12 minute read
Undercurrents Basie Vosloo
TRIBUTE FISHERMAN’S FRIEND
OF PIPE TOBACCO, ZAK’S, CORDITE, AND BLACK LABEL QUARTS – JADE DOS SANTOS REMEMBERS THE LATE GREAT BASIE VOSLOO - FARMER, ANGLER, PIONEER AND FRIEND TO MANY WHO VISITED RHODES IN THE EASTERN CAPE.
Photo. Tom Sutcliffe
A few weeks back, I caught myself daydreaming about the high up places with Lilliputian streams, and said out loud, as if to make it true, that I needed to go back to the North Eastern Cape and visit a few old friends.
And while I will be back in the mountains and I will stop in at the farm Birkhall, I am sad to say one friend I won’t be seeing, is Basie Vosloo.
Basie and Carien Vosloo had a larger bearing on my life than I think they knew about. Almost a decade ago, green as a leaf, I arrived in Rhodes on a 3 week solo fishing trip to explore the fabled mountain streams, looking for 4 inch trophy trout and adventure. I got all of that, and so much more.
Due mostly to incredible people I met along the way, such as Ed Herbst, Basie & Carien Vosloo, Dave Walker, Tony Kietzman, and Fred Steynberg, that one trip became an annual trip for about 4 years, until the natural progression of life found me more behind a desk than in the mountains I so love.
While my head is now stuck mostly in the humdrum of life in Johannesburg, my heart was still firmly caught in the networks of streams in those rolling hills and sandstone mountains.
The Vosloos took me in after three weeks of traveling around the blue-lined mountains of Rhodes, giving me a warm bed, a place at their table, a stool at Basie’s pub, and filling my heart with love and my head with memories to keep me close to the streams that can sometimes seem so far away. I was even given the odd farm job, as Basie told me that I needed to “earn my keep” while sitting together one night in the pub.
To this day, I still feel desperately unworthy of the kindness and love they bestowed upon me during my stay on Birkhall. The Vosloo family are salt of the earth, and custodians of the land they farmed for generations. The custodianship of the land that was so in their blood, led to Basie not just being part of the famed Wild Trout Association, but key in its development, forming the association with Dave Walker in 1991. This opened access to hundreds of kilometres of water to those in pursuit of tiny streams, wild trout, and as a result, created a Mecca for South African fly fishermen. We fly fishermen all owe Basie a debt of gratitude, a debt I don’t think anyone who has fished Rhodes can honestly say they could ever repay, so great has his influence been in the world of small stream trout in South Africa.
Basie was an enigma and few people knew him better, as guests and as adopted-family, than Tom Sutcliffe and Ed Herbst. Both men spent many days on the farm with Basie, sharing water and beer alike. One of Ed’s favourite descriptions of Basie came from the late playwright and angler, Robert Brandon-Kirby, who in his 1993 coffee table book, ‘Fly Fishing in Southern Africa’ said: “Vosloo is one of those extraordinary human surprises that occur in the world of fly-fishing. At first when you meet him, the only impression that he makes is that of the stereotypical, tough, case-hardened Afrikaner farmer. But a few hours in his company reveal an intriguing inner man. The casing, sun-tanned and rough, conceals a highly developed taste in the worthier examples of modern music, a deep knowledge of the plays of Oscar Wilde, and a poetic soul. He runs a pack of pedigreed gun dogs and is an excellent shot. He rides like a professional and lives with an enthusiasm for the world’.
Decades of friendship have been captured in Tom’s books, Shadows on the Stream Bed, Hunting Trout and Yet More Sweet Days, immortalising a man that has etched a place in South African fly- fishing history. If Rhodes is the centre of the universe, the Vosloo’s home farm Birkhall is her spiritual home, as it has been home to so many anglers over the years, and as Tom so beautifully describes.
“There were days, countless of them over the years, when we just sat chatting on the veranda of Birkhall, gazing across views along the tree-laced river valley, sometimes with an early mug of coffee seeing in a sunrise, or watching
the unfolding drama of a thunderstorm or, commonly, a sunset gradually turning the surrounding blue-shadowed mountains to flame-orange.”
