Flyfishing june 2018

AFRICA’S ORIGINAL

MAGAZINE

MAN VS MYTH

www.africanangler.com

OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF FOSAF

June/July 2018 Vol. 31 No. 167

Ed Truter Stand up

FAT & JUICY

Rethinking the rockworm

DOWN A RABBIT HOLE Critique of DEA’s risk assessment

MONSTER COCKS

2018 Nationals in Kamberg

CONTENTS

Volume 31 Number 167 June 2018 COVER: Competitive Edge Daniel Factor with a 20-inch brown trout caught on the Bushman’s River during the 2018 Senior A National Flyfishing Championships. See pg 14.

FEATURES

8

Don’t Take a Knife to a GUN Fight Lessons from the masters — by Andrew Savs

10

Down the Rabbit Hole A critique of DEA’s risk assessments — by Andrew Mather and Ian Cox

14

Monster Cocks Competitive fishing in the Kamberg produces the goods — by David Karpul

26

My First Fly Part 2:Techniques for attaching materials — by Peter Brigg

25

32

Man vs Myth Getting the low down on Ed Truter — by Gordon van der Spuy

30

Vaal Grandslam Catching three ten-pounders in a day — by Terry Babich

32

Fat and Juicy Rethinking the Green Rockworm — By Ed Herbst

34

The Raging Riffles of Rhodes 2018 Epson Wild Trout Association Festival — by Anglerfish

42

Undervalued Giant Getting to know Laurence Davies — by Peter Brigg

45

30

Road Tripping Escaping the madding crowd — by Duncan Steyn

50

Ugly Duckling Restored Successful back-end days with Danish salmon — by Terkel Broe Christiansen

57

Blast from the Past: Dry Fly in the Dargle

34

All hail the DDD — by Bill Duckworth

DEPARTMENTS 6 7

From the Editor — by Sheena Carnie Items of Interest to FOSAF members

49 58

Junior Flyfishers Directory Adverts;Ad Index

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 5

Publisher: Erwin Bursik

FROM THE EDITOR

Editor: Sheena Carnie

THE FIGHT IS NOT YET OVER

Advertising Executive: Mark Wilson Editorial Assistants: Vahini Pillay Advertising Consultant: Joan Wilson Administration Executive: Anne Bursik Accountant: Jane Harvey Contributors: Terry Babich, Peter Brigg, Terkel Christiansen, Ian Cox, Ed Herbst, David Karpul, Jan Korrubel,Andrew Mather,Andrew Savs, Duncan Steyn and Gordon van der Spuy.

Advertising – National Sales: Angler Publications cc Telephone: (031) 572-2289 Mark Wilson cell: 073 748 6107 Joan Wilson: adverts@mags.co.za Publishers: Angler Publications cc PO Box 20545, Durban North 4016 Telephone: (031) 572-2289 Fax: (031) 572-7891 e-mail:

angler@mags.co.za

Subscriptions to FLYFISHING The digital version of FLYFISHING magazine is available free of charge via <www.issuu.com>

Full production is done in-house by Angler Publications on Apple Macintosh hardware and software.

FLYFISHING, ISSN 1011-3681, is published bi-monthly (six times per annum) by Angler Publications cc, Registration No. CK

A

S I mentioned in the April 2018 issue of FLYFISHING, in recent months there has been a resurgence of activity around the listing of trout (and many other species of animals and plants) as Sheena Carnie invasive aliens. The trout defence stepped up to the next level in April when Ian Cox made a presentation to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee for the Environment as part of a team representing 18 organisations, including FOSAF. On page 10 you can read Andrew Mather and Ian Cox’s critiqueof The Department of Environmental Affairs’ risk assessments as well as a summary of the presentation to Parliament.

That presentation achieved a small victory in that Minister Molewa subsequently agreed to make further information available to the public and to extend the period for public comment.

This fight is far from over, though, and there is still a great deal of apathy among those who will be affected if the NEMBA policy is fully implemented in its current form.

As Ian Cox recently wrote on the Trout Talk FaceBook page,“A small number of trout anglers have fought DEA to a standstill by insisting that it follow the rules when trying to list a species as invasive. This tactic is technically demanding and hugely time consuming for those involved. This may be why it is so seldom used.

“One normally speaks to government on behalf of organisations representing large or influential constituencies. We, who have been engaged in the trout fight, have not enjoyed that luxury because fly anglers — even those who fish for trout — are by and large disinclined to support organisations like FOSAF. They prefer to cheer from the sidelines. They shy away, even to the point of becoming aggressive, when asked to join FOSAF. It is as if they fear fighting for the future.

“Perhaps they are worried that if they fight they will be responsible for the failure so may fly anglers see as inevitable.

“There are of course a number of notable exceptions to this, but the exception is not enough. We cannot rely upon the efforts of a few to protect the many, no matter how successful this may have been up until now. We need to find within us the faith to fight for a future we want. If we do not we will inevitably find ourselves living in the future we fear.

“The war on trout will not go away unless there is a serious change in government thinking. That is not impossible, but we need to encourage the conditions where such a change is possible.

“You cannot assume that organisations like FOSAF or people like me will always be around to make the personal sacrifices to fight on alone and unaided in the defense of trout and its value chain. We can win the trout fight and we can win a future all South Africans can be proud of. I think we in the trout fight have shown that this is possible in our small way, but the broader community needs to get involved. This means fly anglers need to get involved by joining FOSAF. Fly anglers need to do this in their thousands and not just in dribs and drabs.

If we do not, it will ultimately be our indolence that destroys the trout value chain rather than government’s malfeasance.”

Regular updates on this subject are posted on Trout Talk’s Facebook page, among others, so keep an eye on that. In the meantime, if you haven’t already done so, please join FOSAF and pledge to support Trout SA, two organisations which are working hard on our behalf.

Happy reading.

Sheena Carnie

88/05863/23.

• Copyright is expressly reserved and nothing may be reproduced in part or whole without the permission of the publishers. 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.

6 • FLYFISHING June 2018

SAFFA YOUTH NATIONALS 2018 — HOSTED BY BOLAND N October an estimated 70 youth anglers will be testing their skills on Cape streams and stillwaters to be crowned National Champions. The 2018 SAFFA Youth Nationals will take place from 3 to 7 October at Du Kloof Lodge, Rawsonville. Teams from Boland, Western Province, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, Northern Gauteng and KZN will be competing along with an international team from Czech Republic.

Any youth angler wishing to join a province can visit the SAFFA website <http://flyfishsouthafrica.co.za/fly-fishing-provinces/> to get the relevant contact details. The top 16 youth anglers (based on a two-year ranking list) are invited to Protea trials to try for a spot in the six-man Youth Protea Team who compete at FIPS Youth World Championships.

Any corporate or individual wishing to sponsor towards the event is welcome to contact Louis de Jager on <louisdejager.acs@gmail.com> or 0742304991.

I

FOSAF NEWS

JUNE WINNER HIS issue’s winner of the FOSAF members’ draw is Andre van Winkel (membership no EV004) of Cintsa, East London.

His prize is a weekend for two at Highland Lodge on a selfcatering basis.

Highland Lodge is a stillwater flyfishing destination in the Stormberg region of the North Eastern Cape. These fertile, high altitude waters, stocked yearly, are known for producing good sized quality trout, like this 14.5-pounder (right) caught in Syd’s Dam by Iain Ewing. The lodge offers both catered and self-catering farmstyle accommodation.

For further information visit <www.highlandlodge.co.za>, email <admin@highlandlodge.co.za> or phone 087 5500 763.

T

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2017/18

By Ilan Lax

I

T is an honour to once again report to FOSAF’s executive, membership and other external stakeholders on our activities, challenges and achievements during the past year.

STATE While FOSAF continued to engage in good faith with government departments to have the Phakisa win-win implemented, our efforts were not reciprocated. We were able to successfully finalise the process of mapping “where trout occur”.

However, despite completing the process and some cooperation from many of the provincial conservation authorities as well as the SANBI technical staff, no final maps were forthcoming from DEA. Our offers to work with the DEA and others on harmonising the legislation (national and provincial) to facilitate the agreed enabling environment for the trout value chain were never taken up.

In June last year DEA unilaterally reneged on the Phakisa agreement. This breach of trust by government was reported to the Phakisa Steering Committee and then further escalated

by Aquaculture SA on our behalf.

DEA again showed their bad faith by publishing new draft AIS regulations that seek to list trout as invasive. We have rallied support against this unfortunate development and we are grateful for the many letters and submissions made to the DEA in this regard by flyanglers and other trout value chain stakeholders. In addition we have also recently pulled together a consortium of stakeholders that include agriculture and game farming elements.

We are grateful for the support we have received and the thousands of hours (and all your kind donations) that have been invested by the trout value chain and others.

PUBLIC I am more than a little puzzled when people appear to know little or nothing about FOSAF and what it is we do.

Objectively speaking, FOSAF continues to maintain a visible presence on the internet and social media. We are once again indebted to Peter Arderne, his cadre of reporters across the

country and the webmaster Andrew Vester for ensuring our relevance and profile.

Every year over the last while we have bemoaned the fact that FOSAF needs to find a way to foster youth, race and gender and to involve communities, especially in the rural areas where flyfishing is often an important potential contributor to livelihoods. This remains a priority. Some work is being done in KZN by Andrew Fowler and his team and it is heartening to see that the Northern region’s youth education project has begun to reach a sizable number of historically disadvantaged young people. Our congratulations go out to Chris Williams and his team.

FOSAF continues to be an active member of Trout SA nationally. Our involvement with TSA has provided a useful entre to AGRI SA and BUSA. Thus after presenting to AGRI SA’s natural resources committee they agreed to make submissions on the NEMBA AIS regulations. This means we are able to leverage support at a much more effective level.

EXCO & CHAPTERS Once again our thanks go to Stuart and Liz Tough as the Secretariat and Treasury who act as a vital fulcrum for communication by keeping us all in touch. Once again I also wish to thank our President Andrew Levy and vice-presidents Tom Sutcliffe and Bill Mincher for their wise counsel and inputs from time to time.

My thanks to the Chapter Committees under the able leadership of Martin von Holdt (and Brian Clark), Jim Read (and Tom Bloy), Leonard Flemming and Chris Williams respectively.

It important to note that our Chapters have remained healthy with some growth evident.

As I said last year I really believe flyfishing in South Africa is undergoing a renaissance: The continuance of the Fly Fishing Film Tour SA, The Fly-Tying and -fishing Expo and the many festivals as well as the highly supported flyfishing social media platforms all auger well for a resurgence of the multifaceted sport we all love so dearly.

NOTE: This is a shortened version of the Chairman’s report.

The full report can be found at <www.fosaf.co.za/documents/Nat-Chair-Report-2018.pdf>.

JOIN FOSAF NOW

B

ECOME a member and make a contribution to FOSAF’s most important projects, thus assuring the future of flyfishing in South Africa. For further information refer to the FOSAF website. In addition, members may purchase our FOSAF Guide to Flyfishing and the Favoured Flies books at extremely low prices. These items make ideal gifts for a friend or a newcomer to the sport. To join and for more details visit <www.fosaf.co.za> or contact Liz on (011) 467-5992 or email <fosaf@icon.co.za>.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 7

FIRST BITE

T

HE Sensei’s signature fly has become the straight-up, handsdown, odds-on, runaway favourite in the fly-boxes of my small circle of friends.

The fly itself accurately represents the purist’s personal vision of hell. It is a precocious collection of wholly synthetic materials that are snarled onto a hook in a dozen intricate steps, restrained in their unlikely positions by fine silver wire, scribbled on with an indelible pen, dubbed sparingly and finally liberally glazed-over with UV goop. I don’t know whether the goop is for effect, durability or just because all of the cool kids seem to be using it on everything these days.

As an imitative pattern the thing is an abomination. It has the looks and charm of the fairy tale monster that terrorises the villagers, only on a jig hook and without even one of the redeeming qualities of the archetypal village monster so coveted by Disney film makers.

It’s not cute.

It is to carbon fibre and titanium what the Ginger Quill is to tweed and bamboo. It doesn’t even hang the right way up, for heaven’s sake, much less float.

Despite all of this I can tell you without fear of contradiction that this pattern is a cutting post-modern masterpiece of design and frightening efficacy.

The pattern is composed almost exclusively of ultraviolet materials of such potent merit that it glows before your eyes in the faintest sunlight as if you’d gone and pushed your nose too close up to a supernova. Staring at it

8 • FLYFISHING

June 2018

for lengthy periods has been known to cause arc eye.

How a trout can perceive it as something even vaguely edible is an enigma well beyond the grasp of human reason. My personal theory on why they take it is that the post-apocalyptic radiation emanating from the pattern has a similar effect on a fish that a sign reading “wet paint, do not touch” does to a human — it makes it entirely impossible for one not to touch, or in this case, eat it. That it is a favourite of our supposedly wily resident browns is a fact that keeps me awake nights.

Of interest to those who concern themselves with the intricacies of radical fly design, the UV materials used in its construction are only a minor contributing factor to its success. Much like the American First Lady, the real secret to its success lies in its legs. They are thinner than those of a catwalk model, as pliable as an elected representative and as durable as systemic racism.

Don’t think for a second that the stuff you have in your drawer or the packet that you saw at the store will do for the legs on this thing; I guarantee you that those materials are at least five times thicker than what is required. To give you some insight into this, consider that the supplier recently switched manufacturers and the new crowd makes them one full micron bigger than the original.

This is considered a potentially calamitous circumstance among aficionados of the pattern.

To make matters worse, I am led to

understand that the entire global availability of the leg material is restricted to one supplier in North America. Or rather, it was. The Supermodel has bought out their entire supply. (I swear I’m not making this up.)

While it was McGupta who awakened us to the potential of this pattern, it is The Supermodel who most highly extols its virtues. He does it with an evangelical conviction such that it would make the great martyrs of the Old Testament blush and stammer as they realise that, comparatively, they look just a little bit tentative in their faith.

