The Potts

Caught this beautiful rainbow trout with a black papa roach fly in "The Potts" at Mount Arthur, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Monster Trout

My largest trout to date caught at Oxbow Country Estate, South Africa, weighing in at 10 lbs. The old trusted beady blood worm fly did the trick.  

This beast was also caught at the Oxbow Country Estate, South Africa, just missed the 10 lbs. 

Zambezi 2011

My first tigerfish on fly.

Luckily we also caught larger specimens.

Ready for action!

One of the locals keeping an eye on us while fishing.

Largemouth Yellowfish - 2010

While Czech nymphing for smallmouth yellowfish, I hooked this beautiful largemouth yellowfish on a #14 brassie fly. Gave me a great fight on the light tackle I fished.

Sterkfontein 2011

This was my first experience at Sterkfontein dam in South Africa. Fishing dry flies for smallmouth yellowfish. Epic!! 

Most of the fish were caught on #16 Stimulators and CDC F-flies.

Such a special place!

Oxbow Trout 2011

Dave's Farm 2007

Flyfishing with the kids, catching vlei kurper and bass.

Yellowfish Vaal River September 2014

These are some of the early season yellowfish I caught on small caddis pupae drifted through a deep pool on the Vaal river. The takes were explosive!

                        

                                                      

An Introduction to Fly Fishing

Whenever a person, old or young, is exposed to the “art” of fly fishing for the first time it could be extremely daunting. To start with, you need to get a whole “fly fishing” dictionary under the belt. You need to be able to strip (your line) in front of other fly fishers although they could have bigger fishing rods than you. You need to link the terminology with the actual articles. A leader is not necessarily the person in front of you in the stream. The appropriate attitude must be adopted not to reveal you’re a newbie to the sport, but your uncontrolled tripping, sliding and half drowned look is a dead giveaway anyway. There are flies in the fly box and black flies biting your legs.

Well, not all true! The key aspect to reveal when introducing a person to the sport is to enjoy the experience (and to catch a fish). During the past holiday, I had the opportunity to expose some family members, who had never touched a fly rod (with the exception of my dad who joins me regularly on the river), to the magnificent sport of fly fishing. I decided to release them on the Vaal river in South Africa. The Vaal do not require long accurate casts in general and a basic indicator set-up could allow them to catch a couple of fish and to experience an explosive run of a yellow fish bolting upstream.

After a short “This Is This” and “That Is That” they were released on the awaiting fish population. The “Team”, all caught fish, some big some small, and a particular team member was seriously hooked – we had to visit the river again after two days.  Another team member was also seriously hooked – I managed to remove the hook from his leg without serious blood loss.  Their smiles said it all and I had an awesome experience!

First mudfish

Next mudfish

Biggest mudfish

Good yellowfish

 Big yellowfish

Another mudfish

Smallest fish

Another yellowfish

I also caught a yellowfish. 

Yellow!

Yellow!

St Lucia South Africa 2008

Catching various species of fish on fly in the estuary at St Lucia.

Brown ray caught on small clouser.

Croc not caught on fly, foul hooked it once or twice.

Caught a small soul on fly.

La Verpa

I had a quick afternoon session at La Verpa in Dullstroom South Africa recently. Fishing was done in three still waters which are crystal clear with a well balanced stocking policy. The clarity resulted in the fishing being technical with no margin of error. I caught some beautiful rainbows and a magnificent brown.