turned out to be an enormous mistake. When my GPS came on for a few seconds in the early hours of the morning it showed us to be in the middle of

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Botswana, almost 400km off the road we were meant to be on. Was this part of the adventure? Well no, not really.

After the dust settled from the enormous domestic dispute we could laugh about it, but at the time we were tired. Having to back-track five hours really wasn’t much fun, especially as we couldn’t even say we’d visited the Central Kalahari Game Reserve because it was pitch dark.

ANIMALS AND WEATHER PREDICTIONS “If the cows in a field are lying down, it will rain.”

This is a long-held belief that dates back centuries. Some animals really can sense changes in pressure and humidity and can therefore often accurately predict the weather. Next time you hear crickets singing, count the number of chirps in 15 seconds, now add 37. This is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit; to work out centigrade subtract 32 from this number and then divide by 1.8. I’ve never understood why crickets don’t use the metric system, it’s so much easier…

So, crickets can tell the temperature, birds and bees can sense a drop in pressure and swallows can predict if there is rain on the way, but cows? No. From the air cows can often be seen standing with their silly faces into the wind and their tails sticking out a bit like a livestock windsock, but generally these are not bright animals. If trout are the higher-grade students of the animal kingdom, then cows barely qualify for functional grade.

Trust me, I’ve taken the time to study these www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

Scene of the announcement.

bovines when I’m out and about in the pastures that often border prime trout streams. Other than maybe (not always) being able to tell if the electric fence is working, there is not much else they can share with us and seeing a field of cows sitting and standing aimlessly with no clear plan in life does not mean it will be partly cloudy with intermittent rain.

DEFINING MOMENTS Everyone can think of defining moments in their lives; it might be your first double figure fish caught on a double figure dry fly or the day you started listening to the voice on the GPS instead of the person sitting in the passenger seat. My defining moment happened last year when I stalked a monster pre-spawn brown in a perfect Wyoming river for over half an hour and ended up fooling him on a size 16 sunken ant. After what felt like at least 20 minutes he was recovering between my cradled arms, and as he glided off into the mottled tonic water of the Green River I remember thinking: This is going to be hard to beat.

DEFINING MOMENTS Electric fences can be one of those things that help you re-evaluate your life and redefine your priorities. Climbing through a fence with soaking wet shorts and realising the cows lied to you as the wire touches your nether regions will produce a kind of clarity that is rarely found today.

The real skill is holding it together long enough to convince your friends that the cows were in fact Join us on Facebook

telling the truth so they too can experience this life changing experience. If this ever happens to you, be sure to tip your nice full grain cow leather hat at the cows as you stagger off.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT This is probably one of the more common faults of the average fisherman. You get a good solid take, line is coiling off at a good clip and you make the announcement at full volume. The announcement usually involves instructions to those lesser fishermen around you to get the scale or tape measure ready. “He took a size 16 white death just under the surface, people.”

I was present when such a proclamation was made many seasons ago on a very productive stillwater in the Kamberg area. A friend of mine was into a record beating behemoth and he wanted everyone within earshot to know it. The take had been a savage one out of view around a stand of bullrushes. “He’s so strong I can’t turn him,” came the commentary.

Even though we had spotted the foible, we kept encouraging our star to fight harder. In actual fact, the line had been sucked down the dam’s overflow pipe and was spooling off at a rate of knots, promptly running the record beater into his backing. In short time the realisation came that the dam wasn’t big enough for that much line unless the fish was doing low level circuits but, instead of admitting the foible, the gentleman in question announced that the record fish must have swum down the pipe to escape and was thus able to shake the fly in the riffles downstream!

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A favourite rod earning brownie points.

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MORE STUFF EQUALS MORE FISH This is a classic fault and most of us have fallen into the trap at one time or another. If the adverts are to be believed, we should constantly be buying newer and more expensive weapons to defeat the humble fish. Paul O’Neil said it best when he wrote: “There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain the size of a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process.”

Don’t get me wrong, there can be a real joy in adding a new item to the fly vest, and if this means fishing with a little more confidence then sure, maybe this does equate to more fish.

