On the 12th of May 1985, a bunch of us unruly schoolkids arrived at the edge of Lake Overbury. My memory is a bit blurred, but I believe this may have been the trip where, after ascending the escarpment on “Ross’ road”, we persuaded “Sir” that we need not park the school bus and walk to the water, since there was an easy crossing point, where we could drive the bus through the small stream (the upper uMngeni). That bus should never have gone through the river! “Sir” certainly was gullible, and school kids are reckless and foolish beings, but I guess that is how memories are made. (See Delicate Presentations page 202 to 207). Anyway…we got the water on a cold May day, with a stiff easterly wind blowing. Most elected to stay on the side of the lake where we had arrived, which put the wind at their backs. I was antisocial, and went off alone to the far side of the lake, where the wind blew hard in my face, and I could barely get a fly out. And there, I had the most fantastic fly fishing! If and when I got the fly into the water, I caught fish. I was literally waiting for rare lulls in the wind, and then getting a fly out 10 yards at very best. I landed 10 fish, which ranged in size from one pound to three pounds, and lost a lot more than that. They took Red Setters, DDD’s and Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ears. When I returned to the school bus many hours later and found that the others had only one or two fish between them, I was as narcissistically pleased as only a schoolboy can be.
Two years later, I had another red-letter day, this time on the House Dam, as it is called, just below Meryl Turner’s home. Anyone who knows that dam, will know that it is fringed with tall reeds, often heavily weeded, and if you don’t have a float tube, is really only fishable off the wall. Well, it was no different in 1987, but that didn’t stop me catching fish. I landed six of them, in four hours of fishing. The smallest as a shade under four pounds, and the best was a 22 inch beaut of six pounds, according to my mother’s kitchen scale several hours later. Funny how you remember things: I had borrowed my Dad’s Suzuki “SJ410”…a fore-runner to today’s “Jimny”, and I arrived back home, and walked towards the house carrying my grandfather’s old wicker creel with an enormous trout’s tail sticking out of it, and hoping someone would notice. They did. In the hours before I had had the pleasure of watching fish emerge from the depths and chase the fly hungrily. One fish was spotted way off to the left, and I hastily retrieved the DDD I had on to walk over and cover i with a cast. The commotion of my retrieve saved me the trouble. The five pound fish swam about 20 yards to clobber the hastily retrieved dry fly before I could get it out of the water! Such was the day.
Six day’s later, and despite a number of fish rising to two different colour and size mayflies, I drew a blank at Chestnuts on the uMngeni. I did lose one fish, and remarked that it had taken a sub-surface nymph after repeatedly refusing a dry fly. My notes indicate that while the water was beautifully clear, the banks were overgrown with wattle and blackjacks. Little did I know that nearly 30 years later, the concern over that problem would have grown beyond just noting it in my logbook, into an all consuming endeavour that occupies all my days.
In 1991, with my army service behind me, I was on Prairie Dam on a float tube. This year Prairie was sadly invaded by Bass, but this was of course way back when it was still in fine form. Kevin and I had just three hours on the water, but plenty of action with small fish bumping the fly, and a decent Rainbow coming to my net on the FMD.
The following year, another good fish fell to the FMD in the second decad of May, and also at Prairie. This one was a solid four pounds, as pictured here on the tailgate of my red Isuzu pickup, which was an old rattletrap, but was practically my dedicated fishing vehicle. (The cap was bought at the Orvis store in Vermont on a trip there a few years earlier).
On account of it being a club event (The Glengarry week-end as it was known), we got to break club rules and fish a second water on the same day. The afternoon was spent at Morrass Vlei dam. That was one of the very first Kamberg dams to be invaded by largemouth bass, but back then it was a fine Trout water. I chalked up three of the eleven fish caught there that afternoon, mine falling to the FMD again. The fish were all between one and two pounds. The dam was low after a dry autumn, but the water was clean, and a brisk 13 degrees C. The following day we fished Little Falls dam, and while the FMD failed to produce that day, my companion landed a four and a half pound fish, and I was broken up by something big.
In 1994 I was in the Underberg area in mid May. I fished two waters alone: The lower Rocks on the uMzimkulu on the first day, and North End dam the following day, but without any fish to the net. I remarked that the uMzimkulu fish population was perhaps still suffering from the previous year’s severe drought, despite us already having had two berg snowfalls that year, and the river being full.
