Flies2Fish: January 2018

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