Confidence can be as important as a well-worn lucky hat or trustworthy cows, but it also comes from hanging onto something for a very long time.

My favourite reel is a lightweight Marryat my father bought me almost 30 years ago. Coupled to my equally obsolete little 7’6” Daiwa Osprey this makes for an unbeatable small stream combo that is worth very little in monetary terms but is more valuable to me than any modern marvel. It is a joy to fish with even if I do occasionally get licked by an organism with the brain the size of a breadcrumb.

SMALL CHILDREN AND DOGS This is a difficult one but very important. I’ve always felt that if a child doesn’t have to pay for a plane ticket he/she’s probably too young to take fishing. However, as I don’t have any children I’ve decided I’m not qualified to speak on this. I am, however, qualified in the field of pets .

The hard truth is this: (undisciplined) animals and the crafty sport of flyfishing just don’t mix.

Believe me, I’ve tried; I have this image of my trusty Labrador sitting quietly on the bank marvelling at my patience as I move with the stealth of an otter catching fish at will. What actually happens is very different. First of all it’s not a trusty Labrador but a small ADHD Jack Russel tearing upstream to chase cows. “Never again,” you grumble into the collar of your oilskin as you watch the procession of black and white rumps bounding over the hill. Weather forecast for the small hound in the back of the bakkie? Cold, wet with a scattering of mild discomfort.

I’LL FISH FOREVER The second law of thermodynamics states that whether we like it or not, everything is in a state of disintegration and decay. This means as I get older, the lifetime warranty on my fly-rod doesn’t have to be that long anymore. My favourite rod is a 1949 split cane 6’6” small stream wand that 92 • Return to contents

I’ve had a long time. Even though it’s still my goto rod, lately it’s really starting to show its age. I try to convince myself that the creaking reel seat is character and it matches my creaking elbow just perfectly, but the sad truth is we are both in a steady state of decomposition.

I’m incredibly grateful for the decades I’ve been able to fish and the places I’ve been able to explore, and naturally I hope to have many more, but priorities definitely change as you get older. Now the time I spend on a river with my father is far more important to me than the number of fish I’ve bested.

Looking outside there is a heavy dew on the grass, a sure sign the weather will be clear. There are no cows to be seen, I’m sure all the electric fences will all be off and the small brown and tan dog is waiting expectantly at the front door.

What could possibly go wrong? As the seasons continue to roll on I plan to continue fishing forever or until I expire — whichever comes first. www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

NATIONAL

South African Fly Fishing Association News

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Left to right: Patrick O’Brien, Gerrit Redpath, Alison O’Brien and Jennifer Bruin.

by Cheryl Heyns T the recent South African Fly Fishing Association (SAFFA) AGM held in September, a new Management Committee was elected.

Cheryl Heyns (outgoing President) and Tim Tindall (outgoing Treasurer) retired after almost a decade of involvement in the organisation, while SAFFA Secretary, Sunet van Antwerpen resigned to concentrate on her ever-growing business.

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The new SAFFA President is Patrick O’Brien who hails from Kriel in Mpumalanga. Assisting Patrick will be Gerrit Redpath who stayed on as SAFFA Vice President.

The new Treasurer will be Alison O’Brien and the new Admin and Tournament Secretary is Jennifer Bruin from Polokwane.

Patrick has been fishing competitively since 2011 and he has fished in several A Nationals and B Nationals. He represented South Africa at the World Masters Fly Fishing Championships in 2016 (Galway – Ireland) and 2018 (Spain).

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DIY

In the Lim

BUILD A LIGHT

By Stelios Comninos

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ANY fly-tyers like to show off their flies and share them on social media while some just like to keep a photographic database of their flies. Most just snap away with their phones while others pose their flies and take seriously arty pics with serious cameras. If you like to show off or share your flies on social media or keep a photographic database, then having a fly photography light box makes sense.

After reading Andrew Mather’s article on how to build a fly photography light box in the August 2018 Durban Flytyers newsletter The Bobbin, I took an embarrassed look at the one I made over a year ago — supposedly only a temporary one to assess if I really needed a

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proper one. It was made from a floppy cardboard box with tissues as light diffusers and lighting was from my desk lamp from the top and two LED torches balanced on piles of books on either side. It was looking pretty dusty and ragged and should have been binned ages ago. It made some reasonable pictures, but I wanted something better.

