Current Fly Fishing Conditions
I am not a full time, reliable source of all water conditions, but I endeavor to share as much news on Current Fly Fishing Conditions as I can . My info is Trout centric, and is gathered from my various trips (fly fishing and otherwise) across the KZN Midlands, and stuff readers and friends tell me about. I don’t blow fishing spots and I don’t cover the whole province. The news is mainly about rivers in the area from the uMkhomazi basin in the south to the Injasuthi in the north, with some stillwater info thrown in here and there.
If you have crossed a bridge, or visited a river, and would be willing to share your news, please do drop me a mail and I will share your news with full acknowledgement.
(andrew at truttablog dot com)
I hope this page is useful to those like me, who are always seeking out opportunities to get in a few hours fishing here and there.
If you asked me to meet you at a coffee shop to get the lowdown on where to fish, you would probably buy me a coffee for my troubles. I would be most grateful for that. With the “Buy me a coffee” function below you can now do that online if you so wish. Of course there is no obligation, and I will continue to provide these updates free of charge and for the common good of fellow fly fishers.
Enjoy.
If you would like to be part of an initiative to enhance this page with more regular, and definitive info on river conditions, you may want to consider the River Monitor’s Program. (click link)
This involves sponsorship by small to medium local businesses to support unemployed youths in our rural areas, in return for their weekly citizen science data about river conditions (flow, colour, temp etc). This will allow you to plan your week-end fishing trip with confidence, and avoid a long wasted trip (and fuel cost!) to a river that is unfishable.
Check in: 29 May 2023
A friend of mine gave the Mooi one last try on the weekend, and reported it as dead as a doornail. So with rivers pretty much done, attention shifts to the stillwaters.
I have heard a dearth of reports, just the odd sprinkling here and there. We have had some pretty cold weather, and I guess that has kept many people home.
The water temp plummeted on the uMngeni on Friday, and measured just 11 degrees yesterday (up to 13 later in the day). The water was clearing after being very milky on Saturday….just enough colour in the water to help a bit with skittish fish. Fish of 3 lbs + continue to be spotted on the uMngeni, and reports of a 24″ fish near Tendela on the Mooi…so a bit of excitement, and maybe you could be forgiven for going trophy hunting in the last week of the season!
Check in: 19 May 2023
The long awaited cold front has struck. It is 10 degrees and raining here in Hilton. The weather station I watch at the top of the uMngeni, says that its 8 degrees up there, and that there has been 6mm of rainfall in the last 24 hrs. So not enough to swell the rivers, but in any event, as soon as these skies clear, the frosts will start. And the Browns will surely be in full breeding mode.
The river season is pretty much done.
Check in: 17 May 2023
I have been out and about over the last few days and have looked over some bridges, and dropped in a thermometer here and there. I have seen temps from 13 to 19 degrees up and down the Mooi and Little Mooi, and clean low water everywhere. It has been quite dry lately, so the Mooi, Little Mooi, uMngeni, and I should imagine all the others are all running quite thin. It has been damned cold at night too. The river season really is running down now!
Check in: 30 April 2023
Its still perfect! Everywhere. If you haven’t already gone: Go!
By all accounts the berg streams were (and are) rather busy with fishermen this long week-end. I have certainly encountered plenty of people with news of days out, from the Bushmans, Mooi, uMngeni and other streams. Everything is clean and and cooling, with flow levels dropping fast.
There have been a lot of small fish reported everywhere, but I had days on all three of the abovementioned rivers, where I either saw, spooked, lost or landed some great fish amongst them. To get more specific: 4 fish of 15 inches or more, dozens around 10 inches, but a lot more than that of the tiddlers. Really big fish (19 inches or more): Mooi 1, Bushmans 1, uMngeni 1…..that I know of.
Many thanks to those who shared their news and pictures. Your secret fishing spots are safe with me!
Check in: 16 April 2023
Its perfect! Everywhere. Go!
Check in: 11 April 2023
More of the same: perfect everywhere from what I hear. The news from the uMngeni, Mooi, Bushmans and Lotheni is all good, and plenty of Browns around. We have had some storms and rain, but I have not heard of anything blown out.