It speaks to his mind-set that this pattern, in 12 well-ordered rows, resides in a shiny new box reserved for it alone. All other patterns he relegates to a shabby old container (much battered over the passing of his great many summers), and he refers to them as “all my other flies” when he very infrequently attempts to mine the box out from the forgotten reaches of his backpack.

This all sounds a little far-fetched, but do not for a second think that I am suggesting that either of the aforementioned fellows are predisposed to rush headlong into compulsive behaviour or that they are inclined to mindlessly follow trends. Their faith in this pattern is swayed not by any determinant other than the fact that, within our group of four anglers, during the course of the last season it has taken a little in excess of six brace of fish longer than 20 inches and a few dozen more an inch or three shorter than that.

Despite my habitual cynical misgiv-

ings I find it impossible to argue against their point, having on one occasion personally taken a combined 53 inches of fish in three successive casts (on a river that I’d obviously not care to mention in print) during an otherwise dreary day and only after I changed to the pattern.

Consequently, and true to his nature, The Supermodel now owns more than two-thirds of the global supply of the component materials necessary to tie this pattern. He doesn’t even tie them himself but passes his bounty on in discreet allotments to McGupta and Goose who are forced, under threat of bloody disembowelment, to slave away through every available waking minute to produce for him row upon row of neat flies, each identical to the one next to it.

The Supermodel shows scant appreciation for their efforts as he critically turns each f ly over in his palm to check the length of the tails and the angle of the legs (a difference of a few degrees apparently makes an acute difference to the performance of the fly).

He will not accept anything less than perfection. In fact, his lust for the things has reached a pathological level.

In a moment of sheer desperation he once took a few of the pattern from my own box.

“Savs,” he spat venomously when we met up on the stone stoop to avoid a late morning summer thunderstorm, “your flies are shit. You’re useless. They don’t last more than one bite. I’ve got at least eight of them in my patch and not a single one could be used twice after landing a good fish.”

Now look, I don’t know where you stand on these things, but if I tie eight flies and they consecutively catch eight good fish they can’t be all that bad.

Those are the sort of odds that a garden variety angler like me happily sells his soul for. Besides, at the rate that these guys lose them durability hardly matters.

Years from today someone is going to make a fortune panning tungsten balls from a few of our favourite rivers.

Geologists are going to scratch their heads and revisit their professional methodology as they try to understand how tungsten of such pure quality, in roughly spherical form and in increments of precisely 0.5mm in size is being sifted from alluvial deposits in rivers where it has no place being.

Far be it for an unlettered hacker such as me to suggest that this may be the finest attractor style nymph ever devised, but today I bought myself a shiny new fly-box dedicated only to this pattern.

On the lid, with a steady hand and a twisted grin, I cryptically wrote: “Don’t Take a Knife to a GUN Fight”.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 9

CONTROVERSY

DOWN THE R

A critique of DEA’s tr

By Andrew Mather and Ian Cox

A

S many of you will know, the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) published draft Alien Invasive Species (AIS) lists and regulations for comment on 16 February 2018. The contents of these draft AIS lists and regulations created a public outcry especially in the flyfishing community both in South Africa and abroad. Many of you wrote to the DEA in this regard and would have got a standard response to which were attached so called brown and rainbow trout risk assessments apparently justifying the Minister’s decision to list these species as invasive.

Ian Cox and I decided to write this article as a critique of these “trout risk assessments” and in order to inform fellow flyfishers of just how weak these assessments are.

POLICY, LAW MAKING NEMBA AND TROUT Government makes policy, but its policy can only be implemented if sanctioned by law. This requires the 10 • FLYFISHING June 2018

approval of Parliament through legislation. Parliament normally delegates the power to make rules (regulations) dealing with the implementation of laws.

The National Environmental Biodiversity Act (NEMBA) is an exception to this general rule as it was enacted without the benefit of a formally adopted policy. This hugely complicated the administration of NEMBA as there is nothing outside NEMBA and its regulations to guide government and the public in the implementation of the law.

This is especially so in the case of identifying invasive species. NEMBA does not say how this must be done and there are no regulations saying how this must be done either. This confusion is made worse by the fact that the interpretation of the definition of an invasive species is hotly disputed.

The trout value chain says that trout are not invasive as the term is defined in law. Showcasing the “trout risk assessments” is the DEA’s attempt to prove that trout are invasive.

It is interesting to note that the DEA has only undertaken such risk assessments for trout, despite originally listing

some 559 species as invasive. The DEA says it is unreasonable for the public to expect the Minister to explain why species are listed as invasive.

It is also interesting to note that the DEA has relied on the risk assessment process prescribed in the 2014 AIS regulations in preparing the “trout risk assessments”. This is not an appropriate tool because these risk assessments are used once a species has been listed as invasive in order to assist the DEA in deciding if permits may be issued to landowners authorising the possession and/or use of listed invasive species.

This is problematic because species can only be listed as invasive if they pose an ecological threat and that this also causes harm to the economy, human health or the ecosystem services which sustain human health and wellbeing. This is according to the definition of invasive contained in NEMBA. Risk assessments, on the other hand, assume that the species has already been identified as invasive and thus only look at the threat or potential threat to all or any of the above. The result is that the regulatory framework

RABBIT HOLE

rout risk assessments that applies to risk assessments only looks at the downside position and on the basis that any impact on indigenous biodiversity by an alien species that can establish in the wild is a threat.

This may be why the trout risk assessments do not deal with the definition of invasive. However, inexplicably, they do not deal with the requirement contained in section 89 of NEMBA that benefits must also be considered when determining whether to grant a permit to possess or use a listed invasive species.

The trout risk assessments thus start from the assumption that trout are invasive and then, by partially applying the framework for risk assessments, seek to establish that this starting point is somehow valid. This is inherently illogical, even irrational.

Furthermore, the trout risk assessments ignore subsection section three of the risk assessment framework described in section 14 of the 2104 AIS Regulations.

These provisions require an assessment of, inter alia: • the severity of the risks and conse-

quences of the realisation of the risks for other species, habitats and ecosystems; • the potential costs associated with the control of the species to minimise harm to biodiversity; and • options for minimising the potential risks.

This is despite these factors being fundamental to the enquiry whether or not a species is invasive and whether it should be listed as such.

Silly factual errors were also made, such as assuming that trout can establish themselves permanently in the wild in areas where winter water temperatures are low enough to sustain trout.

No consideration was given to whether trout could survive in those waters year round as is required for a species to establish, or whether trout could breed in those waters. Similarly, the fact that trout do not breed in stillwaters was ignored. The goal was clearly to suggest a much larger area where trout are established in the wild than is supported by the facts.

This inclination to play fast and loose with the facts carries through

into the examples given to suggest that trout are invasive. These examples all speak to alleged impacts as if an impact equates to a threat. None of them link impacts to harm to the economy, human health or ecosystem services.

Furthermore, the research relied upon is site specific and often data deficient, yet it is being used to justify claims that trout are invasive across the country.

So it seems that DEA did not address the weakness inherent in the use of an inappropriate process but instead chose to bend the rules to suit its preconceived idea that trout are invasive.

But perhaps the most egregious failing in the trout risk assessments lies in who prepared them. The AIS regulations deal extensively with who may prepare risk assessments. However, the regulation is problematic in that it prescribes separate qualification standards for risk assessments undertaken by the DEA and the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) on the one hand and everyone else on the other.

Any authorised employee of SANBI or the DEA may undertake a risk assessFLYFISHING June 2018 • 11

ment. Moreover, the identity of that person need not be disclosed in the risk assessment. Furthermore, DEA and SANBI’s risk assessment need not be independently reviewed by an expert.

Much tougher rules apply to everyone else. Risk assessments must be undertaken by independent and suitably qualified Risk Assessment Facilitators who must, as a basic minimum, be registered in terms of the National Scientific Professions Act. The tough rules that qualify Risk Assessment Facilitators are a good thing as this provides for a peer based system that aims to ensure independence and professionalism, as well as giving clients and the public some recourse if the Risk Assessment Facilitator is negligent or operates in fields where he or she is not qualified. Most importantly, it provides the public with a reasonable assurance that registered persons are independent, competent, ethical and professional.

The public has no such assurance when dealing with a risk assessment prepared by DEA or SANBI. This double standard is probably unlawful, but it also has serious practical drawbacks that go beyond the lack of integrity inherent in DEA’s internal risk assessment processes. Peer review is just that. So how does a non-professional “scientist” legitimately review the work of a registered professional scientist? Professional institutions do not take kindly to a registered member’s work being reviewed by persons of no professional standing. It makes a mocker y of the peer review system and destroys legitimacy and functionality of the process itself.

DEA and SANBI do not have to disclose who authored their risk assessments. This is problematic as it makes it difficult to determine if the person undertaking the risk assessment is suitably qualified to do so.

However, if you delve into the meta data embedded in the electronic versions of the “approved risk assessments”, you will find that Philip Ivey is described as the author and that the documents were created by him on 6 March 2018. This was actually three weeks after the Draft AIS lists were published for comment on 16 February!

Interestingly, both documents were subsequently modified by Dr Guy Preston 12 • FLYFISHING June 2018

the following day.

This is consistent with earlier draft versions which were also created by Mr Ivey and later modified by Dr Preston.

Dr Preston is the Deputy Director General at DEA and is the driving force behind DEA’s efforts to list trout as invasive. He is on record as saying that he is convinced that trout are invasive. Mr Ivey used to work for SANBI but retired in 2016 and was working at the Centre for biological control, Zoology and Entomology at Rhodes University when the trout risk assessments were “approved”.

Mr Ivey did not work for either DEA or SANBI when the approved trout risk assessments were finalised. Furthermore, it is difficult to see how he can be suitably qualified given that his field of expertise is botany.

A search in April 2018 of the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions registered persons database <www.sacnasp.co.za> does not reflect Mr Ivey or Dr Preston as registered professional scientists.

But it is worse than that. Both men are hopelessly conflicted. Dr Preston’s involvement is grotesque given his preconceived views regarding trout and the role he has and is still playing to try and get trout listed as invasive. Mr Ivey was appointed as the independent facilitator responsible for driving the trout mapping exercise around the time the first version of the trout risk assessments were published. Yet he did not disclose his role in preparing these risk assessments at any time during his appointment. He was later required to give up this role after FOSAF and Trout SA lodged a formal complaint that he was biased.

So what we have is DEA briefing people who are demonstrably incapable and even unqualified to make an independent assessment of whether trout are in fact invasive, applying an inappropriate process to the question which is then adapted to avoid any inconvenient facts that suggest that this is not the case.

These “trout risk assessments” fall way short of what is legally required to justify listing trout as invasive. The risk assessments provided are so fundamentally flawed on so many levels that one wonders how they were ever allowed into the public domain let alone to be

used to justify listing trout as invasive.

At one level they point to why it is undesirable that DEA should not be subjected to the same standards as that required of the public. At another it is clear is that these risk assessments are a very poor attempt to pass off what appears to be a biased, unscientific, slapdash and perhaps even a disingenuous attempt to justify the belief that trout are invasive in South Africa despite the lack of any evidence to this effect.

DEFENDING THE ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHT (AND TROUT) IN PARLIAMENT

By Ian Cox

T

HE Portfolio Committee for the Environment held hearings in late April on changes that the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) wants to make to South Africa’s environmental laws including National Environmental Management Act (NEMBA).

The amendments will do away with the present legal regime that restricts DEA to listing a species as invasive in order to eradicate that species or take steps to remove and contain it. Instead DEA will be given wide discretionary powers not only to list species as invasive but also to decide what must be done with a species once it has been listed as invasive.

I participated in these hearings as part of a team representing a constituency of 18 organisations which includes FOSAF and whose livelihoods depend on the sustainable use of biological resources We adopted a different approach to most parties presenting to the Portfolio Committee in that we asked the Portfolio Committee to uphold and defend the Constitution, the rule of law and due process rather than amend NEMBA in any particular way.

We pointed out that DEA had somehow contrived to enact NEMBA without completing the green and white paper policy-making process. We complained that DEA were in fact trying to implement NEMBA by applying its draft biodiversity white paper which was published for discussion in 1997. This is despite the fact that the nature-first

(biocentric) approach that this draft policy document recommended was in conflict with the people-first (anthropocentric) approach required in terms of the Constitution and our environmental law.

We suggested that one of the reasons that NEMBA is failing as a law is because DEA’s nature-first approach and the values which drives this thinking are fundamentally misaligned with Constitutional values. This misalignment has resulted in material failures in legally required due process which has in turn resulted in laws of doubtful legality that cannot be and are not being implemented.

Our presentation was well received.

The Portfolio Committee was particularly concerned by the lack of a formally adopted white paper.

DEA acknowledged that the biocentric focus of managing indigenous animals on the basis that they were locally alien (extra limital) outside their natural distribution range was harming the game industry and needed to be reconsidered.

Unfortunately DEA were not prepared to relent on the trout issue. Dr Preston continued to insist that trout are invasive and must be permitted as such. Otherwise, he said, trout anglers and farmers could do as they please.

However, insistence that trout are invasive was blunted by DEA’s acknowledgment that the draft biodiversity white paper was never formally adopted, but that it applied the draft white paper as if it is policy despite this fact.

DEA also acknowledged that its lawmaking could be interpreted in ways that were contrary to the Constitution and its values, but assured the Portfolio Committee that this is not what they meant.

The trouble is that laws should be applied in in compliance with what the law says and not what the officials mean. Another problem is that what the officials say they mean does not align with what they are doing. The effect of making these amendments law will give DEA very wide discretionary powers which will make it easier for officials to do what they are doing at present which is continue making up the law as they go along.

We asked Parliament to delay any further amendments to NEMBA until government adopts a proper policy developed through an authentic public participation process. We think that this is long overdue given that NEMBA was enacted almost 14 years ago.

