Inhlosane
I grew up within sight of this mountain, I live within sight of it,and a great deal of my fly-fishing is conducted within sight of it. Picture courtesy of Paul DeWet
9 April 2013
Flowers in the veld
Us fly-fishermen are a fairly obsessive bunch. Obsessing about fish mostly, and everything to do with catching them. I certainly do. But as my good friend Roy has noticed, of late I have started to take note on the wonderful flowers we encounter when we go fishing. Here is a selection of what you can expect to see in the highlands of KwaZulu Natal if you take the time to notice. One day perhaps I will develop the skills required to identify them all properly, and maybe I will commit their names to memory.For now I just looked them up
9 March 2013
Little river fish
Here in South Africa, and certainly in my own home waters of KwaZulu Natal, our river fish are not expected to grow very big.
3 March 2013
A gift from Bernard
Five years ago, I was given a wonderful gift. It was a Garmin e-trex vista HCX GPS. A nifty little handheld, waterproof “hiking type” unit, that slips into your jacket pocket. At the time, I was pleased to receive it, and was sure it would come in use out there in the veld somehow. But I had no idea how much I was to end up enjoying it. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that us humans are great measurers of things. And many of us outdoor types all the more so. Perhaps I speak for
24 February 2013
knotted leaders
I suspect that knotting ones own nylon leaders nowadays, is a little like carrying carthorse food in the boot of your car for a long trip. We have simply moved on. We have knotless tapered leaders, and they are great. Correct. We do. But I am an eternal fiddler of the piscatorial type. And none of the tapered leaders I have bought come with an explanation as to what taper they were designed on. None of them come with a boiled butt, or a switch in material from nylon to fluoro-carbon somewhere along their length. Tying your own tapered leaders
21 February 2013
The nature of rivers
Some time back, I fished the Trout Bungalow section of the Mooi River with a good friend of mine. It was a magical April day. We arrived late morning, perhaps a little too late, as I like to be on the water by about 10:00 am at the very latest. We tackled up quickly and headed upstream to do battle. I carried a particular air about me that day. It was an air of curiosity and comparison. An introspective sense of evaluation, and an acute appreciation of the nature of this river. The reason for this is that the outing
16 February 2013
Doing the hills: a photo essay
As river fishermen, we inevitably do a fair amount of clambering up and down steep hills. Sometimes it is the walk in on a goat track. Paul De Wet and Rhett Quinn heading up the Riflespruit valley At other times it is just part of making your way up and down a river valley. Roy Ward looking for good footing in a river valley in KZN Either way a certain quota of sure footedness is an asset, as is a reasonable degree of fitness.
5 February 2013
Fishing cars
It is a simple fact that hardly anyone can afford to have a dedicated fishing car of any quality nowadays. There are those who have written about their fishing cars, but they were all somehow old “jalopies” (as we call them in South Africa), that made for a good story but were not reliable enough to provide a fishing trip of any comfort. So the reality is that the vehicle one goes to work in every day, has to double as your fishing car. With this in mind, any self respecting fly-fisherman, will of course choose his vehicle without any
24 January 2013
Indicators
Since I was a high school kid, I have been mildly obsessed with finding the perfect indicator. Back then I remember we hollowed out balsa wood struts from left over bits of our model airplanes. They were small sections of square bar, and we used a needle to make a small hole through them lengthways, so that we could thread them onto the leader. Then of course they had to be painted and varnished for durability. As a school-kid I was excited that this idea made it into print. The downfall of these things is that you had to position
19 January 2013
Blogging on paper
This blog started in 1981. I know, ………………………..there were no blogs in 1981, and our computers still ran on paraffin. But the concept started back then, even though I didn’t know it at the time. In fact I only came to that realisation the other day, when my son was paging through my personal logbooks, and he remarked that what I had there was a blog on paper. That would be because my fishing log is so much more than that. From about 1983 I started recording every day’s fishing in the same format. The same format that you will
18 January 2013