One night while lying in bed trying to get myself to sleep by counting flies, I began to think of how I could build a pimped up light box and came up with a set of criteria: • It must have three light sources — left, right and top — with the ability to close off any light source and also to regulate and direct the amount of light on the fly through any one of them.

• There should be space enough inside the box

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me Light

T BOX AT HOME to be able to bring a camera close to the fly using its macro mode. â&#x20AC;˘ I would want the ability to choose from a range of colour backdrops.

My material choice for making the box was a piece of old backing board used for picture framing. It has a foam core laminated on both sides with paperboard and is really stiff and can be accurately and easily cut with a Stanley knife. Gorilla Glue was my choice of adhesive because it sticks like crazy and expands as it cures, filling all gaps and does not dissolve the foam core. However, it does a great job of staining your fingers and no solvent takes it off!

Not being able to use clamps, I instead used pins to hold the components together while the glue set.

Guided by the size of the available board, I

first made a box 230mm x 230mm x 230mm. I then worked out and marked the size and position of the light windows and cut out largish windows for maximum light. To enable a reduction or increase of light entering the box through each light window I made sliding shutters that can be opened or closed to regulate the amount of light on the fly. I made an extra set of shutters with a small opening for more focused and narrowed light. I also made a shelf for the fly stand and a stopper for the background sheets.

In the construction process I first cut and assembled the main box using the Gorilla Glue and pins as dowels to hold it all together. I also used pins as clamps (removed when the glue was dry) for the smaller components like the window sliders. I then assembled and glued all the

Far left: Front view of light box.

Left: Side view of the light box.

Above: Background card storage.

Below: The background colours Stelios uses.

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Shutter slider.

Window shutter mechanism.

components together and sprayed it with matt black paint. I should have used a water based paint because the spray paint dissolved some of the exposed foam core, but it was nothing serious. I then covered the outside of the box with black duct tape for durability.

To diffuse the light I covered the three light windows with tracing paper. For the side lights I used an electrical conduit junction box and an L-shaped stand, to which I attached the lamp holder and switch. I had to add a few lead sinkers in the conduit box to stabilise it. These side lights can be moved any distance from the windows and pointed in any direction to angle the light and change its intensity.

For the top light I constructed a little tower with the lamp holder inside it, attached to a piece of conduit. This light can be raised or lowered to change light intensity, and its position over the light window can also be changed. All globes are 3W Cool White LED. To change the background colour I bought a range of coloured cards which can be slipped in, one at a time, under the fly holder shelf, and I also to store them there.

Using the lightbox was an interesting experience and I am still on a steep learning curve. I used a handheld Nikon Coolpix AW130 camera point and shoot in automatic and macro mode.

This meant that the lens had to almost touch the fly. To do this I had to get my camera deep into the box and hold it really steady. It also meant that I was unable to adjust the aperture, shutter speed or ISO. I noticed that these variables changed by themselves depending on the background used.

What would be better is a good DSLR camera with macro capacity used in manual mode

and on a tripod. In this way the aperture and speed can be selected to get the exposure right and to get the depth of field needed to get the whole fly in focus, or to focus on a particular aspect of the fly.

I took photographs of a fly using the automatic setting on my Nikon Coolpix without changing the position of the fly or the lighting. I was surprised to see how different the fly looked when photographed with different coloured backgrounds and varied lighting.

If I made it again here are the things I would change: • A wider box so that it is easier to use the camera in the box if you want to use a cell phone or small handheld camera to get close up to the fly. Either that or get a DSLR with good macro capacity.

• Make removable tracing paper diffusers to get a sharp light on the fly if required; an external sliding shutter with tracing paper could do the trick instead of the fixed diffuser window. They should be able to be used in conjunction with the different window shutters.

• I would also consider another set of shutters with much smaller windows for more direct light on the fly so that the background is less stark.

My next project that I will be thinking of (instead of counting flies to go to sleep at night) will be a water-based fly photography chamber to take pictures of dry flies and emergers from the bottom up and from the sides. I have tried it already using a basin of water and placing my camera on the bottom and using my phone to operate it, but I can only use the zoom and the shutter. I will dream on ...