DEA still needs to make formal written submissions after which we will see what Parliament decides to do.

NOTE: On 30 April Dr BEE Molewa, Minister of Environmental Affairs, wrote to the consortium of interested and affected parties, of which FOSAF is one such party, stating: “After considering the various submissions made, I have decided to extend the comment period for the amendments to the Alien and Invasive Species Lists and Regulations.

“These proposed amendments are important and there is clearly a need to allow for additional time for members of the public to provide inputs on the proposals. I will therefore in due course publish a Gazette notice and a notice in a national newspaper, extending thre period for a further 30 days.

“The Department will also make available on its website the socio-economic impact assessment, various risk assessments and other documents which provide the background and rationale for the proposed amendments. While I am of the view that not all of this information is strictly necessary to enable the public to comment, much of this information has already been sent to various organisations and individuals as per their request over the last few weeks.”

Keep an eye on the Trout Talk Facebook page for regular updates.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 13

COMPETITIVE

Silver medalist, Daniel Factor of Western Province with a good-sized brown trout caught during a practice session.

Photo by Garth Nieuwenhuis.

14 â&#x20AC;¢ FLYFISHING June 2018

Competitive fishing in the Kamberg

By David Karpul

“T

HAT’S a bow wave.” I said with a surprising amount of calm in my voice, having never seen anything like it. I lifted my rod tip to the side, on the hang, and a 6 lb monster, in full breeding colours, engulfed my biggest Zonker at point blank range — a well hung cock. I knew then I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

I had been brought to a secret stillwater in KwaZulu-Natal to learn what real trout were while I prepped for the 2018 Senior A National Flyfishing Championships — Nationals for short.

This year eight provincial teams and two invitational teams of five anglers each made their way to the Kamberg Valley in the KZN Midlands. For the most part these anglers are very serious about their fishing; about half of them sport green blazers indicating they have fished for the country at some point.

The total economic impact of such an event is incalculable: 50 anglers, travelling long distances from Limpopo Province in the north to the Western Cape in the south, and spending money in small economic regions like they’ve hit four balls on the Lotto. They’ve also prepared for the trip, buying loads of gear — as overpriced as a R50 artisan coffee.

Most importantly they fish often, do other trips, stay in cottages, f ly on planes, drive on roads, and imbibe red wine and whiskey while sharing fishing stories.

Keeping track of what you spend on flyfishing gear is frowned upon, especially in competition circles, but I think if we all knew what we’ve spent it’d all fall apart pretty quickly. Flyfishing supports a whole value chain, and in some cases entire towns or villages.

At Nationals everyone competes over five three-hour sessions, getting ranked in each session based on both

numbers and length of fish. This year there were three river sectors — one on the Thendela section of the aptly named Mooi River, and two sections of the Bushman’s River: Snowflake and Giant’s Castle Reserve.

The river sessions require that each angler has a controller who checks that the hooks are barbless, the fish is hooked fairly, landed in a net and safely released. Each controller is trained to wet their hands and measuring gutter before handling a fish and getting it back in the water efficiently. Thirty people from the Thendela and Hlatikhulu villages surrounding the river sectors were trained and paid to marshal. I hope that each of them saw the opulence of the gear and the wideeyed obsession each angler carried, and perhaps thought: “This river of mine, it has value, let me look after it. Its beauty and pristine nature are assets to my village, as are these trout.”

In my first session we were allowed

Left: Devin Isemonger from the Eastern Cape Team with a quality Mooi River Brown from the Thendela sector.

Centre: Garth Nieuwenhuis with a Mooi River brownie caught during practice. Photo by David Karpul.

Right: Gerrit Redpath from the Free State Team fishing his beat on the Snowflake Sector of the Bushmans River.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 15

An aerial view of the Thendela section.

Photo by Matt Gorlei.

16 â&#x20AC;¢ FLYFISHING June 2018

FLYFISHING June 2018 â&#x20AC;¢ 17

David Karpul with a good 19.5-inch Thendela brown to finish off his first session on the Mooi River.

Matt Gorlei sets up under the watchful eye of his marshal/controller, Mbalenhle Precious Molefe.

18 • FLYFISHING June 2018

to select which marshal would accompany us to our exclusive 300-600m section of heaven for three hours. Not missing a beat, I shouted out:“Who has good English?” Mvelo stuck up his hand and a team was formed.

The stress a competition angler feels prior to catching their first fish in their first session is like that dream where you are falling out the sky, your head floating in a pocket of blood pressure so extreme it feels like you could pass out at any moment. It’s the fear that makes the high so good.

My indicator straightened deep in a pool amongst the f ly-eating nchichi trees and the headshakes let me know this was not one of the small fish for which my team had prepared.

Moments later we were resting a monster Thendela cock brown trout in the current before measuring it with a grin on both our faces so wide you’d think we were the ones that had been hooked.

Although Mvelo was prohibited from offering me any advice during my session, we chatted intermittently and he told me he occasionally guides with the Thendela project which was initiated by the KZNFFA in 2011. The project seeks to enrich the local community through the resource of their amazing fishing.

Mvelo and I both had a blast as the fish got bigger and bigger over the three hours. I hope he is as inspired to grow with flyfishing as I am to return to fish the river with him again one day.

Next was my first stillwater session.

The two stillwaters proved a challenge for all the anglers; I think in April, Kamberg fish swim shallow, so having five mini two-man row boats on relatively small waters made for tough fishing. We started early in anticipation of lightning, and to my relief after two-anda-half hours we were ushered off the water by Zeus, as were the anglers of all the other sectors around Kamberg. My scorecard was empty, but I was in good company.

My experience of the Giant’s Castle Reser ve was as mind blowing as Thendela. How is it that I have never been to these rivers before? After catching 19 fish and with 14 minutes to go, my controller in the reser ve, Siyanda, said, “Come, two more!”

Confused, I asked how he had established that 21 fish was the right number. Eventually it came out that he had decided that we needed to win, and two fish in 14 minutes seemed reasonable. He too demonstrated his effective training and worked with me as a team to catch those two fish and more, returning them all safely to the water.

You don’t have to count them to have fun though; the point I’m making is that the fishing up there is really good. You should go.

Competition fishing is primarily a team sport. On river sectors there is variability in the quality of water assigned to each angler, and on the stillwaters in the nature of your boat partner. Averaging an angler’s results over five sessions irons out some of this variability. The teams result, however, is the average of five anglers multiplied by five sessions = 25 sessions, and is a much better measure.

It’s this team focus that really brings the value to the attendees. Ever y evening the team gets together like a warren of busy meerkats and tries to make sure each member is better prepared for the next day’s sessions while carefully balancing the equation of flies tied to sleep lost.

If you are a rank amateur, I promise that you’ll get pulled in and have information thrown at you in a way that fishermen are not famous for. Contact your provincial chapter, I promise they’re interested in having you.

This year’s great success story was the Eastern Cape team. They’d put loads of effort into workshops and training, and have built their province up into one of the best-attended provincial chapters. They got a well-deserved silver medal for their efforts with two anglers finishing in the top ten. The host province, KZN, grabbed bronze, with the formidable Western Province team taking team gold and individual gold (Dirk Immelman), silver (Daniel Factor) and bronze (Mathew Rich).

I’ve alluded above to the different ways in which trout and their pursuit in competition offer support to the trout value chain and community. More and more we realise we are not automatically entitled to the waters we love so much; the way in which flyfishing benefits the country will be weighed and measured.

For many of us fishing is more than just a hobby, it’s a sense of identity.

How can you make a difference? Stop delaying and pay your FOSAF annual membership <www.fosaf.org.za>, look for opportunities to connect flyfishing to communities that could benefit from projects like Thendela and, more than anything, get out there and fish!

If you want to fish the Thendela river contact Richard Khumalo 073 2872947 via whatsapp. The Giant’s Castle Reserve section of the Bushmans is available to be fished on a day-ticket basis but KZN rivers are closed for the months of June, July and August.

Visit <www.f lyfishsouthafrica. co.za> for details on the SAFFA structure and to contact your provincial chapter.

The younger set may be interested to follow the 2018 SAFFA Youth Nationals which are taking place at Du Kloof Lodge in Worcester from 3 to 7 October.

SAFFA President, Cheryl Heyns, with the winning Western Province team: Korrie Broos, Garth Nieuwenhuis, Dirk Immelman, Daniel Factor and Matt Rich.

Individual medalists at the 2018 Nationals: Matt Rich (bronze), Dirk Immelman (gold) and Daniel Factor (silver).

The marshals/controllers who assisted more than ably at the 2018 Nationals.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 19

FLY-TYING

By Peter Brigg

I

N the case of most patterns, after dressing the hook with tying thread you will be required to begin the construction by attaching the tail of the fly. It is important to ensure that the material used is securely tied to the top of the shank. If the tail is dragged down around the bend or slips to one side while being tied in, the fly will not swim properly when fished.

To make sure that this does not happen it is best to use the method known as the “pinched loop”. This procedure is one that I urge you to master because it is useful in so many of the tying applications.

Using the example of tying in a tail, the process goes like this: Step 1: Strip a small bunch of fibres from one side of a hackle feather — not more than, say, ten fibres. Never overdress the fly, especially the tail, unless it

Diagram 1 20 • FLYFISHING June 2018

is specifically called for in the recipe.

Step 2: Hold the stripped fibres between the thumb and forefinger of your left hand with the butt ends facing towards the eye of the hook.

Step 3: Place the fibres against and directly on top of the hook shank, as shown in diagram 1, while still holding them between your fingers. At this stage grip the butt ends of the tail fibres with the thumb and forefinger of your right hand whilst still holding them against the top of the shank, and then release your hold with the left hand.

You will now be able to see the length of the tail over the end of the shank. Adjust if necessary by sliding the fibres either to the left or right along the top of the shank to create the desired tail length.

Before you begin tying on the tail you will need to once again reverse your grip from right to left hand so that the butt ends of the fibres are showing.

Step 4: With your right hand bring

Diagram 2

the tying thread up on the side of the hook facing you and between your fingers and slightly back where you can pinch it. Create a small loose loop up and over the top of the shank, pinching the thread between your fingers as you bring the thread down on the opposite side of the hook shank.

At this stage you will have a loop (as shown in diagram 2) between your thumb and index finger, and over the hook shank and tail fibres.

Step 5: Pull the bobbin straight down and tight against the tail fibres and shank. The principle here is that the tension is brought straight down, as opposed to a wrap of thread that will pull the material off to the side in the same direction as you are winding it around the shank. (See diagram 3.)

Step 6: Repeat the pinch loop a couple of times before making a further two to three normal wraps around the shank and tail fibres and before opening your fingers to complete the

process. (See diagram 4.) Any excess butt end of the tail fibres should now be trimmed off.

Step 7: Add a length of ribbing such as tinsel, copper wire or similar material. You do this in the same way as the previous procedure by using the pinch loop method.

The ribbing is there to perform two functions; it will secure the body material, and it will help to create the appearance of segments found on the abdomen of most of the naturals you will be imitating.

Tie in the ribbing at the same point where the tail is tied in.

Before you take the next step make sure that the length of ribbing is held out of the way over the top of your vice and to the left. Most vices have a material spring for this purpose. Also make sure that the ribbing material is long enough to avoid the frustration of later finding out that it is too short to complete the job.

Step 8: Next you need to tie in the material that is to form the body of the fly. Although you will progress onto many different types of materials, for this example it is suggested that you practise with chenille.

Strip a little of the chenille off the central thread using the nails of your thumb and forefinger. Attach this stripped section to the shank of the hook at the same point as the ribbing.

Once again, use the pinched loop for this.

At this stage wind the tying thread forward in loose turns to the point where you will tie off the chenille. This will be approximately 2-3mm behind the eye. It is very important to keep this space behind the eye free of materials so that you have room to finish the fly with a neat head of thread at the end of the procedure. Leaving insufficient space at this point is a common mistake made by most beginners, and experienced tyers.

Step 9: Now wind the chenille along the shank in touching turns back towards the eye, stopping at the point where your thread was left hanging.

Lift the chenille up above the shank with your right hand and, while keeping tension by pulling up gently, wind the tying thread around the shank and over the chenille with a few tight turns.

Once itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s secure you can trim off the excess chenille.

Make it a practice when trimming any excess material that you lift it above the shank before making the cut with your scissors. In this way you will avoid accidentally cutting the tying thread which will result in all your hard work unravelling. (See diagram 5.)

Step 10: You can now wind the ribbing forward in the opposite direction (anti-clockwise) over the chenille, from the tail to behind the eye, in three to four evenly-spaced turns. Secure with tying thread and then trim off the excess in the manner described above.

Hold up and trim excess.

tail fibres hook shank

Pull straight down firmly and repeat pinch-loop 2 to 3 times.

Diagram 3

Diagram 4

Diagram 5 FLYFISHING June 2018 â&#x20AC;˘ 21

Finish by building up a neat head of tying thread just behind the eye of the hook. When building the head, ensure that it is not bigger than the circumference of the eye, as you will find that wraps of the thread will then tend to slip over, ruining your efforts.

These are the basic principles you will apply to most of the flies you tie, so practise them a few times until you have mastered the techniques. Try using different types of material as you practise, because this will help to give you a better feel for how to handle each of them.

CREATING THE BODY AND ITS PARTS OW that you have learnt the basics of tying a fly, you need to consider the use of materials other than wool or chenille. Among today’s fly-tying materials you will find many varieties of dubbing, from natural furs to synthetics. The choice is yours and will depend a great deal on the type of fly you will be tying and what the recipe calls for.

Below I describe a very popular method of constructing the body. As you will use this procedure often, it’s a good idea to practise and perfect it before you start seriously tying flies.

Remember always that when imitating the natural you need to construct the

N

Diagram 7

22 • FLYFISHING June 2018

body of the fly in such a way as to give it a similar body shape to that shown in diagram 6.

Diagram 6 After you have dressed the hook with tying thread and tied in the tail and ribbing, you are ready to start the dubbing process.