Check in: 2 April 2023
I managed to get onto some Trout river water twice in the last week. On both occasions the conditions were sublime in terms of flow, clarity and temperature. Temps from around 17 degrees in the early morning up to a max of 20 degrees.
I know for a fact that the Bushmans and uMngeni are looking great…I think it is fair to assume that they are all in fine fettle. But cooler weather will be here in a matter of weeks, and flows are dropping, so there is no time to waste.
Check in: 28 March 2023
My Friend Richard tells me that the Bushmans was blown out on the weekend, or at very least flowing too strongly for his liking and chasing him to the tributaries where he caught some nice fish.
The Lotheni and its tributaries were looking great over the week-end, and I suspect that would have held true for all the uMkhomazi system rivers. Water temps were between 18 and 19 degrees.
Sunday evening’s cold front has touched the air with the brush of autumn: sublime weather that tastes like Trout, if you know what I mean.
A Lotheni tributary
Check in: 22 March 2023
The uMkhomazi tributaries were all looking magnificent over the week-end. The Inzinga, Hlambamasoka, Hlatimbe and Lotheni . On Monday night a wave of storms came through, which seemed to circle the berg and Malungane and dirtied the Lotheni and uMkhomazi, and probably the Inzinga on Tuesday. Lotheni was rather busy on the week-end, with quite a few anglers, and even more swimmers. The fish seemed to be in the pocket water, rather than the pools this time. Water temps hovered around 19 degrees C, and flow levels were perfect. The Hlambamasoka was as clean as cut ice, and also yielded some decent Trout.
The uMngeni and Furth were crystal clear on Sunday when I crossed them, and were still that way on Tuesday morning.
Pictures on various groups show the Mooi was perhaps fuller than the rivers to the south, but clean, and reports of good catches from a number of different spots along the river.
Here’s a thought: If you are fishing a river and discovered that someone has fished the piece above you, leaving you no option to fish water that has already had a fisherman pass that day, or perhaps the afternoon before: What would you prefer…a fisherman who picked off a few fish and moved along….or one who scoured every pool and run to see how many he could catch (leaving a high percentage of the fish pricked)?
That question was pertinent this week-end when conditions were sublime and more fly fishers than usual were out enjoying our rivers.
Check in: 16 March 2023
With the abatement of heavy rain, and a scattering of reports of rivers looking “mighty fine”, I think it is fair to say we are entering that sweet spot of the year when you need to be on a river. Reports from the Bushmans and Mooi are of beautiful conditions.
Check in: 12 March 2023
After storms both Thursday and Saturday nights, the uMngeni was coloured again at Chestnuts on Sunday morning. The Furth Stream however, is full and clean!
If you go to fish this piece, I recommend fishing the first 3/4 (three quarters) Km above the confluence with the uMngeni. Then skip the next bit of slow, log and bramble infested river….take the farm track and walk about a km or more upstream and cut back in at the stream. When you start getting to the “staircase water” of plunge pools between jumbled rock, and you can hear the waterfall and see the forest on the south bank…..then you are in the sweet spot.
Furth dam was also a bit coloured by the rain, and the water temp was 22 degrees!
Check in: 6 March 2023
Saturday’s recce took me over the uMngeni and Furth stream (which were both looking great), and also over the uMkhomazi at Stofffelton bridge, where the river looked fabulously full and clean.
The Lotheni was almost as clean as the uMkhomazi, but also very fishable indeed. Especially so up in the park. The Hlambamasoka was slightly more milky than that, but fish still came up for a dry fly there. Water temps up there : 18.5 degrees C, which is pretty respectable.
I heard that stillwaters in the upper Dargle area are still at around 21 degrees C first thing in the morning, and on a sunny day the surface areas will get warmer than that. So I am not rushing off to a stillwater just yet.
I am getting excited about the rivers though. While it is 29 degrees (air temp) here in Hilton today, our nights are definitely getting cooler, and all the more so up in the berg.
I think, rainfall permitting, our rivers are fast entering that autumnal sweet spot that is always so fleeting.
Use it or lose it!
Check in: 27 February 2023
I checked out the uMngeni on Friday afternoon. While its tributary, the Furth stream was sort of fishable, the main river was not….still quite considerably off-colour and very full..
