Fishing for Umko Scalies Andrew Harrison It surely makes life easier taking advice from experienced anglers, but cracking the code by one’s self is inestimably more satisfying, no matter that it was by accident. The path was marked with orange sticky notes. It cut through dense bush with the Umkomaas river noisy but hidden by a wall of brush and reeds. A male bushbuck, horns laid back, flushed nimbly up the shale scree, somehow negotiating a steep passage through the thorn thickets.
my son, Ruari, not hampered by knee replacements, skipped ahead. Missing sticky notes should have given away that we were on the wrong track in spite of the well-worn path that we were following. Noting my puffing progress; “Stay here Dad, I’ll check it out,” came a distant call from around the corner. Not to be deemed ‘past it’ I soldiered on to finally catch up and survey seemingly the only path down to the river. An irrigation pipeline offered a route clear of scrub but loose gravel and a daunting slope was not going to make it easy. It crossed my mind that the laying of the pipeline must have been a major challenge.
The path got progressively steeper as the rising sun reduced the river to a silver ribbon in a canyon and a raptor’s view of a leguaan swimming undisturbed across the current. Using my rod case as a staff, I struggled up the winding and increasingly steep path as
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