In 1996 PD and I somehow achieved two consecutive days fishing. The afternoon of the 16th, we were on Fergus Hawthorn’s dam, where PD had landed a six-and-a-half pound Rainbow three weeks earlier, and an even bigger fish had come out a week later. It was a lovely clear autumn afternoon, descending into a cold evening. We only managed a small stockie each. The following day, we were up at Invermooi. That day is memorable in that Richard Schumann, who then ran a small tackle shop in Durban, had lent me three rods on apro, to test. They were an Orvis, a Loomis, and a Thomas and Thomas: all 9 ft for a five weight line. Richard had witnessed me fishing an entry level Silstar rod with a dreadful foam rubber handle at the Somerset East fly fishing festival earlier in the month, and had insisted that it was time to step up to “something decent” . The Thomas and Thomas hit the sweet spot for me, and in fact I made a pig of myself with four good fish on it, which kind of sealed the deal
Two years later I was back at Fergus’ dam with PD and my son. The FMD featured again, this time for PD. Being the generous godfather that he is, he handed the rod to my son, who held onto the strong Rainbow (of about four pounds) without letting it run, and there was that thing that happens. Ping. Slack line. And tears. Oh well…. That is how you learn.
By the following year he had grown up a little more and him and I went to Reekie Lyn on the Mooi and fished a short section just down from the waterfall. His casting was coming along nicely, but alas the big beautiful, clean river seemed devoid of Trout. A story similar to what my friend Luiz reported when he fished it in May this year.
In 2002 a few of us were invited to fish the Yarrow in its lower reaches on the 11th of May. Even then the Yarrow was considered a long-forgotten Trout stream, and the visit was very much an exploration, built on a foundation of lore and hope. The water was attractive in places, but banks were often 10 ft vertical earth banks, topped with reeds, and it was far from easy. The weather had turned cold, and we didn’t see a fish despite exploring quite a considerable length of river, right down to the falls on Charlie MacGillivray’s place.
The following year , on the 11th of May again, I took my eldest son and his friend for a day on Reekie Lynn. To quote my diary “they had a great time, learnt a lot and were fishing like pros by the end . Their wading needs work though: they both took a dunking!”. We fished from Tekwaan pool to The Washing Machine. I was lamenting to my friend Luiz just this week that so few people know, have adopted, or have contributed to pool names on our rivers that it means we do not have a method of reference. That is a shame. I have tried not to dominate this space by naming all the pools and assuming authority over that domain. But I have named a few along our rivers, and if you are interested you can explore them in the annotated maps in the “Trout streams of KZN” section here on the blog. Go take a look and you will see what I mean when I say we fished from Tekwaan pool to The Washing Machine.
Oh, and yes, we did catch a few fish…but not many…the season was starting to turn.
On the 20th of May 2005 Petro and I went up to the Lumberjack’s dam. Some earthworks were on the go, and there was a pipe syphoning the dam, such that all the weed was at the surface. It wasn’t easy. According to my journal, the only cast on which I did t hook weed was the one on which I hooked a strong Rainbow that broke me up. That dam was always a bit like that.
In 2008, Petro and I were up at Highmoor on the 10th and 11th of May. The Saturday was a hiking day, but I fished the lower dam on the Sunday and took one fish: a strong and fat four and a half pound Rainbow , which took a brown FMD. It fought hard in crystal clear, 13,5 degree water, and added to our experience of the sunny , cool and pleasant day. A week later the whole family was up at Mortons dam with me where we looked over the hatchery, discussed the coming breeding season, and then left for Dales dam to do some fishing. The dam was full of small fish, and being a lean, “hill-dam” with limited nutrition, the fish are free rising, so we took most of them on a Humpy. According to my journal I hooked fish, and handed the rod to each family member at some time during the 2 hours that I fished, so that they could feel a tug on the end of the line.
On the 18th of May in 2011, a friend and I went up to the hatchery at the top end of the Dargle to do some repairs and maintenance, and as reward I let the poor bugger fish for a few hours. It was fun. We both got fish, but they were all those small, willing innocent unremarkable Rainbows which somehow in the collective make for a very pleasing outing. We took them on little damsels in water that went from 12 to 13 degrees during the day.
2012 saw me on the uMngeni at Chestnuts for a few hours. That was a warm dry year, so the river was low, and the water temp up at 15 degrees C. I didn’t see a fish, and my remarks sound a tad defeatist in the journal for that day, indicating that the top half of Chestnuts was hard going, with lots of wattle badly ring barked, and with trees variously re-growing or dying along the banks. Those trees that may have survived have, I am happy to say, long since been cleared. The unfortunate part is that the ones that were ring barked successfully back then, ultimately fell into the river. Logs under the water sit in a relatively anaerobic condition, meaning they have little oxygen to aid the rotting process. The result is that the pools of Chestnuts remain littered with many of those same logs to this day!
The following year (2013) was a lot colder in May, and as a result I didn’t fish a river at all in May. Instead we were on the stillwaters up near Impendle, doing hatchery duty and fishing. On the 19th of May, PD and I tried several of the dams, in water which measured just 10 degrees C , and we struggled. In five hours of fishing we got just three fish between us, and none over two pounds in weight. In 2014 I had a couple of hours on the same waters between hatchery work, and got no fish at all, despite changing waters, and tactics and approach.
