A Big Fish Day

Once in a while we catch a bigger than average fish and I must admit it adds to the excitement of fly fishing. I experienced such a day a couple of weeks ago on the Vaal River. It was early season, with every species of fish in the Vaal River spawning expect my quarry, smallmouth yellow fish. Not to disturb the fish fraternity in their mating rituals in the rapids, I fished a glide of half a meter deep.

I fished green rock worm patterns (Caddis Larvae) followed by a black fly pattern or black hot head nymphs, New Zealand style under an indicator.

It soon became clear that the fish liked my presentation and shortly after I started fishing I hooked into what felt like a Bulldog. This tug of war ended in me landing a 3 kg mudfish.

Second cast after landing the Mudfish I hooked into another extremely strong fish. It ran down stream, causing me to follow in a comedy of movement, navigating my way over slippery rocks and what not in the river. I managed to turn the fish and saw its large orange lips with the green rock worm solidly stuck in the upper lip. Cyprinus Carpio paid me a visit. It took a while to land the fish. It was a fat short common carp.

 

Rest of the morning saw me hooking and releasing a dozen or so smaller mudfish and even a couple of small yellow fish.

Midday I returned to the same glide I started fishing that morning and I was immediately into another big fish, yes another common carp. The only difference was that this fish was twice the size of the earlier fish. I eventually managed to land the fish and it weighed 6 kg.

Just to place the cherry on the cake, half an hour later I hooked into a large moggel weighing 2,7 kg.

Three personal bests set in one day – What a day!!

Dullstroom Winter Trout

Nothing beats fishing for fin perfect fish in gin clear waters. During June this year, on a very cold day (normal winter’s day in Dullstroom) we fished trout waters in the Highlands of Mpumalanga. Early morning the fishing was at most dawdling and we managed to entice a couple of fish (two to be precise) to devour our small black mayfly nymphs. These size 18 flies were fished static in combination with an olive buzzer under an indicator, allowing it to drift in the ever present wind.

 Midmorning the trout became more active and a blob and blood worm combination also fished static under an indicator did the trick. These fish were in perfect condition and gave an extremely good account of themselves.