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PEOPLE

HO wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be smiling as broadly as this with a 12 pounder in magnificent surroundings? Meet Alison Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien from Kriel in Mpumalanga. This personal best beauty was landed at the Birchwood Fishery in Northern Island in September 2018. All round 2018 was a great year for Alison.

Alison started fishing socially about 20 years ago but she and husband Patrick have only been fishing competitively since 2011. From the onset she has shown tremendous talent and that, coupled with perseverance, support and a great team attitude has propelled her to the top of the game in South African womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flyfishing.

She received her first Protea blazer for the Commonwealth Championships in Canada in 2016. That year the South African womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s team was again the strongest all-woman team at the CFFC, an achievement they attained in Wales in 2010, Tasmania in 2012, Canada in 2016 and Northern Ireland in 2018.

By 2017 Alison had won an individual gold medal at the SAFFA Ladiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Nationals on the Vaal River and had again been selected as part of the SA Ladiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; team to attend the CFFC in Northern Ireland. She was awarded the Top Woman Angler with an impressive 17th position overall out of a field of 75 anglers.

To crown a good year of angling, Alison was selected as a member of the South African Women Mastersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Team to compete in the Mastersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; World Championships to be hosted by South Africa in Dullstroom in February 2019.

Alison is also a keen fly-tyer and is very active on the social front of all thing flyfishing. She competes in the Dullstroom Ladies Festival, the Stillwater Challenge, the Bonanza and the Float Tube festivals. She fishes for the Mpumalanga A side and has participated in 11 National tournaments â&#x20AC;&#x201D; A, B, Ladiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and Mastersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; events. In between all the fishing, she is mother to two grown children, an estate agent in Kriel, wife to Paddy and the new Treasurer of SAFFA.

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WOMEN IN WADERS

by Bridgitte Stegen

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NOTHER year has come and gone, and man it’s been a ride. Although it’s the year of the dog on the Chinese calendar, for the Women in Waders 2018 has been dubbed the year of the festival, as we attended four out of a possible seven over the last 12 months. What we have also come to realise is that with every festival came its own set of lessons learnt. Some we can carry through into “real life” if you will.

Looking back on the year, as one does, we can’t help but feel rather grateful for our flyfishing endeavours which brought a sense of adventure, escape and adrenaline amidst the chaos that was everyday life. I’d like to say we made the most out of the time we had available to fish our pristine waters, and we sure drank a lot of beer. We couldn’t think of a better way to head into the New Year than taking the time to reminisce and reflect back on the memory bank and lessons learnt from the last 365 days.

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The year started in a rush of Tops Corporate Challenge fever. Our unfortunate partners had been exposed to “hot goss (ip)” sessions since mid-2017 and as time drew closer, so the festival chatter became more frequent. Saturdays went from casual meandering about our still waters to more seriously planned practice sessions, none of which came without a small hiccup and many giggles. The first such hiccup we encountered was ironically our first lesson in creating lists & preparation. Having arrived at the dam sort of mid-way up the Kamberg road (read; it’s a f***king drive) we hopped out of the car enthusiastically, scanning the dam for “fishy” spots and creating our game plan. After a beer, a bush wee and a quick Instagram-worthy team pic, the unpacking began. Like Bolt running a 100m, in the blink of an eye we realised a key piece of equipment was missing.

LESSON 1: Where there are tubes, there needs to be a tube pump.

As you can imagine, the discovery of the missing piece left us standing amongst our now unpacked gear strewn across the autumn leaves and in front of the boot with bewildered looks of disbelief. Between the laughs there was a quick team re-group to decide if the tubes were worth the effort, before making the tactical decision to rectify this rookie situation. So back inside all the gear went, in we hopped and off we set, making our way back in the direction of home to the Wildfly store in

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Nottingham Road in search of a push-pull pump.

Lesson learnt.

