Stillwater - Truttablog

Journeys through the journal (2)

Just after ‘new years’ this year, we were staying in a farm cottage in the midlands. It so happens that we have permission to fish the dam on the neighbouring farm. And so, most days that we were there, we drove across there at some point to throw a line. We were catching fish every day. Nothing spectacular. Just rainbows of a pound or two, but all very pleasant. On the 6th January, we ventured out later than usual, because of stormy weather. In fact my journal records that it stormed at lunch time, after a hot morning, and

9 October 2013

Confessions of a Trout snob

When reading Duncan Browns book recently, (Are Trout South African), I became aware of the depth of my prejudices. Duncan does a fine job of pointing out the nuances and peculiarities that we apply in deciding if something is indigenous or not, and it is a thought provoking read. I go for Trout , with a capital T, (Alien) and definitely not bass (with a lower case B), ( also alien). I strongly dislike wattles and brambles (Alien), but love the sight of a stand of poplars (also alien). I don’t care much for scalies [AKA “yellowfish”] (indigenous), and I

26 September 2013

Measure once, Cut Twice

Back in 1996 I was cornered by a horde of tackle dealers, who politely informed me that the rod I was using at the time was……… Well it was…………….. I needed a new one. And the ones they put in my hands that day beside a dam near Somerset East were sublime. So on my return home to KZN I visited one of them, and he very generously gave me three fly-rods to try. I tested them on a prime still-water, and settled very quickly on this one:

28 July 2013

Keepers

My friend Roy sent this to me the other day: “I grew up with parents who kept everything & used them time & time again! A mother, God love her, who washed aluminium foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen before they had a name for it. A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones. Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in

9 July 2013

Showing the others a toffee

Over the years, there have been more occasions than I care to remember, where my colleagues have out-fished me a dozen to one, or where they have caught fish and I have not, or perhaps I caught all the small ones, and the other bloke landed several ‘lunkers’. Those are the days when you try to copy their retrieve. You borrow an identical fly, and then at some point they will start giving you advise, or let you take their spot. This just makes it worse, as you try desperately to bury that nagging human nature called competitiveness. I am

20 June 2013

You can’t catch a Trout with a yo-yo

A good many years back, we were out on a first class piece of water in the Kamberg valley, and I had my two young boys with me. They were really little guys at that stage. “Knee high to a grasshopper” as the saying goes. We were tackling up at the time, but the boys had got distracted, and just as I finished tying on a fly, I looked up to see they had diverted their attention to perfecting the yo-yo. It was in vogue at the time, and they were distractible youngsters, but as my gaze shot over to

16 June 2013

Doughnuts

I can’t be sure when I first stepped into a float tube. What I do know, is that on the morning of 29th June 1985 Roger Baert arrived on the farm, to come and help us see if we could catch some of the Trout we had stocked in our new dam. He was a little late: He had stopped on the way in to watch a duiker for a long while. I fished from the little rowing boat that my father had bought us, aptly named “DryFly”, and Roger fished from a float tube. Not just any float tube

10 June 2013

Big “Nasties”

As the weather gets bitingly cold, and the landscape loses the soft warm comforts of summer, one’s demeanour as a fisherman probably changes. By that I am suggesting that when you are out there in a cold wind, with waves coming in at you across a large stretch of cold water bounded by drab dry grass, and no sign of anything moving, you are less likely to fish a #18 emerger. Well I certainly am less likely to do so! Less likely that is, than when it is spring, and a soft breeze brushes a water surface occasionally disturbed by

31 May 2013

Up the creek without a net!

There was a time when I was less than diligent about carrying a net. It was in the days before magnetic net keepers, and at a time when long handled retractable nets were the order of the day on stillwaters. The problem lay in carrying the net. I’d clip it to my belt, but when I went to crouch down, it would hinge around and the handle would catch me in the groin unexpectedly. I would try shoving it down my trousers, which worked ok until you went down on one knee and it poked you in the sternum.

27 May 2013

Standing still

Many years ago, I used to fish stillwaters with a fellow by the name of Guy, who had bad knees. I don’t know how bad the knees were. All I know is that when I was crouching in the tall grass or beside a bush at the water’s edge, he was standing tall, because it was uncomfortable for him to crouch. So I was at an advantage. I could take cover just a little more than he could. So the fish were less likely to see me, and I would catch more fish. Neat! Except that it didn’t work like

10 May 2013