Applying small quantities of dubbing at a time is better than too much.

This is one process that allows you to add a little more to build more bulk if necessary.

Take a pinch of the dubbing and tease it out to give you a thin, flat layer.

Place this against the thread, starting just below the hook shank where the thread from the bobbin will be hanging. Now, with the thumb and index finger of your right hand, twist the dubbing around the thread in one direction only (this is very important). You will form a tight rope with the thread as the central core.

Continue adding additional pinches of dubbing and work your way down the thread until you have formed a short rope. Take the first turn of the dubbing around the shank, trapping the

Tease out the trapped fibres.

beginning of the rope. Then, in touching turns, work your way back towards the eye, slowly building up the body to give it the desired shape.

If the dubbing begins to come away from the thread during this step, simply twist it back on as you did when starting the procedure. If you need extra bulk, dub a further pinch of material, following the same procedure, and wind on, even if you have to go over sections you have already covered.

One of the advantages of using dubbing material is that you can continue to add material until you are satisfied with the body shape.

Once you have completed the body, tie off (remembering always to leave space behind the eye for the head), and remove any excess dubbing from the thread. You can now bring the ribbing forward in evenly-spaced turns (opposite direction to the dubbing) and then tie off at the same point.

The ribbing helps to hold the dubbing in place and, as mentioned before, also gives the body a segmented look similar to the natural insect. At this stage you might find that the ribbing has trapped and flattened the dubbing.

If so, use a dubbing needle to tease some of the fibres out so that the body regains its shape and buggy effect.

Bodies structured in this way are varied and can be used for most nymphs, wet and dry flies. Obviously, the dry flies require only a thin layer of dubbing to keep them as light as possible. Creating the right form and bulk will come with practice and will depend on the type of fly and what the recipe calls for. (See diagram 7.)

In the next part in this series I will deal with more techniques for wing cases, various types of hackles and wings. In the meantime, keep practising the processes described in this article. It will all become second nature as you begin to master the basics.

FLYFISHING June 2018 â&#x20AC;¢ 23

24 â&#x20AC;¢ FLYFISHING June 2018

PEOPLE Ed Truter with a bonefish caught in the Socotra Archipelago, Yemen.

Photo by Frederica Truc.

MAN vs MYTH Getting the low down on Ed Truter

By Gordon van der Spuy

E

D Truter has intrigued me for a very long time. This guy’s name comes up whenever some crazy fishing story is told and people say he has a sixth sense when it comes

to fish. Despite that, many people have probably never heard of this crazy man from the Eastern Cape because he prefers to fly under the radar. He is extremely charismatic and dynamic in the way that he approaches things. He has a no-nonsense attitude (if you talk

kak to Ed he’ll call you on it), has a big heart and is, to my mind, one of the unsung pioneers of South African flyfishing.

I recently met up with him to uncover the man behind the myth that is Ed Truter.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 25

Ed’s father and brother relax outside a mountain hut on a fishing trip to Lesotho.

Who is Ed Truter?

Some mid-40s oke with an Eastern Cape accent who likes fish, fishing and chocolate a lot, probably too much.

What makes you tick?

Three things on top of the list: fish, fish, and more fish — and processing in my mind and experiencing, as much as possible, everything to do with all of those fish and the natural systems they are part of.

What inspires you?

Truly wild places. Passionate, positive people are an inspiration too, particularly people who are passionate about some element of nature. And good news stories, especially those that involve the environment, like the banning of plastic bags in Rwanda and the successful creation of a network of marine protected areas in Gabon.

You have tied some really interesting patterns over the years, things like the Mud Monkey, Swamp Donkey, Balbyter etc. Which of your patterns have stood out for you over the years and why?

I tie and fish a lot of typical, standard style flies but it’s the ones that have been tweaked or designed to solve particular problems or a specific purpose that stand out for me, because they allow one to up one’s success rate

KFC-Bucket Frog 26 • FLYFISHING June 2018

Ed Truter with a Lake Tanganyika perch — another of his favourite children. Photo by Bruce Ellender.

when there are factors against fishing with standard ties.

For example, there’s the KFC-Bucket Frog that turns night fishing for rainbows into something even a GT-popping nut will enjoy. Or the Hare-ry Girdle Bug that turns cold-front, lockjaw days on a trout stream into we-caught-afew days or allows a beginner, battling to master a drag free drift, to still enjoy the sight and feel of a smallmouth yellow sucking a fly off the top. But all these flies, like most of fly-tying, are part of an organic continuum, where one pattern morphs into others and often grows into something far from the original plan.

The original Swamp Donkey was created as a size 2/0, weedless fly to be cast into reed beds and grass mats on the Kavango for nembwe. Nowadays I mostly tie it as a #6 that was developed on the upper Gouritz River where at any one point one is faced with casting to any of seven species. If one is walking the banks with one fly-rod, it’s nice to have one fly that will have a real chance of getting bitten regardless of what fish is looking at it. In short, the fly is helping to solve a specific need or problem.

The Balbyter was just a fortuitous sequence of events and combination of great materials that created an above average fly, so the only mission there, or

the problem I was trying to solve, was to create a dry fly that got refused less than whatever else we were using. I think that’s what we aim for every time we sit down at the vice — to create something that will be a more productive fish-catcher, either across very broad conditions or very specific conditions, and be an easier, stronger tie.

The Mud Monkey was also tied to solve a very specific problem, using sinking lines and a buoyant fly for fishing deep at the height of summer and dead of winter without fouling the bottom, but with something more appetising and with a better profile than a Booby.

Nothing I’ve tied has been groundbreaking or new in the greater sense, but rather just some carefully considered ideas and applications of materials and patterns that are already out there.

Your flies, barring the Balbyter of course, are relatively unknown to SA’s general flyfishing community. Why do you think this is, or am I talking rubbish?

I doubt that many folks have even heard of the Balbyter, and ja, the other stuff probably doesn’t go much past my circle of fishing friends and that’s just because I pretty much keep to myself. I guess I don’t make any kind of effort to get the word out there. I’m not antiso-

Hare-ry Girdle Bug

Ed with a super-sized brown trout caught in Lesotho.

cial or anti-sharing, but I think every angler has ideas and concepts and observations worth sharing that I feel are at the very least as newsworthy and as useful as anything I can contribute, so I prefer just cruising under the radar and hiding behind the pile of fishing tackle on my dining room table.

Also, as I said above, nothing in my fly-box is truly new, even the Balbyter is just an amalgam of a myriad ideas and material applications that was built on everyone else’s ideas that I’ve seen somewhere and form part of my mental database.

I wouldn’t feel right pushing any of these ideas on others or claiming any credit for any of these ties, in the same way that a rugby team’s win is a credit to the team and not just to the oke who scored the try.

What are the most important qualities you think a fly pattern needs to have?

The fly needs to be a fish catcher, and I don’t mean just being able to catch fish because every f ly can do that, but really catch fish, as in seldom get refused and able to be fished with total confidence that if a fish knows the fly is there, it’s most likely going to try and eat or attack it. The holy grail is that silver bullet fly, that fly with real magic. After that everything else is an added bonus, like being quick and sim-

Mud Monkey

ple to tie, and being a robust tie that will stand up to a lot of fish and fishing, and being easy to cast.

Do you think there are fly-tying materials that contain “magic”? If so, what are they and why do you have confidence in them?

Undoubtedly! And by magic I mean materials that have intrinsic attraction, like fish are attracted to them even if they are presented statically, not that they are attractive by virtue of secondar y factors like movement. An example here is marabou, which I think is overrated.

I believe there are materials that are magic because of optical qualities that they exhibit that are attractive to fish due to the fish’s biological predisposition — sensory-related factors locked into the genes of the fish and exhibited through instinctive behaviour on the part of the fish. Then there are also materials that are magic because they trigger a positive response based on learned environmental cues — “training” and conditioning in the fish’s environment.

Every species of fish has evolved within its environment to have a higher perception of, and therefore probably react more to, certain visual stimuli.

These elements become locked into the genes and thus inform instinctual

behaviour, for example the peak retinal sensitivity of rainbow trout to 434 nanometer/blue-violet light.

Beyond that, each fish learns from its everyday environment and experience and becomes conditioned to react to certain other visual stimuli, like the light patterns surrounding an insect trapped in the film, and so the footprint of CDC in the surface film which is excellent at mimicking the optical play of light around the edges of an insect’s body trapped in the film, becomes magic.

However, taking all of this into account one can see that there will be differences from species to species, and that can only be determined through lots of testing and trial and error.

Still, that said, there are some materials that seem to stand out across the board. I think it’s common knowledge that peacock herl, klipspringer, CDC, pheasant tail, hare’s ear/clipped-hare are all highest-tier magic materials.

Then there are next-tier down magic materials, things like bucktail, calf tail, snowshoe hare foot, squirrel dubbing, etc. And then there are certain colours that fish react very positively to, like rainbow trout to fluorescent pink and fluorescent red-orange.

If you aren’t going to experiment to find your own magic materials, just keep your ears and eyes open and

Swamp Donkey for smaller fish FLYFISHING June 2018 • 27

man who fished artificials more than anything else, so I was literally fishing since before I was born. I don’t remember catching my first fish, but I have some fishing memories that filter through from when I was about four or five years old.

I started tying flies young too, but just because the fly-tying stuff was lying around. I used to sell some saltwater flies before I started flyfishing myself, which was only from when I was 12.

I was able to stand on my old man’s shoulders right from the beginning, especially with fishing lures as he was a real pioneer with those in saltwater, and beyond that I have devoured angling literature ravenously since before I could read words, so we could say that everyone who has made the effort to share their experiences and knowledge through text or film or verbally, that I’ve come across, has left me with something interesting and useful.

every time you hear of a “killer” fly look at the finer details of the materials it’s tied with. You’ll soon notice common denominators that span the globe and species, and those commonalities should never be ignored.

If you ever had to fish for your life and were limited to only five patterns that had to cover anything from trout to tarpon, what would they be and why?

In various sizes, Clouser Minnow (tied just with a front wing and no tail), Andino-Semper hybrid, a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear variant, Dahlberg Diver (for surface and subsurface fishing), and the Swamp Donkey. And if I was allowed one more, it would be a NYAP, because one really should have a proper popper in the mix.

You seem to be a well rounded fisherman (I say fisherman and not flyfisherman on purpose as you don’t limit yourself to a particular style), finding joy in anything from bluegill to barramundi. Why is fishing special to you?

I’m pretty sure I have a genetic predisposition to be a hunter, so I’m naturally drawn to being outside, but beyond that I find the stimulation gained by the observation and understanding of nature brings me more contentment than anything else. We could say that fishing is the looking glass through which I study the natural world and the glue that binds together everything that I do.

Fishing is serious business! Young Ed Truter with a couple of tilapia.

Talk to me about Lesotho. Your name crops up often when people are speaking about that country; what makes the place special?

Mountain cultures are just different.

I think that because mountains are difficult places to live in the people that live there take good care of one another, so that’s something that infuses places like Lesotho. And then there’s the sights and sounds and smells of those open spaces, the crags, the high meadows, the summer birdsong and the wild weather too. And to make it paradise, there are bright rivers with sprightly fish in numbers running through it all.

If you were only given a month to live what would you do?

I would definitely like to spend some of that time on a perfect bonefish flat with big bonefish, some of it in pristine jungle setting with lots of colourful species like some of the Amazon tributaries, and some of it in the high, open mountains with trout and dry flies.

How and when did you start tying and fishing? Who were your mentors and what did they pass on to you that you view as being invaluable?

My old man was a very active fisher28 • FLYFISHING June 2018

Paddling on the Kouga River — one of Ed’s favourite places.

What is your life philosophy?

Number one is try your best not to be a douche.

Number two is to lend your ears rather than your cake-hole to everyone, right from the beginning; you will often be very surprised at the outcome.

Number three is focus on what’s important to you, and make as much time as you can for that, but make sure it’s important for pure reasons.

Number four — always fight back your ego unless you are in a life-threatening situation.

Number five — tr y hard not to sweat the small stuff, and it’s mostly the small stuff that we worry about.

Number six — be caring; be kind to yourself, everything around you and the planet.

And let me just say that I fail horribly at all of these things all the time, but I try keep them on my numskull screen because it keeps me trying.

What is your favourite fish species?

I hate being asked questions like this because I hate choosing and fishing and nature is too dynamic to narrow it all down … But, if I had to choose, I think I’d say big bonefish, because of the environment, the challenge, how they go when they feel the fly, and their exquisite design which enthralls me once they’re in hand.

But then I’m also a big fan of any snapper species living in the mangroves that will eat a popper because of the fun and feistiness involved in fishing for them. And I can fish endlessly for smallmouth bass; they seem like fish that were made for the f ly and my mind never tires of whittling them out of their hidey-holes in the shadows. And trout in a stream ... I don’t think I could get enough of that either.

So ja, fish are my favourite.

TYING THE BALBYTER ANT 1.

3.

2.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

1. Lay a thread foundation on the hook shank and tie in some black crystal flash for feelers.

2. Run the thread back to the end of the shank and tie in a strip of larva lace foam. Trim off excess foam.

3. Fold the foam over itself and tie in.

4. Run the thread three-quarters the length of the shank forward towards the eye of the hook, then bring the foam over and tie in.

5. Fold foam over itself and tie in.

6. Cut off excess foam and return thread to back of the fly.

7. Tie in two white CDC feathers as a wing; cut off excess.

8. Using the split thread technique make a CDC brush.

9. Wrap the CDC forward, “folding” the material with every new wrap; this will keep things neat.

10. Tie in a flat silicone rubber strand on the far side. You want a clean, smooth tie-in area because a bump will cause the legs to sit weirdly.