It wasn’t even five months later that Sindi and I were road-tripping to NFFC waters in search of the tug when we stumbled across our rather valuable second lesson. We were so proud of ourselves — we had two tubes, all the tubing gear, four fishing rods and a cooler-box filled with beer (and ice for a change), all packed by 6:30am before we were off. Sunrise by Kygo was pumping in the background and boasting our “we don’t need men to do these things” attitudes. We arrive at the dam, scouting out the launch area and cracking a cold one before we set out to prep the tubes for the morning’s fishing. Once the waders were on, the rods set up, the flies chosen (my most difficult task) we were moving all the gear closer to our now chosen launch pad. By this stage, as most of you may relate to, you’re hot & bothered, need another drink and there’s this like raging urge to just get your line into the water while you imagine all the fish you would have already caught by this stage. So we forge on to the water’s edge to slip into our flippers and kick off.

LESSON 2: Tubing with only one flipper is not energy-efficient, nor is it conducive to fishcatching. Check all gear before you leave home.

There it was, about 40 minutes after we

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arrived, sitting on the side of the dam unable to go anywhere because one flipper just wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to cut it. After some innovative rubber engineering I was able to eventually put both my flippers on, but paddle with caution I did. It lasted a good two and a half hours before all the Castle Lites had caught up with me and I needed to make a pit-stop at our launching spot.

Needless to say our innovative engineering was but a temporary fix and I soon found myself right at the other end of the dam, in a rather fishy looking spot I might add, calling out into the wind for Sindi to come and tow me back to shore because have you ever tried tubing back against the wind with only one flipper? My flipperless foot just kept going round in circles and it is damn near impossible to do that without the threat of a hamstring cramp. Using the now completely broken flipper on my hand and one on my foot I was able to trawl my line in the water until Sindi could get down to me, with no idea whatsoever as to what I do would if I actually felt a tug on my line. All I know is the handflipper would have come off second best to losing the fish.

With two blanks, an equipment failure and having run out of food for lunch, what started as a rather inspirational, uplifting day as the Women in Waders turned out not to be our proudest day on the dam.

Unfortunately for the Women in Waders, 2018

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Sindi-Leigh McBain, Alison Smith, Bridgitte Stegen and Roxanne Stegen celebrate a successful year for Women in Waders. wasn’t going to be our year to make it to the finals of the TCC, so we took the money we saved, packed our bags and headed off on a ladies-only road-trip to the Dullstroom Ladies’ Fly Fishing Festival in the quaint town of the festival’s namesake.

This festival will be one of the highlights in my life for many years to come. From the day we arrived till the 1am closing time on the last night (after the jol of all jols) there was jam-packed action and adventure and a little flyfishing too.

Dullies is such a special place, one like no other.

We visited iconic places like Mavungana (seriously had to practice some restraint there) and we sipped on Naked Grouse at Wild about Whiskey — a stunning whiskey tasting bar with the southern hemisphere’s largest whiskey menu.

We had dinner at the intriguing Mrs Simpson and after a scrumptious meal drank shot after shot with the fabulous owners while reminiscing over old photos (some of which were of fellow women in waders like Genna George). We danced all night long at the Mayfly thanks to Chris who kept the place open for six women who weren’t quite ready for the weekend to end. We also met many brilliant, like-minded women who share in our love and passion for the fly, and in between all this we fished the renowned Dullstroom stillwaters.

Our third and last lesson for 2018 was probably our most valuable of all. The DLFFF is a team 102 • Return to contents

event which also includes individual prizes and works on a longest bag, i.e. catch as many fish as you can. This concept was something team WIW weren’t used to and it’s something that really tested us, especially Roxanne and me.

The two of us were completely unprepared for the emotional roller-coaster we were about to take off on.

LESSON 3: You will lose fish. You may lose many. Don’t forget to just fish for the enjoyment of it, take the pressure off the catch and the catch will come to you.

We lost more fish than we could count, and at one point it was actually pretty hard to believe we would ever be able to land a fish again. Fishing had never been such an emotional experience for the two of us and we explored feelings towards the sport we really never had before. It was a growing pain and an important one at that. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel for confidence and the will to continue. We forgot to just fish for the enjoyment of it and we put too much pressure on the catch. This realisation turned Roxanne’s day around on the last session, and while I made some poor tactical decisions that left me fishless I felt the palpable energy Roxanne was giving off and it brought us back around to see the light side of things.