The Lotheni was very full too, but clean, and apparently the Inzinga was showing signs of a significant flood event having taken place. Hopefully, as we enter March, some more predictable and ever so slightly cooler weather will come our way.
Check in: 17 February 2023
Reports from EVERYWHERE indicate excessive rain, and rivers blown out…from all the uMkhomazi tributaries, the uMngeni, Mooi, Bushmans..the lot. The prospects of a clean and fishable river this week-end are very low.
Check in: 13 February 2023
I was up on the uMngeni at Sheardown this morning. It was humid and cloudy, and I thought rain was on the way. I was not wrong: the afternoon saw another downpour to add to the already swollen and off-colour river.
Check in: 7 February 2023
I did a drive across the upper uMkhomazi catchment, and stopped on some bridges and hills to look at Trout streams on my way.
Check in: 30 January 2023
It would appear that the heat wave is over. Forgive me for the lack of updates, but I was jaded, or wilted, or melted, and have only started to function normally now.
I did go fishing though:
The uMngeni, being a bit lower than the berg streams, was cooking. Meaning it was hot as hell…and fishing well too. Our Trout really have adapted. I Googled it and apparently all the Trout are dead. But they aren’t, because they are tough African trout.
There must have been some rain somewhere Friday eve, because the uMngeni flow was up and it was cooler on Saturday, and slightly coloured. Saturday afternoon there were vicious storms scattered randomly around. So while the rivers were running down and crystal clear on Saturday morning, who knows what they look like now. I do know that mates were having action on dry flies in clean water on various berg streams the last two week-ends. They got some heatstroke too, but hey, didn’t we all.
The uMngeni has materially altered after the floods of December…massive rocks have moved, as have logjams. New areas have opened up, new scouring, some pools deeper, some more shallow than they were. I don’t know how other rivers have been affected but with generally cooler weather predicted over the next 10 days, I can’t wait to get out and explore. That is the beauty of an ever changing river.
Its all new!
Expect water temps from 16 or 17 degrees C after a cool night up to 21 (not 25 again I hope. Yes twenty five!)
Dams: forget it…a big body of water doesn’t cool down quickly like a river. Dams are too hot….off limits.
Check in: 16 January 2023
It remains fiercely hot in the midlands and the berg. Even up at 1500 to 1800 m altitude, temps are reaching 30 degrees C . Surprisingly though, water temps in the uMkhomazi and Giants Castle area, inside the park, are measuring as low as 18.5, even in the early afternoon.
The flow on most rivers is still high. The Ncibidwana and Bushmans were still very full and a bit slate-coloured yesterday, although definitely fishable. Rivers in the uMkhomazi are better. The uMngeni at Chestnuts on Saturday was still off colour, but much less opaque and getting towards fishable quickly, no doubt more so higher up.
So really the main thing holding back fishing exploits is the human discomfort of this heat wave. Oh, and the fact that you are back at work….
Check in: 11 January 2023
It is fiercely hot at present. Temperatures, even at altitude are hovering at 30 degrees, and there is no respite on the weather radar.
The flow on most rivers is still high, and I reckon a few more days without rain for them to run down should improve your chances. There may be some reasonable water by the week-end, but the weather will still be searing hot.
Here is a quick look at the 2 branches of the very upper uMngeni as at today:
Check in: 5 January 2023
I checked on the uMngeni on Tuesday, and it was starting to clear, but still way too coloured for me. That was down at my usual check-in spot at the Chestnuts bridge. Then my friend Lynton checked in with me and told me about his fishing (and his son’s) just prior to Christmas: He confirmed…dirty water everywhere. But he did use a big black fly (for maximum contrast and for pushing water), and he had some luck on that.
Heavy rainfall warnings again for today and tomorrow. This season really is unbelievable isn’t it!
Check in: 1 January 2023
The Mooi was flowing fast today. Only slightly coloured, but going like a steam train:
Check in: 31 December 2022
Figures in from the uMngeni municipality area, which extends across Howick, Hilton, Curries Post, Karkloof and Dargle towards Kamberg and along the Lotheni Road, shows rainfall on the 29th December alone of between 20mm and 120mm in a single day!
Rainfall up near the uMngeni catchment was 151mm this week, 506 mm this month, and a whopping 2,299 mm this calendar year (thanks for that info Stu!).
