The
pleasure of catching a 10 lb. smallmouth yellowfish eluded me for a long time. On
my first outing to the Vaal River this year, I was fishing on my own and within
my first couple of casts below a shallow riffle which ran into a slow deeper
section of the river, I was rewarded with a small yellowfish and even smaller
mudfish – maybe 3 inches in length.
Large mudfish tend to do this when hooked and
to start the fight I normally give the rod another flick in the opposite direction
just to let the beast know that the games must begin. As I carefully
administered this flick with the rod, the water in front of me exploded and
this BIG yellow raced down stream. It took my fly line and almost all of my
backing before I managed to stop it. From there it was smooth sailing as I was
playing the fish in deeper open water with not too many obstacles. I managed to
land the fish – it weighed 10, 1 lbs. A friend joined me and took a couple of photos
before releasing the fish.
Perfect start to a new year of fly fishing!
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