In 2015 Graeme Steart and I went up to the Bushmans on the 16th of May. It was looking perfect, but the water was cold at around 11 degrees, and we encountered very few fish. We each lost a fish, and we found one pod of fish rising, but in the end we blanked, despite beautiful looking conditions.
The following year, the NFFC had a Stillwater clinic with the guys from Vagabond Flyfishing in mid May, and that was also very slow. The fish just seemed to be off, and my notes indicate that everyone did poorly. I for one blanked completely at two club dams in the Kamberg.
Mid May the following year, Dr Harry and I went up to West Hastings and stayed over in the cottage. The water temperature was 13 degrees in the dam, but on the Saturday the maximum air temperature was just 4 degrees, and the wind howled out of the South. I was convinced we would wake up to snow ob the Sunday, but surprisingly that didn’t happen. The good doctor did beer than me on the Saturday. He hooked three good fish, and landed two of those, which were around 3 and 4 pounds respectively. On the Sunday I got two fish like that and he got another three. The wind was howling out of the south, and we really could get a fly out very far, but that really didn’t seem to matter.
Now with talk of snow, you may be painting a mental picture of May as a cold and inhospitable month, but in 2019, for some reason, it was something else. On the 11th of May the water temperature at Lotheni was 15 degrees C! It showed in the fishing too. I had a good day there with my friend Ray. It was what I call a “bluebell day” with a warm sun, and not a cloud in the sky. I fished 7X on account of the water clarity. I also noted that the fish were in the pools that day. I have a theory which seems to hold true in a more clearly polarised way at Lotheni than anywhere else, and that is that the fish are either in the fast water, or in the pools on any given day. We spend a bit of time establishing that to start with and then we skip the water we have deemed to be empty. As you can see this becomes a wonderfully self fulfilling prophecy! Or at least it has the potential to be that, because on this day Ray got a fish in the white water at the get-go, and that lead us astray….it was a ‘false flag’. When we realised we had it wrong we started fishing just the pools, and our fortunes changed markedly. I noted that in each pool, we had just one shot. We either spooked, landed, or missed a fish, and that was the pool done.
A week later I stayed over at West Hastings, and had some pleasant Stillwater fishing to ring the changes. I got two fish in the late afternoon, both of which tried their hardest to reach the estimated five pound mark. That evening Petro and I were having a braai beside the water when a fish swirled right near the edge. I put my beer down and threw an FMD at it, and it ate it. Unfortunately it came off at the net, but it was such a beautiful, relaxed evening, in good company and with a rising moon, that little could dampen my spirits.
In 2020 things were a bit lean, because as you may remember the police were arresting surfers and people who were still out walking at 1 minute past 9 am, and throwing them into crowded police vans in a bezerk frenzied attempt to stop the spread of COVID. Crazy times, and enough to drive a man to fish, which I did. It involved a certificate which I drew up myself and printed, and a bag of mealie meal on the back of the bakkie. The perfect equipment for stopping pandemics and getting one through any roadblocks that may pop up. I was successful in avoiding arrest, but less so in the fish catching department.
A second foray (with the same certificate and bag of mealie meal) put me on West Hastings on the 19th of May, where I reported seeing exactly 4,000 fish. All that confinement may have done something to my sense of reality, but I did land 5 small Rainbows during that prolific mid day rise. A grey F fly was what cracked the code after lots of initial frustration at not being able to see the fly they were taking.
On the 14th of May 2021 I was on the river doing some pre-fire season work with a gang of guys. When we broke for lunch they sat under a tree with their sandwiches. I rigged up a fly rod and went downstream. It was thin, and the fish were spooky, but at a point above Picnic Pool I froze when I spotted a good Brown mid-river. It was about 16 inches long, and not feeding, but laying in a crevice in the rock very close to me. With great care I lowered the rod, and reached for my phone, and started capturing the fish in stills and in video. Sometimes the fish are so close and the moments so special that to unleash a fly at them seems wrong if not a little ineffective. I was overjoyed to just be able to watch and record this lovely fish, swimming in the river I hold so dear.
A few days later I was back with the same crew getting the job finished. This time I fished a bit more, and lost two good fish at the Forest Runs. Then I stopped, and rigged up my video camera to make a video for NFFC member’s inductions. It was kinda my parting gift to my club as I ended a chapter of 26 years on the committee and 5 years as chairman. As I was filming the dialogue, a small fish started rising behind me. When I was done narrating, I left the camera running, turned around, waded in and caught the fish, as if to show new members how it is done. If I might say so, that little fish’s gift somehow surpassed the bottle of whiskey the club kindly gave me as my parting gift.