11. Tie in a flat silicone rubber strand on the near side.

12. Bring the thread forward and tie off behind the head of the ant. Put head cement on all the exposed thread bits.

13. The money shot — the search image of the balbyter ant that drives fish wild!

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 29

SPECIES HUNTING

By Terry Babich

M

OST anglers would be more than happy to boast of catching a 10 lb fish on any day’s fishing; for some that will be the fish of a lifetime. Well, how about getting three of those in a day? Better yet, what about doing it with three different species?

“Impossible!” you might say. Well, I have been known to entertain a crazy idea or three in my time, but this isn’t one of them.

There have been articles before discussing a South African freshwater grandslam, but I’m not talking about trout or yellowfish. I have a list of three big fish that I think are real opportunities for the crazy. After all, every angler wants a little bit of crazy to boast about or to elevate their angling status amongst their peers.

Top of the list would have to be the easy one to catch — the catfish. Yes, these really are easy fish to catch. The splash technique I use would do just fine. Ideally one should start out early in the morning in a nice shallow bay to see if there are any fish still feeding from the previous night. The small 10 lb catfish will probably just take a few minutes to spot. They have a very characteristic gulping rise that is unmistakable and a few fish usually rise simultaneously to give away their position.

Early morning is also a good time because the normally calm conditions and still water make it even easier to see where the schooling fish might be. But as with any fishing, you have to play it by ear. If there has been a cold evening

30 • FLYFISHING June 2018

with an east wind then we just know the cats won’t be in the shallows and might only come into the bays when the conditions improve. Catfish don’t like an east wind or a fall in the barometric pressure.

The plan of action, then, would be to look for cats in the morning or otherwise in the afternoon when they move into the bays for their late afternoon/evening feed. The late afternoon feed is my best time to target cats. This is also normally when the bigger fish will be caught.

By now you may have guessed my choice of venue for this little escapade — the Vaal Dam without a doubt. If this idea were possible then this would pretty much make it a world class venue, not so?

This brings us to my second species of 10 lb+ fish. This one you are going to have to work at a little harder for because the average grass carp caught on fly is somewhat bigger than those caught on bait. If you have plenty of patience you’ll probably only have to land one or two of these fish before you get a ten-pounder; fish normally average between 7 lb and 20 lb.

The hard bit isn’t landing a 10 lb fish per se, the hard bit is landing a fish fullstop.

These fish normally have hard mouths so good hook penetration can be difficult. They often take off like torpedoes so the unwary angler will often lose a hard worked for fish right at his feet when it suddenly turns and speeds off to deeper water. To increase your landing rate here I would suggest having a very large,

wide net to limit the amount of time the hooked fish stays on the end of the line.

A good pair of polaroids is a must as you want to be able to spot tailing fish, particularly the bigger ones which are not right on the water’s edge. The smaller fish tend to congregate in large numbers on the water’s edge; these are usually smaller than 10 lb, and because they’re sitting in shallow water and in large numbers they are inclined to be very skittish. I would suggest you target fish in knee deep water because you won’t be as easily visible to them, allowing you to get closer to the fish for a well-positioned cast to smaller schools of fish. The success rate here will be far greater than in the shallower water.

You are also going to have to come armed with a variety of flies, mostly homemade slow sinkers to almost negative buoyancy flies that hang, neither floating or sinking, as well as some large caddis patterns and a few select trout flies. I generally fish three flies. You will have to gauge what line to use, but the thicker the line the fewer the bites and the worse your line detection.

This time skill counts; once-in-a-lifetime fish don’t come every day so you have to make sure you capitalise on the opportunity without failure.

Sometimes you’ll get lucky and fish will move into the shallows to graze early in the morning but that is only if conditions are really good. Generally they will move into the fishing zone later during the day.

You’ll probably have to spend the greater part of the day trying to catch these fish as they can be incredibly fickle and any condition change will mean no fish. If you don’t get a bite quickly it’s sometimes better to move and keep looking for a school of fish that are willing to take your fly.

Tailing fish often confuse anglers; you get a false sense that things are going your way because you have lots of fish opportunities, but before you know it the day has gone and you haven’t landed a fish, so rather spend the time on a willing school.

Right, that’s two of the 10 lb fish you want, just one left — the hardest one, common carp. So what’s the problem? Common carp are easy, no doubt about it, but you’re going to find that most of them fall short of the 10 lb mark by a few grams.

You can use the same flies to catch common carp as you do for grass carp, so I would suggest you look for those big orange tailfins sticking out of the water and try to catch these while going for grass carp.

The best way to catch these fish would be to hang the fly in front of the carp and watch for any move-

ment or change of body angle and lift into the fish.

Sometimes you will be able to see the fish’s mouth but with Vaal Dam being as dirty as it is, this isn’t always possible.

Again it normally pays to target fish in slightly deeper water.

If there are no signs of carp, then you might have to take desperate measures and cast long lines into the deeper water and retrieve very slowly in a stop-start pattern. Some carp will pickup the fly and shoot off with it, but other times all you will feel is a light tightening of the line as you retrieve it, almost like you’ve hooked up on the bottom. A strip strike would be the call of the day for this type of bite.

This all sounds very easy, but the difficult part is actually managing your time and spending the right amount of time on the right species of fish in the right place; if you get this mix wrong you won’t get all three fish species and could waste a whole day just trying to get one species.

I don’t believe this is a crazy notion — come on, have a go at Vaal Dam or even Bloemhof Dam. You might just prove they are up there with some of the best freshwater venues in the world.

The author caught these three fish — 4.9kg common carp, 5.6kg grass carp and 8kg catfish — all in one day on Vaal Dam.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 31

FLIES

A Chris Williams caddis larva imitation alongside the insect.

FAT AND JUICY

By Ed Herbst

I

N the last issue of FLYFISHING I mentioned that my friend Dawid Rossouw takes his two sons to fish for yellowfish in the Richtersveld each winter and I tie flies for them. In the April issue I described some of the streamers I’d tied for them, but they needed more than that ...

The Green Rockworm and its creamy/tan counterpart, the Mustard Caddis have long been a staple in the fly-boxes of yellowfish anglers, so I set myself the task of developing a pattern that would conform to the general impression of shape and size (GISS) formula that would sink fast and be easy to tie.

In my previous article I mentioned I’d gone to MC Coetzer, long a stalwart on the competition scene, looking for some inspiration, and his answers surprised me.

In the Richtersveld, he said, what was important was finding the shoals and then getting the fly down to the right level; pattern is less important. MC said that he no longer uses caddis patterns because small mayfly nymph patterns with big beads (i.e. a 3 mm tungsten bead on a #16 hook) sank much faster than caddis patterns.

His caddis imitation looks very much like the Oliver Edwards pattern but was tied on a Mustad circle hook.

Chris Williams, chairman of the Northvaal chapter of FOSAF had a valuable article in the FOSAF Fly of the Month series <www.fosaf.org.za/read-Current-208.php> featuring the net-spinning caseless caddis larva.

The photograph he sent me of a Green Rockworm tied on 32 • FLYFISHING June 2018

a #14 jig hook alongside the natural was very useful. Chris says that most anchor flies tied to imitate the free-living, netspinning caddis larvae are too big and that #12-14 is best.

Another significant lesson was the role of the orange bead in tying flies for yellowfish.

Flytalk recently ran a survey in which members were asked to list their most successful yellowfish patterns. The results were very interesting: Anything with an orange hotspot . . . . . . .29.44% Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19.29% PTN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18.27% Brassie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16.75% Mustard Caddis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15.74% Green Rock Worm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15.23% A possible reason for the success of nymphs with orange beads is that they are coated with fluorescent paint, an effect which can be enhanced by coating them with Loon Fluorescing UV Clear Fly Finish.

Jacques Marais, a professional yellowfish guide tied his favourite fly at a CPS Vice Squad evening last year — a mayfly nymph pattern with a black thread body ribbed with silver wire and featuring an orange bead.

My self-imposed brief, therefore, was to create an easilytied, heavily-weighted and durable #12-14 caddis larva pattern using an orange bead. It had to drift hook point up.

My hook choice was easy — a #8 Tiemco 2499 SP. It is 2x heavy, 2x short and has what is probably the most technologically-advanced hook point available which, like most competi-

The authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s imitation using Chewee Skin and a jig bead.

The Mustard Caddis larva with its yellow/beige colouration.

Photo Ferdi de Moor.

The Green Rockworm.

Photo courtesy Ferdi de Moor.

tion hooks nowadays, curves slightly inwards to make it less likely to catch the river bed. A suitable substitute would be a #10 Hanak H550BL. Because the TMC 2499 is 2x short, it gives you a size 12 body with a size 8 gape.

Choosing a bead was interesting. Competition flyfishers have found that if they lift a slotted bead away from the hook shank and hold it in place with UV light-cured resin, it tips the fly into a hook point-up position.

The French company, Bidoz, then achieved the same result with what it called the Off-Bead, a teardrop-shaped bead.

However, as these beads are not available locally, Morne Bayman of the African Fly Angler brought in his own tungsten version called the Jig Bead. It is available from 2.3- to 4mm in several colours including orange. The benefit of the orange version is that you can add a black eye using either nail polish, which takes a while to dry, or Deer Creek black UV resin which cures almost instantly under UV light.

The two basic materials I chose are Veniard rubberised tungsten sheet covered with UV Chewee Skin in caddis green or tan because both materials stretch. This means that you can create the elongated oval shape of the caddis larva by using less tension in the middle of the fly to make it thicker in that area. To add weight without bulk I used Veniard or Siman flat lead over the hook shank before adding the tungsten sheet and Chewee Skin layers.

Loon Soft Head or Heritage Seal-Skin favoured by Dr Hans van Zyl will increase the durability of the body.

If you look at a photograph of our caddis larva you will see that its body segments are separated by indentations rather than a ridge. If you use a soft, resilient material like Chewee Skin you can create that effect with tying thread or mono rib.

The caddis larvae have claspers at the end of the abdomen and both Oliver Edwards and John Barr (of Copper John fame) mimic this â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Edwards with a tuft of soft feather from the base of a partridge hackle and Barr with Z-Lon. Davie McPhail uses the tip of a partridge feather and CDC would also work.

There are several videos available on YouTube showing caddis larvae patterns being tied with Chewee Skin.

Another valuable article is â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thing 1 & Thing 2 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; History of the Plaza Pupaâ&#x20AC;? by Herman Botes on the Feathers & Fluoro website <feathersandfluoro.com/thing-1-thing-2-the-history-ofthe-plaza-pupa/>.

Herman says that pupae are far more prevalent than larvae and that a major trigger is a strong contrast between a very bright abdomen and a dull coloured thorax.

To simulate the legs and thorax of the insect, John Barr uses black ostrich herl and Lucien Vasies a mixture of black rabbit fur and seal fur.

A third useful article is â&#x20AC;&#x153;Control flies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an introductionâ&#x20AC;? on the yellowfish.co.za website.

A Google Images search using the keywords â&#x20AC;&#x153;Macrostemum capense signatumâ&#x20AC;? provides useful photographs of this insect.

FLYFISHING June 2018 â&#x20AC;˘ 33

FESTIVAL

34 â&#x20AC;¢ FLYFISHING June 2018

by Anglerfish FTER not being able to attend last year’s Wild Trout Association Festival, the fact that I was so looking forward to attending this year’s Festival cannot be overstated, especially since the area had at last received some decent rain.

Having seen images of the very thin rivers during the 2017 Festival, reports of flowing rivers and good water in the weeks leading up to the 2018 Festival made it even more poignant.

My travel plan usually involves taking off a few days early to meet up with another Festival guide, Miles Divett, who conveniently lives on the Ngagwane River just outside Underberg. Departing from Nottingham Road Village in the Natal Midlands, I hop over the ’Berg via the lower Lotheni, stopping off at Miles’s place to fish and chill for a day or so before we head down to Rhodes. This time, however, Miles was complaining bitterly about a distinct lack of fishing since the start of the year and decided to head down to Rhodes even earlier, with a cheery “You’re on your own mate…see you down there!”

With a number of other KwaZulu-Natal-based anglers only being able to make the Festival dates (Friday 16th to Tuesday 20th March), I took off solo at early bells on Tuesday 13th.

With no recent reports of rain for the North Eastern Cape, I opted to forsake the tar for the dirt road across the infamous Pitseng Flats and then up and over the spectacular Naude’s Nek pass at 2 587m above sea level. I say infamous, because under wet conditions, the Pitseng can be treacherously slippery due to the amount of clay under wheel.

A

The weather was stunning, but the pass route actually took me an hour longer than anticipated because every turn of the climb had me looking at the view and thinking I had a better snapshot than the previous one.

Apart from a near case of heart failure when I stopped to fill my tank in Mount Fletcher and it appeared that my trusty “Suzie The Truck” appeared to have lost her gears, my trip was uneventful.

Yes, it’s a long trip to reach this special place, but there’s no sense in having them right on your doorstep is there now?

Where’s the adventure in that? Door-to-door from Nottingham Road to Rhodes is a mere 450km but it takes a good eight-plus hours of driving and a good quarter (or more) of the drive time is taken up over the last 75km from Mount Fletcher, across the Pitseng and over Naude’s.

Arriving in Rhodes in the late afternoon, I headed straight for Walkerbouts Inn, WTA Festival Headquarters, where I was verbally assailed by Dave Walker Festival Head Honcho and “Keeper of The Center of The Universe”. He bellowed out: “En laat net een donder kla oor die VET water…!” (“And let just one bugger complain about this FAT water...”) as the previous couple years of drought conditions had many an angler complaining about the “thin” waters.

Miles was already waiting, along with a few of the other guides who had also opted to come in early and “scout” the waters (i.e. get in some fishing before the Festival attendees arrived). Dries Ellis, another KZN Midlands angler who considers Rhodes to be his second home had done the same.

After a couple of obligatory welcome “cooldrinks” we settled into one of the nearby guest houses to sort out tackle and setup the fly-tying table, as guides do! Then it was back

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 35

to Walkerbouts for a slap-up feed that evening, a few more “cooldrinks” over some fishing chit-chat, and then an early night in preparation for the next day’s fishing.

