I knew that there was weather coming in. In my mind I reasoned that I should get out of the house early and fish while the sun lasted. But as things happen I lingered, and cooked breakfast and did some internet research on a work topic. I had slept well, but woken with a headache and somehow, little inclination for a brisk getaway in the cool of morning.
The net result was that my boots weren’t in the river much before eleven am. That was when the forecast had said it would start raining. They were clearly wrong on that front. The sun was shining. But I will say that there was a brisk and whirling wind. It was gusty, and seemed to change direction a lot. Clouds scudded across the sky, and the water was still one moment, riffled the next. Sun soaked one moment, and shaded the next.
I had planned to start at the tail of Nuttall’s pool, but before I scrambled down there, I glanced upstream and saw a fish rise confidently in the run above. We often have days where uMngeni browns don’t show themselves like this at all, so I decided to make the best of it and try for the fish I now knew was there.
The water was cool and as clear as the sky, and when the wind wasn’t gusting, the surface was like a plate glass window. A window with a view of me. The fish did not rise again, so I mooched off downstream to my planned starting point. When I was done there I headed back, and there was the fish. It rose again. Feeling as though I was being given a second chance, I tackled the task with all the care and focus I possess. I scrambled down the bank between nettles and brambles at a point further from the fish than my first attempt. I waded like a statue: Like I was advancing with the tectonic plates. I added a length of finer tippet and changed the big hopper for something much more subtle. A foot or so ahead of it I tied a very lightly weighted #18 Pheasant Tail nymph, to ensure my tippet didn’t float. I maneuvered to where I could execute a side cast, low over the water, and I waited for drifting cloud and wind gusts to obscure my delivery.
The fish did not rise again.
This is the stuff that tests the angler. I love it.
Later I waded into the very shallow riffle above where I had cast, and there I nearly stepped on the fish. It must have moved up there to get away from the casts coming in from overhead. With the more immediate danger of my big clumsy boots it shot out ahead of me, making an impressive bow wave all the way into the pool above, where it headed for some logs on the far side.
Later, the changing day developed a wildness about it. The southern horizon darkened and I decided that the rumble I was hearing was a combination of a passing truck up on the road behind me, and thunder from afar. There was a new coolness, and little need for my polarized sunglasses. At Bernard’s pool I switched to a small Taddy Bugger, and sunk it well into the gloomy depths, fearing all the time that I would connect yet another big log down there, but hoping that I would connect with a fish of similar proportions. At a point, a ring barked wattle had fallen into the pool. There it interrupted the flow, and a raft of detritus had formed on the upstream side. Something was bulging from the water there. It took me a while to realize that it was the bloated carcass of a reedbuck, with swarms of flies and maggots on its surface. I confess to drifting the Taddy Bugger close in under that lot, believing that some uncouth hog of a Trout could just be feasting off the stuff. But I kept my fly far enough away not to risk a piece of disgusting flesh, and shortly I moved upstream away from the sordid mess, just a little grateful that the hog hadn’t presented itself.
The wind was cold now, and the earlier showings of small blue patches in the sky had ceased altogether. It was quiet down there on the river. I was alone.
I landed a fair-sized Brown which I saw twist and turn deep underwater near where my fly had been. I waited until the turning fish appeared to be headed away and then tightened into it. While it had a few red spots towards its tail, suggesting it was not of the original Loch Leven stock, the fish had an ancient look to it. It was silvery and sparsely spotted. Lean and hungry looking, as I held it aloft for a quick picture against the backdrop of the gloomy deep pool, fringed with fly snagging reeds.
A short while later I donned my rain jacket, partly for warmth, and partly so that I could tuck the camera in underneath it. The weather had turned wet. At the Little Horseshoe, swallows were swooping and dipping, but no fish were rising. I tied on the small Pheasant Tail on the off chance that the fish were just out of sight below the silvery surface eating the emerging nymphs.
They were not.
I hurried up the hill, got out of my wet clothes and drove down the valley with some heartwarming music on the stereo, and thoughts of good coffee. As I drove, my mind wandered back to the fish I had spooked. What could I have done differently? It was a good fish that.
Fifteen inches I reckon.
One Response
The joy of fly-fishing! Thoroughly enjoyed the article, similar to my outing on April 30 on Riverside. River low and clear as gin. No wind so a decided challenge trying to persuade a fish committed to spawning. One fish lost in a submerged tree and a wonderful afternoon on one of the country’s finest rivers. It makes life worth living!