Basie and Carien didn’t only welcome fishermen into their home. Greywing francolin hunters have been joining the Vosloos for many winters, and from what I am told by seasoned veterans of those mountainous hills, Basie and Carien have one of the best wingshooting outfits in the country.
Dave Walker of Walkerbouts Pub in Rhodes and Basie often hunted together, and spent many hours on horseback looking for Greywing francolin and Mountain Reedbuck. Dave and Basie go way back, to their student days when they both studying in the agricultural field in Bloemfontein. They soon discovered that they had many common interests and basic philosophies that formed the basis for an enduring friendship that was firmly established in 1978. There were hunting and fishing ventures which led to the fortuitous birth of the Wild Trout Association (WTA), who offer controlled access to more water than you could fish in a lifetime, acting as conservators to the riparian waters. Then there’s Dave eponymous bar that if it could talk would have plenty of stories to tell too.
Dave mentions that the formation of the WTA was only possible thanks to Basie’s understanding of farming, and love for trout:
“Vos’s acute understanding of both the underlying concept and of the agricultural community ensured the recruitment of many members. Thus kilometer upon kilometer of running water was drawn into the fold. Apart from our innumerable beer-enhanced discussions, many a fly angler was hooked by his hospitality.
Dave reminisces about one of their hunts the perfectly demonstrates Basie’s tone and mannerisms that you grow so fond of:
“We found ourselves at the end of a steep ridge with a magnificent view down the valley. I must mention that I was wearing “fashion boots” of “brothel creeper” design i.e. with flat soles similar to those worn on a bowling green. Being a horseman of note, without hesitation, Vos set off down the incline. I decided that I would dismount and descend on foot, leading the horse behind me. On noticing this apparently offensive behaviour, Vos stopped and asked me what I thought I was doing. “I’m not riding down this steep slope” said I.
“Ah” said he, “the horse has four legs and you’ve only got two AND you’re wearing kak boots” and off he went on down the slope. I hadn’t taken more than five steps and, as predicted, landed flat on my bum saved only by the firm grip I had had on the horse’s reins. On hearing the commotion, Vos looked back with a wry grin on his face and said “See?” I promptly mounted up and decided there and then that that was the last time I would be so foolish, after all, if Vos could do it, so would I!”
Basie’s dogs were a focal point for some of Tom’s earliest memories when first meeting Basie, and would become ever-present company on his visits to the farm.
Tom says, “Basie had a special love for Archer, an English pointer. Feathers, also an English pointer, was next in the line of Birkhall’s canine hierarchy, then followed by a later pointer, Thomas, that I collected for Basie as a puppy from a breeder in Johannesburg and drove down to Birkhall with him in my truck. Don’t ask me about that trip. The dog arrived safely and ended up named after me. But Archer somehow lifted himself to near holiness among the many gun dogs in Basie’s life, and he has since had a room named in his honour in the Branksome Country House, a lodge run by Basie’s sister Rene on the next farm upstream of Birkhall.”
The dogs grew on Tom, and Tom on the dogs: ‘…we tied a few flies by gaslight at Gateshead .... When we finally turned in, the air was like frozen steel. I crawled under a heavy mountain of blankets and blew out the candle. Moments later Feathers started to inch her way onto my bed with deliberate and measured stealth, trembling paw by trembling paw, convinced I was unaware of her subterfuge. I let her sink onto the bed. She lay dead-still and eventually we fell asleep. In the morning she was curled up warmly at my feet and her son, Archer, still a puppy, was deep inside my duffel bag with only his nose showing.’
Gateshead
I met Ed in person the first time visiting Birkhall one April. We were leaving Rhodes to explore the jewel in Basie’s crown of farms, Gateshead, for a few days and I wanted to stop in and see Carien and Basie. We got to Gateshead in the dark, after sharing an afternoon in dappled autumn light, drinking Black Labels from a crate, dodging plumes of pipe smoke, listening to Ed and Basie’s stories of years past. Ed was a welcomed guest and part of the family on Birkhall, sharing many days with him over their long friendship.
“Like so many others who knew him, I have a hole in my heart because he and Carien were family to me.”