While we couldn’t have asked for a better morning on the Wednesday, there was the prospect of some weather coming, so Mike McKeown and I opted to head up to the top section of The Bell River to fish the Ben Lawers beat just below Tenahead. We chose to fish with “glass” (as opposed to “plastic”…aka graphite) for this, our opening session in Rhodes.

Mike followed suit with another of our opening traditions, anointing the water with a small dram of the good Amber Stuff, and a wee slug for ourselves of course to toast our good fortune at finding ourselves on such pristine running water.

The fish rose happily to a variety of dry flies, and although we caught nothing spectacular on the day, the knowledge that this water has previously produced a couple of monsters was enough to wet our appetite for the days ahead.

We called it quits late that afternoon as the clouds were packing and the weather started to move in.

That evening saw us Festival early birds being wined and dined at the home of Head Guide Tony Kietzman and his partner Gail. The wine flowed freely and the rain came down just

36 • FLYFISHING June 2018

as liberally, leaving us all wondering what the morning would bring.

The night was not without adventure, as guide Mark Yelland and his mate George Steyn headed home after dinner in the rain, against advice, only to end up sliding off the road and landing their vehicle in a ditch. That necessitated an 8km walk back to their cottage in the dark, using mobile phones to light their way!

Thursday morning dawned rain free, and we headed to Walkerbouts for breakfast, optimistic about the day’s scouting.

Tony asked Dries and I to inspect the Vlooikraalspruit Valley and the Willow Stream at Balloch to see if the rains had reached the Wartrail area.

Now I have read Tom Sutcliffe waxing lyrical about Balloch and the fishing there, but had never been there myself, so we headed off eagerly. The excitement was shortlived, however, as we drove up the Lundean’s Nek Road and overlooked the stunning sandstone gorge at the valley entrance; the river was brick red below.

As we drove further, the entire valley appeared to have been in full flood. The flow of water from the river having burst its banks had smoothed the road to look like a

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 37

streambed and simultaneously “combed” the grass on the edges. Balloch as a fishing venue for the Festival was out.

When Friday, the designated day of incoming, dawned I wondered how widespread the previous day’s rain had been and what effect it would have on the Festival arrivals. I was lucky on Tuesday, having had a dry ride in, but Quentin Austin and son Cuan, with Peter Brigg, found heavy rain at Mount Fletcher and had to slip and slide their way across a wet and muddy Pitseng and up Naude’s, only to be greeted by a cold, strong wind and thick, misty drizzle at the top.

I have it on good authority that a few wee drams (probably more than a few, and probably not so wee) were raised in celebration at the top before the group made their way down into Rhodes.

The rivers were still high from the overnight rainfall, so another day of fly-tying lay ahead before we ambled into the Walkerbouts pub to meet the Festival anglers — many familiar faces and some new ones. The newly extended af dak was the venue for the opening ceremonials, and the 2018 WTA party soon got underway.

Saturday dawned bright and clear, perfect for the morning’s tackle fair which was due to take place on the lawns of the Rhodes River Park (immaculately maintained by Rhodes resident Shaun de Wet) on the bank of The Bell River which flows through the centre of Rhodes. The objective of the fair was to showcase the wide range of tackle and accessories — both commercial and homemade — available to the fly angler today.

Mark Yelland, well known for his casting prowess, was on hand for instruction, and Peter Brigg opened up his fly-boxes for inspection and discussion. With beats having been assigned the night before, fishing was on the cards for the afternoon, and as the fair wrapped up, the groups took off to their designated areas. Sadly it was not to be. The rivers were still bulging from the previous night’s rainfall and, after much discussion, everyone headed back to the inn for fly-tying demos by Peter Brigg and Jan Korrubel.

Sunday morning arrived without power, and it was a case of breakfast by candlelight, courtesy of Eishkom. The rain started again during breakfast, and as the rivers were still up, it was decided to hold a series of presentations at Walkerbouts. Peter Brigg shared tactics for fishing small streams, and Gareth Webster (captain of the Eastern Cape flyfishing team) gave us some insights into the world of competition flyfishing, primarily focussing on leader construction and nymphing techniques.

Of course this all just goes to show that fishing is not just about fishing. If you can’t actually fish, then talking about it with like-minded people is (almost) as good.

The rain stayed away that night and Monday brought with it the first real prospect of fishing. The Bokspruit was still touch and go, leaving the upper Bell pretty much as the river of choice. Starting from above Tenahead, anglers were spread down the length of the available beats, and I was directed to lower Ben Lawers, the bottom half of the piece that Mike and I fished on Wednesday.

The water was still up, making for some interesting crossings for those with rubber-sole boots, and heavyweight nymphs were the order of the day, making for some interesting “chuck & duck” casting. As the day progressed the weather cleared and the water dropped, and by late afternoon conditions were much improved. Rudi Hiestermann was the last angler standing in my group, and we ended the day casting foam hoppers to rising 25cm fish for the last couple hours.

With water levels continuing to subside overnight, reports had it that the Bokspruit was a real possibility for Tuesday.

The Bok and upper Gateshead in particular, are the reason regular Festival attendees Paul Carreira and Louis le Roux — and myself — make the annual pilgrimage.

We left Rhodes just as the sun was starting to creep above the horizon, wondering on the road out if we’d made the right decision. Luck was on our side, with both causeways 38 • FLYFISHING June 2018

(Brucedell and Gateshead) only a little past ankle deep, and in just over an hour, we were parked and packed to walk outside the “Honeymoon Huis”. An hour later we were over The Saddle and tackled up on the river’s edge.

After just a few casts in the very first pool, Paul was into the first fish of the day; it was going to be a good day. While the water could be considered just a tad too high (ek kla nie, Oom Duiff…), we had fish rising to the dry fly all day and ended up with about 15 fish each for the day, the biggest being about 30cm long.

In summary, 239 fish were caught by 37 festival anglers (excluding guides) over three fishing days, to give an average of 80 fish a day, or just over two fish per festival angler per day.

Most fish were in the 150-250mm (6-10”) range, and there were two fish reported in the 350-450mm (13-17”) range. And no, we’re not telling where they came from!

While that doesn’t sound like a lot of fish, it must be pointed out that only 35% of the total number of catch returns due were submitted, of which 67% were incomplete (i.e. no name or date or beat)! This event is the best opportunity of the year to collect valuable catch data for the area, providing an insight into the status of the fish population, so it’s a real pity when catch returnes aren’t properly filed.

As the saying goes, “the best was saved for last”, and that evening Walkerbouts’ pub was abuzz with tales of a fishy nature. The auction table was loaded with some spectacular items up for grabs, and the tone was set for a fine event.

Books by Tom Sutcliffe, Peter Brigg and Ed Herbst, along with artwork by Nigel Vaughn was the inaugural recipient of The Nymph trophy for festival spirit.

Peter Brigg generated a lot of interest, as did tackle from Frontier Fly Fishing and The Fish Eagle, and fly packs from Scientific Flies. There were also a number of accommodation vouchers sponsored by well known Rhodes venues, and two magnificent pieces of artwork by Gavin Erwin. The auction raised a little over R30 000, of which R20 000 was donated to FOSAF for the current “Trout War”.

Special mention must go to artist Joyce Carreira who donated a breathtaking sculpture entitled “The Nymph” which is to be awarded annually to the person with the most Festival spirit. The 2018 winner was Nigel Vaughn who has not missed a Festival since inception.

Another of this year’s anglers, Quentin Austin, was also at the 1992 event, but then skipped 23 years, only returning in 2016.

In closing, thanks must go to Festival Chairman, Dave Walker, for his tireless organising (and whip cracking), and of course the event sponsors, Epson in particular, Festival anglers and guides for their support, along with the staff at Walkerbouts — Marie for keeping us fed and Simphiwe for keeping us watered. Most importantly, thanks must go to the WTA riparian members without whose support there would not be waters to fish.

Of course, it’s never (all) about the fish … Robert Traver’s Testament of a Fisherman springs to mind: “I fish because I love to, because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found …”

Bookings for the 2019 Festival are now open; anyone interested in participating should e-mail <dave@wildtrout.co.za> sooner rather than later as the number of participants is limited!

Thankshjalot and here’s to the 27th Wild Trout Festival; see you there!

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 39

EVENTS

2018 FLY FISHING AND FLY TYING EXPO Everything you need to know ...

EXPO WORKSHOP DAY HE Expo workshop day will consist of a range of workshops presented by the country’s top flyfishing specialists. These guys are specialists in their respective genres and have played a major role with in pioneering flyfishing in this country. Welsh international flyfisher and Airflo’s sales director, Gareth Jones, will also be on hand to present a workshop on the A- Z of fly-lines.

You’ll have the opportunity to attend four sessions during the course of the day.

T

Where and When?

Workshops will take place on Sunday, 29 July at the Aleit School at Lourensford Wine Estate. Workshops will start at 9am sharp and end at 3pm.

How it works There will be four sessions during the day with eight different workshop topics on offer. There will only be two workshops per topic because time, venue and staff constraints don’t allow for more. The workshops on offer are: • Smallmouth Bass — Conrad Botes and Herman Botes • Stillwater trout — Matt Rich and Dan Factor • Cape Stream 101 — Tim Rolston • Euro Nymphing — Jacques Marais • Largemouth yellows — Garth Wellman • Carp — Leonard Flemming and Platon Trakoshis • Grunter 101 — MC Coetzer and Jannie Visser • Fly line 101 — Airflo’s Gareth Jones Cost The workshop day costs R200 perperson for the day regardless of the number of workshops attended.

How to book You can book a maximum of four workshops for the day.

There are only 200 spots available for the entire day so book early to avoid disappointment. Four different workshops will be run during each session in four different venues.

To book workshops please email <theffftexpo@ gmail.com> with your name, cellphone number, the list of your top six workshop options and your proof of payment.

Payments can be paid to: The Feather Mechanic (Pty) Ltd FNB Gold Business account Acc no: 62646797095 Branch code: 250 655 Workshop spots will be allocated on a first come first served basis. You will get to do a minimum of three of your top four choices, with the final choice being a mash up between your last three choices.

The programme for the day is as follows: (8:00am-8:45am) Registration (9:00am-10:00am) Session 1 — Smallmouth bass; Carp Cape Stream 101;Flylines 101 (10:30am-11:30am) Session 2 — Largemouth yellows; Stillwater trout; Grunter 101;Euro nymphing (11:30am-12:30pm) Brunch — food, beer and coffee will be on sale.

(12:30pm-13:30pm) Session 3 — Largemouth yellows; Stillwater trout; Grunter 101; Euro nymphing (2:00pm -3:00pm) Session 4 — Smallmouth bass; Carp; Cape stream 101; Flylines 101 For more information on the workshops email <theffftexpo@gmail.com> or phone 074 113 1382.

40 • FLYFISHING June 2018

EXPO BENEFIT DINNER BASH What is it?

A benefit dinner aimed at raising funds for a few worthy causes like disabled flyfishing in the Western Cape and community flyfishing development projects on the Mooi- and Bushmans rivers in KwaZulu-Natal.

Where and when?

This refined jol (because ultimately that’s what it is) will take place at the Strand Golf Club on Friday, 27 July 2018 6.30pm.

The dress code is smart casual, but if rocking up for dinner in your waders is how you roll we won’t throw you out.

The dinner is the night before the 2018 iteration of the Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Expo to be held at Lourensford.

What’s on the menu?

On the grub front, the evening will consist of a delicious locally-inspired three-course meal. Perhaps even more appetizing is the benefit auction where you stand the chance of bidding for some unique, high-end, once-off goodies, including: A unique bamboo rod, the product of a collaboration by two of South Africa’s finest rod builders, Stephen Boshoff and Stephen Dugmore <www.freestonerods.co.za>.

A freestyle salmon fly by world-renowned classic tyer Ruhan Neethling.

A collection of Oliver Kite patterns tied by the doyen of South African f ly fishing, Doctor Tom Sutcliffe <www.tomsutcliffe.co.za>.

A handmade net and fly-box set hand crafted by the talented Shaun Futter <www.truttaangling.com>.

A bronze sculpture by world-renowned sculptor Chris Bladen <www.chrisbladen.com>.

A Freestyle Classic by that blast from the past, Barry Kent.

Barry was the proprietor of High Flies in Butterworth and attended various international flyfishing shows in the United States back in the ’70s and ’80s. Barry was a household name back in the day.

These are just some of the items on offer.

Rods, flies, art, food, booze and the finest flyfishing company in South Africa — all in all we have the ingredients and the recipe for an unforgettable evening!

Cost Tickets for all this fantasticness cost R400/person.

Extras There will be a cash bar available. The pub is also centrally located for ease of beverage intake.

Because mountains are always better in the Cape we’ve ensured that the venue overlooks the beautiful Helderberg valley.

The MC for the event is none other than the sage and slightly feral, Fanus Visagie (right).

To book your spot email <theffftexpo@gmail.com> or phone 074 113 1382.

PEOPLE

By Peter Brigg

I

N our flyfishing community there are those individuals who are in the limelight, and who are sometimes — rightly or wrongly — referred to as the “legends” because of their achievements. Then there are those who prefer to be in the kitchen at parties but love the sport and put as much into it as they get out of it. They

do so quietly without asking for any recognition, but their participation has added considerably to f lyfishing in South Africa. They are the “stalwarts”.

Laurence Davies is one of these.

He lives in Durban and has been married to his wife Jenny for some 45 years; their three children and three grandchildren all live in England and the Isle of Man. Although Laurence is now retired, he continues to work as a

professional technologist on a contract basis training graduates to professional technician and engineer’s status.

Laurence fished from a young age, mainly along the Natal coast or in Durban bay, but it was only when he and Jenny went on a working holiday to England in 1975 that he purchased his first outfit — a glass fibre rod, reel, flyline and some indeterminate flies, all for the princely sum of £12. Armed with a

Getting to know Laurence Davies

42 • FLYFISHING June 2018

Laurence in his element, with his first yellowfish caught at Sterkfontein and behind his vice.