2018 — what a year for the Women in Waders. Lessons learnt. Laughs had. Flyfishing now a part of our being. www.saflyfishingmag.co.za

CLUB DIRECTORY Club Name Bankberg

Location Contact E. Cape Alan Hobson alan@anglerandantelope.com http://www.wildflyfishinginthekaroo.co.za/pages/bankberg-troutfishers-club/ Queenstown Fly Fishing Club E. Cape Reg Morgan beehive66@vodamail.co.za http://www.qffc.co.za/ Amamatola Fly Fishing Club E. Cape Edward Truter truter.edward@gmail.com http://www.amatolaflyfishingclub.co.za/ EP Freshwater Fishing Conservancy E. Cape Brian Clark brianclark@spforge.co.za Maclear FFC E. Cape Colin Moolman mayfly@telkomsa.net Transkei Piscatorial Society E. Cape Shaun Horsfield bernihollyhorsfield@gmail.com http://www.transkeipiscatorial.co.za Barkly East FFC E. Cape Christo Buys bigtimeliquers@gmail.com; clarkbonita@gmail.com Sneeuberg Aquatic Conservancy E. Cape Hein Grebe hein.grebe@yahoo.com http://www.sneeubergac.co.za/ Bigmac Moshesh’s Ford Angling Club Eastern Cape Lucien Theron elty007@gmail.com http://rhodesvillage.co.za/moshesh/ Jacaranda Fly Fishing Club Gauteng Roy Lubbe jacarandaflyfishers@gmail.com http://www.jffc.co.za/ St Stithians Fly Fishing Club Gauteng Chris Williams chris@williamsandwilliams.co.za Transvaal Fly Fishing Club (TFFC) Gauteng Hugh Dean hughdean@mweb.co.za http://www.tffc.co.za/home/ Transvaal Fly Tyers Guild Gauteng Roger Upton rogeru@mweb.co.za http://flytyersguild.co.za/ Amberglen Fly Fishing Club KZN scotty01@telkomsa.net Durban Fly Tyers (DFT) KZN Andrew Mather andrewmather@telkomsa.net http://www.durbanflytyers.co.za/ Fly Fishing Association (FFA) KZN Vaughan Rimbault Laurence.Davies@durban.gov.za Kokstad Fly Fishing Club KZN Marius Jonker mariusjonker@telkomsa.net https://web.facebook.com/Kokstad-Fly-Fishing-Club-200971903281357/?_rdc=1&_rd Natal Fly Fishing Club (NFFC) KZN Andrew Fowler truttablog@gmail.com http://www.nffc.co.za/ South Coast Line Casters KZN Arthur Cary caryaj@xsinet.co.za Underberg-Himeville Trout Fishing Club KZN Bruce Taylor uhtfc.office@gmail.com brucetaylor32@hotmail.com http://www.uhtfc.co.za/ Upper South Coast Fly Club KZN Roger Gurr allclean@mweb.co.za Haenertsburg Trout Association Limpopo Zamps Zamparini delzamps@gmail.com http://www.htatrout.co.za/ Dullstroom Fly Fishers Association Mpumalanga Neil Nicholas neil@wre-eng.com https://web.facebook.com/Dullstroom-Fly-Fishers-Association-138906942857409/?_rdc=1&_rdr Sabie Fly Fishing Club Mpumalanga Andrew Kanaris bigskyout@mweb.co.za Cape Fly Fishers W. Cape Andrew Cockroft AndrewC@daff.gov.za Cape Piscatorial Society (CPS) W. Cape Herman Potgieter cpsoc@telkomsa.net https://www.piscator.co.za/CPS2/ Hermanus Flyfishing Club W. Cape Brian Bain tbrianbain@gmail.com http://hermanusflyfishing.com/ Join us on Facebook

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FESTIVAL

JOIN US IN OUR

MADNESS 2018 Cape Piscatorial Society Festival

By David Karpul

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E’VE all lost our minds and somehow, we’re happy about it. There is no treatment for our insanity; what is important now is that we surround ourselves with other mad people so that that we can at least pretend that this obsession with fishing is normal. I try hard to hold onto the memory of my confusion when my father first told me of his fishing holiday. I was baffled; “A holiday?” I puzzled, “Just for fishing?” It gives me context for how crazy I must now look to non-fishing muggles. Similarly, it’s easy for us to forget how difficult it was to get started on the streams; how daunting it was, not just in terms of gear and technique, but also logistically. We had to figure out where to go, where not to go, what the rules are and how to make bookings.

