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The season between the fish

Trevor and Roy on opening day: Roy on the Lotheni: all smiles on a blank cold day. Coffee on the Mooi during 8 days of fishing bliss in October : Back up on the Lotheni with Graeme, and later with him and Jac on the Mooi in scalding heat which was followed by a wild storm, which we sat out beside an earth bank that sheltered us from the worst of the wind: An inchworm that fell onto my trouser leg while eating lunch on the Sterkspruit: Anton prospecting on the Bokspruit Artwork?………the new piece adorning the entrance to Vrederus:

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27 June 2017

How to count fish

As fishermen, we can sometimes look down on people who count their fish.  There are those who take a little toggle counter pinned to their vest, and ratchet up numbers long after dark while everyone else is around the braai fire. (Not my type!) Then there’s the guy who says “oh …I got enough of them to make me happy”. (Bloody irritating! …but I think I have said stuff like that before) I have to count my fish. If I didn’t, what would I write in my logbook?  I know…I don’t have to have a logbook. But I do have

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21 June 2017

Midge emergers

  Which way up?  CDC vs Deer Hair?   Roy Christie style vs Bob Wyatt style? Grip hook vs Hanak?  Tail breather vs none? I am leaning towards the reverse fly, which puts the tippet below the surface, and I like the CDC for its delicacy and movement. The Hanak hook has a wider gape, which I like. The hackle on the CDC fly should help float it, but I am thinking I could go with more sparse and longer hackle.  There are worse ways to occupy an evening…..  

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2 June 2017

A buddy lost

After the drama of family and grandchildren, stepping forward one after the other to drop a white lily onto the coffin below, the old guy in the tweed fedora stepped forward to the grave’s edge.  He had stepped slowly forward  when attentions were diverted. When the mourners had pulled their eyes away, and were looking through the bare branches of the graveyard trees at the happy sky beyond. As they were all  swallowing hard and waiting for the lumps in throats to mercifully subside.  That was when he stepped to the edge of the raw earth. His movements were slow

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31 May 2017

no 36

In the last week we have switched on the under-floor heating in the lounge, and I have worn a jacket of some sort most days. By my reckoning that signals the close of number 36….my 36th contiguous flyfishing season since this thing bit me all those years ago. Sitting here in my living room , armed with a good cup of coffee and a reflective mood, I have just paged through my journal, and tried to get a sense of how it was. Tried for a capsule that sums it all up. Something that captures it in a way that

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23 May 2017

Downstream fishing, machine damage, bulls, and compromise

I try very hard to do things right, and to do them the right way, but we all have to compromise sometimes. Last week I fished for a sighted Trout downstream. Peril the thought! It was rising in Bird Pool up on Furth, but it was rising against the rock shelf that you just can’t physically get downstream of. The current plunges into the pool, and runs parallel to the shelf, straight into a steep and wooded bank. So I had to use the riffled water at my feet as my screen from the trout’s vision, kneel in the shallow

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9 May 2017
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