Fowler — authors who have produced For his work in the promotion and copy of Hardy’s booklet on casting and books of beauty and wisdom that can development of flyfishing, in particular a Penguin book on f lyfishing, he compare with famous authors around in the KwaZulu-Natal region, Laurence learned to cast. On that trip he also the world. I am a proud collector of was awarded the FFA’s special award of caught his first trout in a reservoir many of the best local authors’ books Flyfisherman of the Year in 2000 and alongside the Snake, a road linking from now and the past that are achievwas made an Honorary Life Member in Manchester with Sheffield, where he ing worldwide acclaim, most of them 2008. He was also awarded The was playing rugby league. And so startpersonalised and signed by the authors.

Flyfisherman’s Flyfisher of the Year ed his flyfishing journey “Whereas I sometimes marvel at the award in 1999.

Initially Laurence’s flyfishing was power of the internet and social media Another organisation which he has limited to the occasional camping trip I am getting more and more disheartfound inspiring is FOSAF, in particular to the Drakensberg, his favourite being ened by the number of ‘experts’, some the education arm because of his love Royal Natal National Park, fishing the of whom spend their time bullying any for helping people in all walks of life.

Mahai River and dam. During those novice seeking advice and rubbishing Laurence was actively involved in many years Laurence would often visit the any other opinion than their own. You flyfishing and fly-tying clinics at Royal then Kings Sports in West Street to daren’t show a picture of a trout kept Natal National Park, Kamberg and admire the tackle and chat to Jack for the pan without getting jumped on Coleford Nature Reserve and later he Blackman. On one of these visits Jack from a dizzy height, with comments helped Roger Baert and Derik Thomas invited Laurence to a Fly Fishers coming from someone who hasn’t even at their five-day clinics at Lake Association (FFA) meeting. bothered to ask the circumstances or Navarone.

At that time the meetings were held whether it was a stocked or a wild fish.

Laurence enjoys flyfishing for bass, at the Rugby Hotel in Sarnia. It was I unashamedly enjoy keeping the occascalies and saltwater species, but his here around 1982 that he met Robin sional trout to cook or smoke, but only first love is for the trout in our rivers.

Fick, Clarrie Blumrick and Bruce Bailey from stocked waters and managed for He says he doesn’t have any particular who made him feel at home. that purpose. favourite fishing spot, but he rates joinAll the clubs that he joined and “Then there are some holier than ing Andrew Fowler and friends on their served on had an impact on his flyfishthou anglers who decry seeing a trout biannual trips to Rhodes as among the ing, but the FFA had the biggest influpicked out of the water for a photobest of his river fishing, not just because ence of all. It was there that Laurence graph, not knowing the circumstances of the fishing and beauty of the area, met the likes of Tom Sutcliffe, Ed again. These same people will often but also the social interaction. His Herbst, Keith Miller, Dean Riphagen, prolong a fish’s release to take that permemories of fishing our local waters Jack Blackman, Roger Baert, Jake fect photograph with the best position and in England are most memorable Alletson and many more. At the time for the flyfisher, ensuring the manufacbecause of the people he has met and these men were breaking new ground turer’s logos are visible, and then finish the places he has visited. in the development of f lyfishing in with a high five after releasing a fish Fishing prime American rivers feaSouth Africa and freely shared their which is likely to die anyway of stress tures high on Laurence’s bucket list, as knowledge. Laurence was subsequently and extended handling. I am not does drifting in a boat and fishing the invited to join the committee to arrange against the hero picture, but ask anglers pockets, fishing for steelhead salmon in the guest speakers. He eventually to consider the fish first; they are prethe Kispiox River in Alaska and GTs at ended up (at various times) holding cious to us so learn the proper way of Alphonse. every committee position except treahandling and photographing them.”

When asked what he loved most surer and is still on the committee to It has been my privilege to have about fishing, Laurence said “I love this day as editor of the interesting and known Laurence for many years. He is being in my own world, wading the informative newsletter. the consummate gentleman, knowlriver and searching pocket water — so Late in the 1980s Laurence also edgeable not just in the field of angling, focused on fishing that you are lost to joined the Pietermaritzburg-based Natal but also willing always to share generyour surrounds.

Fly Dressers Society and ended up on ously his wisdom and knowledge of “What disappoints me about so the committee of its Durban Chapter years of flyfishing experience. It is salt many f lyfishers is that so few read which later became the Durban Fly of the earth people like Laurence who books and magazines on flyfishing. I Tyers. In that capacity he got to rub do so much good for our sport without tr y and encourage them to read at shoulders with guest tyers like Hugh fanfare and asking nothing in return — every opportunity the likes of Tom Huntley, Barry Kent, Neil Hodges and they are our stalwarts.

Sutcliffe, Peter Brigg, and Andrew Keith Miller.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 43

ADVENTURE

By Duncan Steyn “road trip” (uk) noun: a journey made by suitable vehicle involving a series of sporting (fishing) fixtures played away from home.

I

T’S far too early for anyone who is considered to be a regular functioning human, but you wouldn’t change a thing. You’ve hardly slept because of the ebb and flow of all the checklists running through your brain and the late-night cups of coffee consumed while tying flies. Finally you lean over and turn off the alarm long before it’s set to go off. As you close the door behind you, you hear a faint grievance from the bedroom as you trip over the inconsiderate cat lying right in the path to your fishing gear at the front door.

Searching for the flask you quietly explain to the cat in a strained whisper that the priest in your fishing

bag is not devoted to only one denomination and works equally well for all species, also that it takes just a few seconds to harvest material for a new pattern. Finally you are out the door. It is early autumn and still two hours till sunrise, the dew on the grass coupled with the crisp, calm air promises a perfect day… Now where did you put that flask of coffee?

Although some of the best road trips I’ve ever been on were planned the night before, most take weeks or even months to plan. One of the greatest road trips I ever went on was with my wife. We travelled through five states in the western USA up to the border of Canada, and that took over two years to

plan and quite a few more to save for.

(See Flyfishing April/May 2017 and August/September 2017.)

THE FISHING CAR The transport used to get you to your secret spots is often as important as the destination. My earliest memories of road trips with my family were always cause for much excitement. Just before setting off my father would say the same thing to me, “Got the poles? Got the woman?” He somehow managed to get away with comments like that; if I had to try that with my wife I’d probably end up like the cat — being threatened with the priest.

Our fishing transport is an old (read distinguished) Land Cruiser. It has travelled the equivalent distance of almost ten times around the world yet it’s still full of enthusiasm for the next outing and will faithfully fire up at the drop of a fishing hat.

It was manufactured at a time when you could still buy Steri Stumpie in glass bottles and there was only one

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 45

flavour of Pronutro. Occasionally a little March Brown or Connemara Black from 1989 will pop out the top air vent when you put the fan on and remind you of a time when life just felt simpler.

It also has a unique smell. I imagine it originates from decades of spilt garage coffee and Yogi Sip mixed with the unmistakable odour of forgotten wader socks. Add a dash of fly floatant and park in the sun for five to seven hours next to a mountain stream and you have the perfect recipe — if you choose to replicate it.

If you keep a fishing car for long enough eventually you will get to a stage when you both start ser ving life sentences; I am

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way beyond this point and would have it no other way.

It wasn’t always like this, though; for years our transport was a geriatric old Land Rover in an advanced state of decomposition. I really loved that car; it took my wife and I through Lesotho and Transkei on our honeymoon and on countless adventures around our country and beyond. I am convinced a classic Land Rover is one of only a handful of cars with a soul, but when I get to my fishing spot I’m more interested in greasing my leader than greasing my hands and face.

Most of my road trips are done alone and I get a real buzz from being miles from society, in the middle of nowhere. Whenever I start feeling down thanks to

the current state of naughtiness in our land I remember the quiet places I’m so privileged to be able to visit and all feels well again. Trout really don’t appear too bothered by who’s cheating in cricket or how much a litre of milk costs, they are more concerned about the important things in life like why the same suspicious-looking ant keeps drifting over their sub-surface home.

MUSIC The enjoyment of a fishing trip is often directly related to the quality of the accompanying sound track. I enjoy nice laid-back tunes when I go fishing, but not so mellow that I forget to keep a look out for potholes or f ly-tying material on barbed wire fences. It’s important to arrive relaxed, but you don’t ever want to risk losing that allimportant hunter/gatherer instinct, after all, you didn’t travel for hours and get all dressed up just to

stare at the river. Music is important, but listening to The Killers singing about rattlesnakes and romance at full volume is probably not the best choice for driving through a wilderness reserve in the early hours of the morning.

When I’m stuck in morning traffic and the fourteenth car in a row has just overtaken me in the yellow lane, I listen to the same music that carried me through the frosty morning the day before, up into the high places that I yearn for, and suddenly I’m no longer staring at the number plate in front of me … I’m looking for the prime lie.

COFFEE This is important. Like music, coffee is a vital ingredient for an enjoyable fishing trip. Just as we all have that

special pool or secret riff le on a favourite river, so we need to search out that all important garage coffee machine.

Not all coffee machines are created equal and once you find one that produces the perfect cup you need to guard it carefully; it becomes almost as important as not putting unleaded fuel in your diesel car. I will happily behave like a corrupt taxi driver and take a massive detour if it means a decent cup of coffee.

Not only does a good brew help keep you awake in the early morn-

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 47

ing hours, but negotiating your way around cattle and potholes with a cardboard cup of scalding coffee and an illfitting plastic lid between your legs, really sharpens the senses.

SWEEEETS Whenever I hear this I know I’m getting closer to my favourite spots. I’ve always found the further off the main routes you travel, preferably after the tar turns to dust, the more smiles and waves you get.

Picture this: the sun is rising behind you, turning the vast expanse of the Drakensberg pink and hot orange in front of you. The vivid cosmos on either side of the road means it’s autumn and the air is bracing, but not so cold that you need more than a heavy long sleeve shirt. Driving with the window down, the smells of breakfast fires and damp livestock fill the cab. You are getting close now — another hour or so and you should be into your first fish. As you slow for the endless poorly marked speed bumps, a group of barefoot school kids wave with huge grins as you pass and call out “Sweeeets!”

48 • FLYFISHING June 2018

ARRIVING If you get to your fishing spot early enough you are often rewarded with experiences that the average late riser misses. Other then witnessing the first oblique rays of the sun turning everything around you from dusky greys to brilliant oranges as it refracts through the light spectrum, you get to see the countryside waking up.

Shutting off the engine after parking under a familiar tree in anticipation of the mid-morning shadow, I’m always shocked by the fantastic silence. It takes a while for my hearing to adjust, but slowly the distant sound of running water overtakes the groans and creaks of the car cooling down. As the valley starts to warm up, the last remnants of the morning fog begin to dissipate. The first stirrings of a light breeze are felt, just enough to put a ripple on the calmer pools and give the speckled residents sufficient confidence to make your stalking easier.

I have fished one particular secret stream so often that I can usually predict which fly will be productive for most of the day. I almost always start fishing with a dry fly, and one of my first streamside rituals is to place my

backside bankside and just observe for a while. It’s what Isaac Walton referred to as “practicing to be quiet”. Even if there is zero evidence for surface activity, a well drifted dry will very often entice a shady customer topside for a look.

LEAVING Surprisingly, the end of the day is often my favourite time of the entire fishing trip. The pressure is off, you’ve re-established the correct predator/prey ratio, felt the strain of a day spent outdoors, perhaps haven’t eaten enough (a packet of sweets from the roadside trading store does not count), but you are truly happy.

Now there is no rush to get down to the water’s edge, you can take your time to dig out your wader socks from the toe of your boots, carefully take down your rod sections with that sound that all owners of cane love to describe as a “pop” when you separate the ferrules, and check that the car remote still works after going for an unforeseen swim.

The hour has arrived; it’s time to hit the road again. It feels impossibly long ago that you were discussing matters with the cat and getting ready to leave.

There are a lot more people to look out for on the roads on the way home, but the same familiar sights, sounds and smells.

I find the trip home is when my mind really wanders; I am already planning how to justify the next outing: “But honey, we need to renew our Golden Rhino Card in Underberg and this time I’ll leave the fishing stuff at home. We can just go for a nice hike.”

Of course, over the next few weeks things will slowly start to change:“What if I just bring along a small rod so I can maybe drift a f ly for a few minutes while we’re having lunch?” And then, on the morning of our next road (fishing) trip: “Got the poles? Got the woman?

J

OSHUA Wibberley and his family have been going to Millstream in Dullstroom every year since he was born. This year he really wanted to try for something bigger than the standard sized weir fish he’d caught many times before. With that in mind he went to fish in one of the catch and release dams, Solitary Reaper. This dam is notorious for its big, wily old trout.

Joshua’s uncle Brendan had been doing well all week on dead drift nymphs below a strike indicator, so Joshua decided that would be the best plan of attack. He set up a long leader on his dry line and used some wool as an indicator. The beaded size 14 Zak nymph was set about 7ft below the indicator.

Nothing happened for about an hour, so he tried the nymph at various depths. The

wind was head-on and making it difficult to cast, eventually causing an almighty tangle.

Joshua had three choices — try and untangle, cut-off and start again or go home as the sun was getting low on the horizon.

There was no way Josh was going home so option two it was.

After setting up again he made a good cast and not five seconds later he saw the indicator gently dip and disappear under the water. Joshua struck and raised his rod and he was soon fighting the biggest trout he’d ever hooked. The fish put up a good fight and Joshua was relieved when the net was slipped under her.

The hen weighed 1.7kg and swam off strongly when released after a quick photo to show Josh’s dadwho was at work in Jo’burg.

PLACES

By Terkel Broe Christensen

T

HE Danish Skjern River represents a true fairytale in the world of wild salmon. The 2017 season beat all records with nearly 1 700 rod-landed salmon averaging 13 lb (6kg). No-one would have expected things like this from what was once an “ugly duckling”.

