Streams – Page 32 – Truttablog

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

A Fishing log

Nothing fuels the fires of nostalgic fly-fishermen quite like a fishing log. There are personal logs, and there are those old books that the farmer keeps for his water. The one for which he calls you into the light of his kitchen, to fill-in before you depart. They may be leather bound, or maybe just a simple book from the stationer in town, but either way the book will be tatty from age and use. And if it is not yet a little yellowed , just give it time.

13 January 2013

Camera on the water

For as many years as I have fished, I have carried a camera when I fish. At first, and being more than 30 years ago now, it was one of those entry level film cameras that was so rickety in its construction, that it threatened to let light in at any moment. It took awful pictures. Or perhaps more correctly, I took awful pictures, but it worked. I still have those awful pictures, and they are great, if you know what I mean.

9 January 2013

Wading fast water

In KZN we generally don’t do our fly-fishing for Trout in big strong rivers. As a result there is not a lot written about wading and wading safety or difficulty in these parts. But of course at this time of the year, it is not impossible to find yourself on a fast piece of water, that is still clean enough for you to want to fish it. Generally the Umgeni is unfishable from a water colour perspective, if it is too fast to wade. The Mooi, and the Bushmans on the other hand, can run a pale slate grey colour,

30 December 2012

Hot summer days and the Trout

I was very definitely assembled somewhere in Europe, or perhaps North America, but either way, my design was intended for climes closer to the arctic circle than the equator. I do not suffer heat gladly. Neither do the trout of course, and I see this as a significant parallel far beyond mere co-incidence. This neat alignment; this poetic symphony of affairs, is shattered every summer however, here in my South African home town. Pietermaritzburg, and even the village of Hilton, can turn into a cauldron of thick hot air, day after day at the height of summer. Right now it

15 February 2011