Catfish on fly

Sterkfontein Yellows on fly

Tiger on Fly

10 lb Smallmouth Yellowfish!

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. 

 Seeing small fish is always pleasing as it creates that assurance that our rivers are still producing next generations of fish. While pondering on this, my nymphs stopped dead in their tracks and slowly moved a foot or two to the right away from me. I immediately knew this was a big fish, which, by the look of it, was not even aware that a small size 16 nymph has been lodged in its upper lip. 

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!

Evening Rise - Trout

The farm Evening Rise is a jewel situated in the Kwena Basin between Machadadorp and Dullstroom on the foot of the Steenkampberg Mountains. 

The Crocodile River runs through this farm and, no there are no crocodiles in this part of the river, I think. 

The accommodation on the farm is an old farmhouse with no electricity, but with sufficient luxuries such as a piece of ice, or two, for the well-deserved Scottish liquid after a challenging session on the river. 

The ambiance created by the smell of the thatched roof, fireplace etc. adds to the experience. 







This part of the Crocodile River has a wild population of rainbow trout and provides some of the best river trout fishing in Mpumalanga. 

This is not fly fishing for the beginner and low water levels contributed to the difficulty level. But, bigger the challenge, the sweeter the moment you actually manage to land one of these perfect samples of a rainbow trout. This style of fishing teaches the youngsters a lot about fly fishing. During our stay we encountered heavy thunderstorms and to our amazement the river clears from a muddy torrent to a clear stream in a few hours. 

The entomology in this river is evidence of its healthy state. We fished predominantly black mayfly imitations and GRHE’s to imitate the “hatch”.

 

An unforgettable experience. 

Forelwater Belfast South Arica

I recently visited one of the best trout waters in South Africa - Forelwater. Afrikaans for "Trout Water". We fished a 12 ha dam and other smaller dams. We focused on the big dam and landed a total of 28 fish over the week-end. The smallest being 2 kg and the largest 3,1 kg. It was my dads first time at this venue and he caught some beautiful fish. The preferred flies were large brown dragonfly nymphs, blood worms and olive buzzers. 

Early Season Yellowfish

This year’s yellow fish season opened with a bang. We fished slow glides and got broken up a couple of times by big smallmouth yellowfish. The biggest I caught was 3.9 kg – currently my personal best.