The story of the Skjern River could have been written by Hans Christian Andersen. For many years it suffered much physical abuse from drainage, fish farming and pollution, and the final blow was the straightening out of the lower 26km of the river in the 1960s. The gentle meanders of this low-land river were replaced with a 19km long, lifeless canal (pictured above). The crops flourishing on the newly created fields came at a high price — the salmon stock was nearly wiped out.

As the years went by, the river’s stock of salmon went from miserable to just bad, and in the early 1980s the catches of salmon had dwindled to nothing but five to ten salmon being caught most years.

In the mid-1980s biologists predicted that salmon would almost certainly become extinct sooner rather than later. At the same time coastal waters gasped for air as the large quantities of fertilizer used on the fields ended up polluting the fjord where the river has its outflow.

All this coincided with the 1980s “greening” of the major political parties, paving the way for a new beginning. So, in 1987, 25 years after the fatal canalisation, the Danish government decided to restore the Skjern.

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Jesper Homann preparing to release an 86cm salmon weighing ±6kg.

Based on old aerial photos the former meanders were recreated, obstructions were removed and new spawning beds were established. Soon the river matured not into a beautiful swan, but a wonderful salmon river, a river in its own right. Nowadays the Skjern River beats all national catch records and is able to compete with some of the better Norwegian salmon rivers too.

In the beginning of the 1990s the annual catches from the river were around 30 salmon. In 2000, when the recreated river was officially opened by Prince Joachim of Denmark, some 150 salmon were caught in the river. Each year the salmon stock recovered further, and in 2010, ten years after the river had been given back its meanders, a stunning 1 149 salmon were caught in the river — a nearly 800% improvement in a decade.

This success story is the background “music” I hear every time I head west to try my chance with the mighty Skjern salmon. Indeed these are mighty fish. The largest salmon caught in the river weighed 26.5kg (that’s over 58 lb!) and each year trophy salmon up to 20kg , and sometimes more, are caught here, with many of them being taken on the fly.

52 • FLYFISHING June 2018

RECORD SEASON To learn more about the actual status of the river, I called Kenny Frost who is the daily leader of “The House of the Salmon”, the local angling information centre.

“This season has been truly fantastic with no less than 141 storlaks (big salmon) taken,” he told me. A storlaks measures one metre or more!

Each new season a quota, or total allowable catch, is fixed based on scientific estimations of the actual number of salmon in the river. The quota is approximately 10% of the total number of salmon migrating up the river.

“Skjern River can now compete with the big boys in the class,” Kenny declared. He gave an example of the worldfamous Lakseelv River in northern Norway where, during the 2017 season, anglers caught 1 206 salmon with an average weight of 7.5kg (17 lb).

In the 2017 season the Skjern River produced 1 684 salmon; the average length was 84cm and the average weight 6kg (13 lb).

Many anglers release their salmon but, based on the lengths alone, it is estimated that the total catch in 2017 was around 10 tons. By comparison, 7 tons were caught in the famous Norwegian Stjørdal River, 6 tons in Surna River and 9 tons in Lakselv River.

44 LB SALMON In 2017 the biggest salmon in the Skjern River was caught in May. It measured 122cm and was estimated to weigh over 20kg (44 lb). The largest salmon that was not released was a 114cm specimen weighing an impressive 19kg (41 lb).

“And how is the fishing right now?” I enquired of Kenny.

“Actually, the river is in spate and has been for a week or so. New fish arrive everyday but very few anglers have been fishing the river as it has been really high. However it is dropping now and has been so since yesterday.”

I desperately wanted to fish the river but feared I would not be able to master it in full flood. On the other hand, we were in the middle of October and only a few days of the season remained.

I tried a final cast for the answer I wanted to hear:“What

are the prospects for the coming days do you think?”

Kenny explained that he and a friend were going to have a try the very next day, and I was welcome to tag along.

Hook-up! That was an offer he needn’t repeat.

RIVER VORGOD Early the next morning, during the two hour drive from my home to the river, the effect of the heavy rain was clear to see. The meadows were flooded along every river I passed.

I met Kenny and his friend Jesper at The House of the Salmon. Due to the spate conditions in the main river, Kenny advised that we should rather try one of the tributaries, the Vorgod River. So, having bought a fishing license for the Herning-Ikast Angling Association (150 Danish Crowns — £18) we set off for the Vorgod.

When we arrived at the river we parked in front of a farm about 4km upstream of Vorgod’s junction with the Skjern. Then the only question was which way to go. There was a 4km long stretch to fish downstream and an equal length upstream.

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 53

Kenny Frost thrilled with his 75cm salmon caught on Vorgod River at the end of the season.

A chap who came from the section downstream of us told us he had been fishing for three hours with spinning gear and had lost a grilse and caught and released a bigger 90cm cock salmon. He told us where he had not fished and where he had lost his fish.

While I still getting dressed up for salmon fishing, tackling up and choosing a fly, Kenny and Jesper were already working their way downstream.

I took a closer look at the handful of local flies Kenny had generously given me — all typical flies for the Skjern River, that is Scandi-style tube flies with foxtail wings or rabbit strip zonkers in burnt yellow and orange. I went for the yellow one, just right for the murky water, and was concentrating on tying on a small size 12 when Kenny yelled:“Laks! Laks!”

I grabbed my camera and ran as fast as I could. I have many photos of dead fish, but this was live action and the light was good too!

Kenny’s 11ft fly-rod was heavily bent when I reached him.

The river was only about 5-10 metres wide at that point but very deep, and the salmon stayed down deep and out of sight.

“It came to the fly twice,” Kenny explained while holding against the salmon as it started on a downstream run. “It felt like the fly caught in the weeds for a second and then slipped again the first time I fished over it. But then again, the water is far too deep right here for the fly to be caught up in the weed.

“It could be a fish, I thought, without really believing in it.”

Kenny explained he had given the fish a little break and had swtiched from a small 1-inch Woollen Sock (Uldsok) tube fly to a heavy Red Devil Franc & Snaelda. The salmon had taken the fly very hard on the very first cast.

CATCH & RELEASE As Kenny got the fish closer to the bank Jesper came alongside, taking the landing net and looking for a suitable place to take up position. When the fish showed at the surface for the first time it was really nice autumn salmon, certainly a male of around 8 lb. Without much ceremony Jesper gently scooped the net under the fish.

The quota for large salmon — longer than 70cm — had

A 60cm sea trout caught in the Skjern River. long been exhausted and the fish was quickly released.

Along Danish rivers catch and release has really caught on in recent years. Anglers do their utmost to return the salmon to the water as gently and quickly as possible and barbless hooks are required.

Many anglers also use knotless landing nets with rubber mesh which are particularly gentle on the salmon’s protective skin. Others hand-tail the salmon, removing the barbless hooks in the water before letting the salmon go.

HEAVY STUFF Inspired by Kenny’s successful fly change, I switched my offering to something similar — something orange, red, and heavy. The water level was about 30-40cm higher than normal, so we fished with short sink 5 shooting heads and sink 6 polyleaders. Heavy stuff, but a set-up that effectively cut through the rough upper layers of the water. The shooting head length was no more than 6.5m; perfectly suited to smaller rivers like the Vorgod.

After an hour or so my fishing had fallen into the rhythm of making a cast, taking a step or two downstream, making another cast and so forth. To break the monotony I was taking a little photo break and was quite absorbed in focusing on a close-up of the f ly on the cork handle, when a loud “LAAAKS!” suddenly changed my agenda.

This time it was Jesper shouting. Further downstream, Kenny reeled in and rushed over.

No doubt about it, this was a bigger fish. Jesper tried to hold his ground, but even from a distance I could see how he was slowly being dragged downstream. Jesper kept the rod high, but the salmon was also keeping maximum pressure on him.

“Follow him down to the next bend and try to keep him in the pool there,” Kenny advised,“otherwise there’s a risk you won’t be able to follow him at the willow bushes.”

Down in the next pool the salmon started to tire, and when it was ready for the net Kenny knelt in the water and netted a very nice male salmon that we estimated to weigh 13 lb.

A few hours later as darkness began to fall and we headed

back to the car, Kenny sighed and looked at his watch for a long moment before commenting,“Now there are five months, 29 days, 12 hours and 39 minutes until the season starts again on 16th April.”

On the drive homewards Kenny suddenly slowed down the car while looking out of the window. A big bend of the Skjern River had caught his attention.

“This pool usually holds fish,” he explained. “It actually can be fished even in high water. We could give it 15 minutes… Yes, that’s what we’ll do!” he declared, bringing the car to a sudden stop. And before you could say “salmon” he had grabbed his fly-rod from the car rod holder. Jesper and I followed suit and took our final casts of the season.

Fifteen minutes isn’t much when it comes to salmon fishing, but you only need one cast to hook one — or so they say.

I did not really believe in that chance.

Kenny started to cast and gave the line all the time it needed to get down in the water. When the fly was out in the middle of the fastest water it suddenly stopped and I could see the rod buckle. Seconds later a splash in the darkness gave an idea of where the fish was. It was a very lively fish and jumped another two or three times.

When it was netted we saw it was a shorter, fatter fish than the others. “It’s a sea trout!” Kenny exclaimed.“Everyone can catch a salmon, but sea trout are harder to get,” he said with a satisfied smile.

As we dismantled our rods Kenny suddenly stopped, took a closer look at his watch and burst into song: “We’ll meet again don’t know where don’t know when but I know we’ll meet again in… some five months 29 days 11 hours and 46 minutes from now!”

FLYFISHING June 2018 • 55

56 â&#x20AC;¢ FLYFISHING June 2018

BLAST FROM THE PAST “Blast from the past” celebrates our local flyfishing heritage. It takes us back to a time when life — and flyfishing — were far less complicated than they are today.

Here is Bill Duckworth’s account of how he came to love using the dry fly on the stillwaters of the Dargle.

This story is taken from the Autumn 1979 issue of the Journal of the Natal Fly Fishers’ Club.

DRYFLYINTHEDARGLE All hail the DDD

By Bill Duckworth

W

HEN I go fishing with Tony Biggs I am happy if I catch one fish to his three. But when he landed five in quick succession without me having a touch, something seemed amiss.

We were fishing a dam in the Dargle and were only about 30 yards apart. I called Tony and asked him what fly he was using.

“A dry fly,” he answered. This seemed strange, particularly as there was a fair wind blowing and the water surface was broken by six-inch waves.

Luckily for me Tony is a generous fellow, and when I reached his side a few seconds later he produced a large, bushy dry fly and told me to cast it towards any rise.

Noticing my confusion, because all I could see was disturbed water and waves, he explained patiently that if I looked carefully I would be able to see where the fish were by a broken wave.

“When you see a break in the flow of the wave, a disturbance of the water surface, cast to it because it is a fish.”

Of course I did not believe him. The only breaks in the waves seemed to me to be brought about by the force of the wind. Nevertheless I did my best. I stared at the waves with concentration. Eventually I thought I saw a wave that seemed a bit odd, with not quite the normal smooth curve it should have, and I cast my fly towards it. By chance the fly landed more or less where I had aimed. To my astonishment, a trout emerged from the water and swallowed the fly. Nobody — except perhaps the fish — was more surprised than me.

We fished for an hour or two longer that afternoon and, to my amazement, in those windy conditions we continued to hook trout after trout on a dry fly.

Now I have been taught my fishing in the traditional “Natal way” — sinking line, large wet fly weighted with shot to make the fly sink quickly, and then a jerky retrieve to attract the fish. This method undoubtedly catches fish, but I now know that it is by no means the only, nor possibly the most effective means of catching a trout. Nor it it the most interesting. After all, how can one compare the thrill of actually seeing the trout take the fly with the mere impersonal jerk on the line of a fish taking a sunken fly?

Since this initial experience I have fished a floating fly frequently on our Natal lakes. I have been amazed at how effective the method is. A large bushy fly which floats well seems to be very successful. I had the good fortune to ask Reg Maud to look for some dry flies for me on one of his overseas trips. Among the selection he brought back was one, a bulky fly tied of deer hair. This fly, now improved

upon by Tom Sutcliffe using klipspringer hair and renamed the Dry Dargle Deerhair Fly (later renamed Duckworth’s Dargle Delight) has produced a real bonanza of trout. My experience is that if it is cast accurately to a trout rising, it is seldom refused.

I conclude with a few points about fishing a dry fly in stillwaters that I have gained through personal experience.

Firstly, the trout do not always gobble the fly down immediately. They often seem to suck it from two or three inches away. This means that one has to wait for the strike.

If one strikes early, one will merely pull the fly away from the fish. One must wait until the fish has the fly and turns with it. The sudden excitement of seeing the fish go for the fly has often led me to strike early and lose many a fish.

Dry fly fishing is most effective when the fish are rising, but can still be used “blind” when no fish are to be seen. Then one merely casts in various directions and hopes. If no response occurs, then the fly can be moved and retrieved and, surprisingly, this will often induce a take.

The thickness of the leader is, I think, important.

Recently I was broken off twice while using a 4 lb leader.

As I had only one DDD left, I thought it prudent to change to a stronger leader, and I attached an 8 lb tippet.

Thereafter I seemed to get far fewer strikes.

There is no doubt that my returns have improved since using the dry fly method. The fishing has also become more exciting.

DIRECTORY

ad index VENUES: Forest Creek Lodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Forty Winks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Giant’s Cup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Riverside Trout Cottages . . . . . . . . . 23 GENERAL: EvaCool Coolers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Flyfishing Expo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Grant Thompson Replicas. . . . . . . . . 9 J-Vice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Natal Caravans & Marine. . . . . . . . . 24 Safari Chillers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Solly’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 The Kingfisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 TOPS at Spar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 TOPS Corporate Challenge . . . . . . . 44 Xplorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Yamaha Explorer 465 . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Yamaha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

58 • FLYFISHING June 2018