Ed and Basie might seem diametrically opposed, and in some ways they were, with Ed pioneering South African Small stream fishing and constantly experimenting behind the vice with innovative flies size #20 or smaller, while Basie started fly fishing with big rods and big flies. Ed tells us of a conversation he had with Basie: “The trout in Barkly East want steak not sandwiches”, Basie would tell me, as his #6 Mrs Simpson, fished downstream and retrieved against the current, produced another five pound trout.
Basie was using a five-weight fly rod when I met him, which I called the G5 after the 155 mm howitzer used by the South African infantry at the time.
Every time I acquired a new ultra-light line fly rod, I passed its predecessor on to Basie and he quickly changed tactics, fishing the flies which Tom Sutcliffe and I tied for him.
I remember fishing the Sterkspruit with him using a laboriously-constructed double-taper leader which I suggested he try.
His first cast saw the fly firmly affixed to a rock face on the opposite bank and, without hesitation he stripped off on a cold and cloudy day and swam across the river to retrieve it.”
Basie was a fascinating character, and to compliment Ed’s description of Basie, Tom says, “My initial characterisation of Basie (in line with my narrow orthodoxy that farmers are generally rough and largely uninterested, or unversed, or both, in the affairs of the world), was way off. He had a gentle side, far-ranging intellectual horizons, as at home with the arts and literature (particularly the writings of Oscar Wilde), as he was grading wool or planting potatoes.
Basie Vosloo and Carien Vosloo.
But he was still your typical farmer in so many ways: in his warmth of spirit and generosity; in his love of the veld; in his industrial-grade self-belief in his farming skills; in his total delight in any bit of running water. And, not least, in appearance; a big man, with legs of a billiard table, always in shorts and open-neck shirt, even when that high-mountain cold turned our breath to clouds of frozen vapour.”
Tony Kietzman who has spent decades living and fishing in Rhodes knew Basie better than most.
Tony says, “He was more than a sunburnt and slightly battered farmer, he was well learned on many subjects and quite intellectual. His family came first, a loving wife who cared for him to the end. Three well-educated and refined sons whom when first meeting them I thought were wild animals, and whom I now count amongst my close friends. Farmland was left in a better condition than when Basie first set foot on it. He would say, “I don’t farm cattle, I farm grass”. Friendship and adventures occurred in all fields he dealt in from wingshooting, to fly fishing and farming. He was custodian of some of South Africa’s most legendary trout waters. A hole in my heart.”
Visiting Rhodes and the surrounding rivers is not just a simple fishing trip, it’s an invitation into a particular way of life, where time slows down and your main concern is which stretch of water to fish. You will meet the most fascinating characters along the way and I have, and lifelong relationships will form, offering you understanding in your piscatorial pursuits and friendship as you find your way around those mountains.
While I won’t be seeing Basie again, I will be back to Birkhall to cast a fly in the Sterkspruit, and to walk the hallowed hills of Gateshead in all of her expansive glory. If you ever find yourself in the centre of the universe, stop in at Walkerbouts Inn and raise a cold Black Label quart in Basie’s memory and book a beat; for we owe him so much because Basie gave us exactly what is so closely connected to our sense of self as anglers.
I take quiet solace from Ed, that the legend of Basie continues.
“Basie’s son Arnie and his daughter-in-law, both doctoral graduates from the University of Stellenbosch, have given up their academic careers and moved to Birkhall to help run the Vosloo farms with Carien. I draw comfort from this seamless inter-generational transition which will see fly anglers continue to walk the banks of the Sterkspruit at Birkhall and Branksome and the upper Bokspruit at Gateshead which Basie once fished with so much joy and vivacity.”
There is still much to be said about Basie, so if you are ever in earshot of Ed, Tom, Tony, or Dave, do yourself a favour and ask them to tell you more about the man. Grab yourself a cold beer, and enjoy the kind words, the adventure, salute the friendships and give thanks for all the man at Birkhall has done for fisherman and trout.
Tom, in parting words, captures Basie’s role not just in his life, but in fly fishing lore. “Without Basie and Carien Vosloo of Birkhall, there would be no story to tell.“
Godspeed Basie, may the trout be freely rising and the Greywing towering high. Thank you for everything.
