Highland Lodge

I recently visited Highland Lodge located in the Stormberg close to Dordrecht in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

This trout water is known for its naturally grown huge fish. Fingerlings are mostly stocked resulting in clever big fish. The area should not be fished by the fainthearted as a person will experience all four seasons in one day.

  
Casting a 5 weight rod in gale force wind from a float tube or pontoon boat being tossed around as if you are on the sea can be challenging, but the rewards are so sweat – big hard fighting fish. The surroundings and bird live at Highland Lodge is out of this world.

 

We fished a variety flies but most fish were taken on dragon fly and blood worm patterns. The one specific dragon fly pattern, the papa roach did extremely well. We fished the roach on a floating line with a long leader extremely slowly on the bottom – basically only taking up slack in the line. In the deeper sections of the dams we utilized an intermediate line. The mumbo #5 and atomic worms did well in terms of blood worm patterns. We also caught fish on small #16 and #18 flashback mayfly nymphs. This we only started fishing on the afternoon of the last day, but should have fished these from the beginning due to its success.
The biggest fish I landed was a magnificent “Blue” rainbow trout of close to 8 lbs.


Most of the other fish were between 4 and 6 lbs.

 

Sharing the water with great friends added to the experience. 

 

 

 Spot the small flashback mayfly nymph solidly lodged.

 

Sterkfontein Yellows

By the time the years labour ended, I had already carefully mapped my December holiday break to enable me a couple of days on the Vaal River. Well, the first attempt nearly ended in tragedy. While I was fishing a part of the Vaal River just below the dam wall, within the first ten minutes of entering the water, the dam’s gates were opened and the flow increased from 25 mᶾ/s to 250 mᶾ/s in minutes. We just in time made our way to high ground.

 

 

The increased water flow dislodged debris as well as all types of water creatures including brown water snakes which I am not particularly fond of although totally harmless.

That was the end of my carefully mapped Vaal River schedule.

But then an opportunity presented itself to visit Sterkfontein dam and to make up for all the yellow fish fishing I have missed during December.

 

The clarity of the water and feeding patterns of the yellow fish in this dam allows for extremely good dry fly fishing. These yellows would patrol the banks of the dam and eat most things blown into the drink.

During previous sessions on the dam the fish would accept various dry flies such as F-Flies, CDC Emergers, Stimulators and Beetles. This session they accepted any beetle pattern as long as it was purple.   

 

 

 

The weather was true to its reputation and we had all four seasons in one day, every day except one.

 

We were even caught off guard and trapped against the shore to avoid the risk of being electrocuted, only to be punished by a hail downpour. All part of the experience!

 

 

The fishing was great and some good specimens were caught.

 

 

These yellows were feeding aggressively and did not sip the fly of the top but took it with gusto as long as the angler was hiding out of sight.

 

Hope to return soon!