Fishing the Umko for scalies by 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.

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 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.

With the prospect of retracing our steps down the equally precarious path recently travelled, the call of the river after a sweaty climb, swayed the decision. The rod case, containing my precious Dean’s Bigwater, was again sacrificed as a walking staff to prevent a 50m tumble into the boulder-strewn floodplain.

The trip was a first. A first in a hunt for the

Natal scaly and a visit to the Umkomaas, courtesy of a local famer. Taking advice from articles in angling periodicals, we strode forth, confident in our ability.

The river-rounded boulders that littered the river bed and reed-fringed banks, made wading difficult and often treacherous in this stretch of the river but an occasional drenching was welcome.

An arm-aching five hours later under a blazing sun, the temperature topping 42 d e g r e e s a c c o r d i n g t o t h e c a r ’ s thermometer, we had success. In a state of angling ennui in a long, deep, slow-moving pool bordered by a sheer rock face, numerous frustratingly rising fish and under the spell of the spectacular scenery, the fish

hooked itself!

Brough to the net with reverence and the obligatory photos, it was eased back into the depths of the pool. Seconds later my son hooked into a whiskered grey head that poked its head clear of the water. Two fish under a blistering sun was scant reward for our efforts.

What had we done wrong? The farmer had assured us that they had ‘clubbed’ the fish on the previous weekend.

Back on the river the following Sunday, armed with a box-full of newly tied size 18 and 20 bead-heads in any description you wish to imagine. We were determined.

Enlightened by the previous weekend, having followed the orange stickies marking a path along the river bank back to the car, the mountaineering start to our previous visit was avoided as we negotiated many rapids and pools that had escaped us on an easily navigable path - one bush and a sandy drop-off having concealed an otherwise obvious entrance.

Years in front of a laptop screen had even made the ‘Clicks 2+’ spectacles redundant and it was left to my son to knot the spiderweb of fluorescent leader, strike indicator and flies while I enjoyed the scenery beside an inviting rapid where we had previously started fishing.

Handed my rod while Ruari sorted himself out, the idea was to cast up and across to some likely looking water along the far-side bank. Hot from the walk and working out some kinks in a stiff casting arm, the first cast landed in the middle of the fast water. The strike indicator dipped and remembering advice from some or another article that takes were subtle although most often just the fly bouncing along the bottom, I struck.

The line ripped off downstream and a strong fish was played as delicately as if it were a marlin before being netted. The feeding fish were in the fast water, not in the pools like we originally thought! The day passed in a blur of fish as we prospected all likely rapids, Ruari’s newly acquired 3-weight, often bent into the cork.

Once, in an effort to avoid a rock-strewn flat to the last accessible rapid, I detoured through some thick bank-side brush and a pair of warthogs got the heart racing as they barrelled out of a hidden wallow.

With the sun, low we headed back to the car, passing a group setting up camp for the night with rods pointing into the ‘home’ pool like quills on a porcupine, bait tins alongside camp chairs and beer coolers.

Light fading quickly but tempted by the last rapid that emptied into a deep rock-fringed slot, it produced the fish of the day.

Buoyed by success, the following Sunday we were confronted by a ribbon of muddy water as the mid-week thunder storms had triggered the dreaded run-off and high water, ideal for the hordes of canoeists but marking the end of the spring scaly season on the Umkomaas.

Fishing for Umko Scalies