A report from a friend at Lotheni is that the water is still cloudy there today.
Here is some footage of the Mooi at Tendela this morning:
Check in: 29 December 2022
A mate who has visited, tells me that the uMkhomazi and its tributaries are still all blown out. Then, depending on which weather app you use, 20 to 50mm of rain is predicted across the Drakensberg foothills today. ……the deluge continues!
Check in: 27 December 2022
Some footage from a local resident in the Dargle, taken on the morning of 26th December 2022……the deluge continues!
Check in: 16 December 2022
And some more images just in from my pal Jan Korrubel:
Check in: 7 December 2022
I am told that the Bushmans is looking perfect at present. I can tell you first hand that the uMngeni is looking magnificent right from the top down to Chestnuts .
I suspect that, until the next wild storms of course, all the rivers in these parts are in tip-top condition.
Call in sick.
Check in: 2 December 2022
The Inzinga and Lotheni are both in fine fettle. Strong flows, but clean water. With the water flowing as strongly as it was, we found the fish in the pools this time, and not in the pockets. The pocket water LOOKED great, but was maybe 10% quicker than perfect.
Some of it was “reduced” to white water.
The road out is trashed! Allow 2 hrs travel time from Notties to Lotheni for example.
Check in: 30 November 2022
The uMngeni was receiving a shot of tannin stained, and ever so slightly dirty water from the Poort stream yesterday, but it was definitely still fishable below the confluence.
Then today, I saw a picture down at Chestnuts, and it looked way better than I thought it would….very fishable indeed.
I reckon most rivers have recovered from the week-end rain now, and will be looking great. Flows are quick though!
Check in: 28 November 2022
After 24mm of rain near Reekie Lynn on Saturday night, the Mooi was always going to be in question as far as its fishability goes. Sunday morning it was blown out below the Reekie Lynn stream:
But upstream at Riverside it was only a bit “slatey”, which suggests it was fishable just a bit further up:
Check in: 17 November 2022
I have been away for a few days, and I couldn’t get reliable news on the weather while I was gone, so I stopped on the bridge over the uMngeni just now….my usual spot.
Not bad hey! I reckon it will be perfect up at Brigadoon.
Photos shared on Friday last week showed the Bushmans bank to bank and dirty, and the Mooi high and “slatey” at Moller’s bridge. They could both be clean by now…..certainly in the higher reaches.
Check in: 21 October 2022
2 inches plus of rain the the Little Mooi catchment yesterday afternoon. The uMngeni is flowing dirty at Chestnuts, but up at Sheardown it is just fishable. The dirty water is coming down the Poort stream and mixing with the clean uMngeni itself.
Check in: 20 October 2022
There were some storms up on the upper uMngeni last night, with one report of 35mm of rain, and confirmation this morning that the river flow is up and dirty. I have no idea where other storms may have burst, but there’s one. The summer cycle has started!
Check in: 10 October 2022
Check in: 9 October 2022
In the week that I was away on business, and in a heatwave in “the Big Smoke” , my mates were experiencing cool weather and some flyfishing. Talk about rubbing it in! A few good Trout came from the uMngeni, including one for my mate Richard that stripped 20 yards of line, before breaking the tippet. He was one of only a few anglers that I know of who have been out on NFFC waters since late September, but all the others fished the Bushmans. The Bushmans has been producing well! I am told that the Mooi is low, and several of the uMngeni beats remain closed until the veld has grown better ( a grassland protection measure requested by the farmer).
On the stillwaters: a few good fish coming from the Kamberg, and some mixed results from a private dam out in the uMkhomazi catchment….that is all I have for now.
Old Format posts below.
Check in. Sept 24
2022
For a number of reasons, I have had a dearth of fishing in the first month of the season. I can however report that the rain in the last week was great. We got 35mm here in Hilton, and I know one spot in the Dargle got 44mm. The rainfall (and cold!) was widespread, and set a good base upon which the next rainfall should give us appreciable runoff and lift stream levels more than this first one did. I can tell you though, that even before the rain, and despite heat, berg winds, low water levels, and a bit of algae (aka rock snot), the Brown Trout have been on fire. There have been good returns from the uMngeni and the Bushmans, an no doubt elsewhere too. One day out a friend and I could seldom get a fly into the downstream wind, so we turned around and fished down with dryflies, and a sunk nymph behind. In that howling hot wind, we couldn’t go wrong! Half the fish came to the dry, and the others to the nymph. Given our upstream position, we just had to refrain from striking too early, and wait for the fish to turn back downstream to secure a hook-up. Another angler was fishing a few beats higher up on the same day, and the Trout completely ignored his dry fly.