If you want to flyfish for trout in the surrounding areas of Cape Town, it’s not going to be long before you’re speaking to the Cape Piscatorial Society (www.piscator.co.za). Every year the CPS hosts their weekend long “River Festival” and 2018 was no exception. The festival is designed to get newbies onto the Cape streams but, as you’ll read below, the quality of the experience and value for money is so good that it’s hard not to go back year after year.

Many Cape anglers had their introduction to the streams through the festival, including myself and many of my regular fishing partners.

The CPS handpicks the best weekend of the season, usually towards the end of October when the fish are still strong and happy in the confident cool early summer flows, when the levels have dropped sufficiently to allow for easy fishing and safe wading. The warmth of the changing weather also brings a flurry of spring insects, wafting upstream in the gentle southeaster, seemingly ignorant of the predators below the sur face. While trout can always make fools of us all, Cape stream fishing doesn’t get better than this.

On the Friday evening guests started arriving at Du Kloof Lodge to find a goodie bag, several guides tying flies and a well-stocked bar waiting for them. The format is simple. Guests either book in pairs or are assigned into a pair, and each pair is assigned a guide and a beat for the next day’s fishing. The guides — Cape stream veterans, national flyfishing champions, Protea anglers and professional river guides — accompany the guests on the river for the Saturday.

That night there is a prize giving and after prize giving guests can book a beat to fish with any willing partner on the Sunday because all the beats are reserved for the festival. All meals are provided.

Super excited to guide once again, I listened

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eagerly to the draw for my guests. I struck gold — my two guests would be Hannes and Hannes, mates who had been at the 2017 festival, were both comfortable with a fly-rod, and best of all, I only had to remember one name!

The Hanneses took full advantage of the bar that night but assured me I’d not be waiting for them in the morning. I’d have lost money on that bet, as I approached the car early the next morning and found them waiting patiently, excited to head out. We watched a fish rising from the car as we setup our rods, and after a few practice casts into no man’s land, Hannes put a per fect cast, first time, over the fish, hooked it and landed it. A perfect start!

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Our experience of happy, strong fish, rising freely to dries was not beat dependant. The whole Smalblaar and Elandspad rivers were on fire (figuratively for a change). You get good days on the river and you get great days on the river, and speaking to all the guides that evening, this was the best I’ve ever heard of.

After some great fishing, a snake disturbing rising fish that Hannes had been nursing for 15 minutes, fresh plunger coffee (laced with fine Scotch) on the riverside, and Hannes’ largest fish of the day lost at the net by an incompetent guide, we made our way back to join the bustle in the bar and start the evening’s festivities.

Most of the anglers, sated by the fishing and

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defeated by what can only be described as an uncharacteristic October heatwave, found their way back to the bar by 4pm to watch WP tackle the Sharks in the Currie Cup final. Sadly WP had failed to receive the memo from the CPS, but, drink if you win and drink if you lose; the beer flowed like wine.

As if the amazing fishing, guide services and discounted accommodation and food are not enough, the for malities of the festival are capped with a prize giving. Every guest wins a prize at random, ranging from books and DVDs, through art, weekends at guest houses and crescendoing into lines, reels and truly high-end rods. On average, the guests probably get

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more back in the prize giving than they pay for the event.

In many regards the 2018 CPS river festival has set new benchmarks. For me, the true test of the festival is not how many fish were caught — surely the most ever — or how many people swam in the koi ponds (officially zero), but rather how many people now feel empowered to grow their fishing and to venture onto the streams; anglers who no longer consider a new beat a scary prospect. In short, I expect the attendees reported home with signs of the madness for which we seek no cure, only company.

T ight lines everyone and see you next year.

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