Today is another “hot howler”, and I have been saying that its not worth going out in this blustery bright heat. But it worked 2 weeks ago, so why am I being so lazy?
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Check in: 20 October 2022
There were some storms up on the upper uMngeni last night, with one report of 35mm of rain, and confirmation this morning that the river flow is up and dirty. I have no idea where other storms may have burst, but there’s one. The summer cycle has started!
Check in: 10 October 2022
Check in: 9 October 2022
In the week that I was away on business, and in a heatwave in “the Big Smoke” , my mates were experiencing cool weather and some flyfishing. Talk about rubbing it in! A few good Trout came from the uMngeni, including one for my mate Richard that stripped 20 yards of line, before breaking the tippet. He was one of only a few anglers that I know of who have been out on NFFC waters since late September, but all the others fished the Bushmans. The Bushmans has been producing well! I am told that the Mooi is low, and several of the uMngeni beats remain closed until the veld has grown better ( a grassland protection measure requested by the farmer).
On the stillwaters: a few good fish coming from the Kamberg, and some mixed results from a private dam out in the uMkhomazi catchment….that is all I have for now.
Check in. Sept 24
2022
For a number of reasons, I have had a dearth of fishing in the first month of the season. I can however report that the rain in the last week was great. We got 35mm here in Hilton, and I know one spot in the Dargle got 44mm. The rainfall (and cold!) was widespread, and set a good base upon which the next rainfall should give us appreciable runoff and lift stream levels more than this first one did. I can tell you though, that even before the rain, and despite heat, berg winds, low water levels, and a bit of algae (aka rock snot), the Brown Trout have been on fire. There have been good returns from the uMngeni and the Bushmans, an no doubt elsewhere too. One day out a friend and I could seldom get a fly into the downstream wind, so we turned around and fished down with dryflies, and a sunk nymph behind. In that howling hot wind, we couldn’t go wrong! Half the fish came to the dry, and the others to the nymph. Given our upstream position, we just had to refrain from striking too early, and wait for the fish to turn back downstream to secure a hook-up. Another angler was fishing a few beats higher up on the same day, and the Trout completely ignored his dry fly.
Today is another “hot howler”, and I have been saying that its not worth going out in this blustery bright heat. But it worked 2 weeks ago, so why am I being so lazy?
Check in: 20 October 2022
There were some storms up on the upper uMngeni last night, with one report of 35mm of rain, and confirmation this morning that the river flow is up and dirty. I have no idea where other storms may have burst, but there’s one. The summer cycle has started!
Check in: 10 October 2022
Check in: 9 October 2022
In the week that I was away on business, and in a heatwave in “the Big Smoke” , my mates were experiencing cool weather and some flyfishing. Talk about rubbing it in! A few good Trout came from the uMngeni, including one for my mate Richard that stripped 20 yards of line, before breaking the tippet. He was one of only a few anglers that I know of who have been out on NFFC waters since late September, but all the others fished the Bushmans. The Bushmans has been producing well! I am told that the Mooi is low, and several of the uMngeni beats remain closed until the veld has grown better ( a grassland protection measure requested by the farmer).
On the stillwaters: a few good fish coming from the Kamberg, and some mixed results from a private dam out in the uMkhomazi catchment….that is all I have for now.
I have removed the history of the conditions from this page, as it was proving too resource hungry.
I will continue to archive old posts from time to time.
All the prior conditions information is safely saved privately on the cloud. If there is something a researcher would like to see, I am more than happy to oblige with that info.
If anyone is interested in prior year’s conditions, take a look at the series of articles on the main blog page commenced February 2023 in which each decad (10 day period of the month) is explored between 1983 and 2023, to give a sense of prior years conditions (and a whole lot more: fishing stories and rich KZN midlands history)