Truttablog

A guest post from Brett Coombes

“Opening Day – 1 September 1990” After a winter of repeated tackle cleaning, fly tying and general pent-up abstinence, fly fishermen, myself included, seldom miss an opening day of the season. It was the first day of spring and we were to have the privilege of fishing a small stretch of the upper Umgeni River. The old Merc bumped, lurched and scraped its belly down the stony track towards the farm “Knowhere”, with its large house overlooking the bend in the long pool and the downstream flats along the southern bank of the river dotted with grazing sheep. We parked

15 August 2016

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10 August 2016

Cigars, confessions and Uriah

My Uber driver the other day, wanted to know what brought me to Cape Town. His name was Eugene. He was a clean shaven and decidedly Caucasian looking guy who mixed his level of social sophistication and intelligence with that delightful and unmistakable accent of the Cape Flats. I can’t help striking up a conversation with these guys, just as a means of listening and perhaps, if I am lucky enough, to gain one of their quotable sayings, that they come up with regularly. I told him about the fly-fishing expo I had just attended. Eugene wanted to know what

4 August 2016

Over-served

On the way into work earlier this week I passed two of those newspaper billboards on consecutive lamp posts. One read “Rain has not broken the drought”, and the next one read “Floods in KZN”. I think it was the same day that the weather forecast predicted severe hail storms in the Free State, and the following day there was a tornado in Jo-burg, and this all followed 2 days of snow in the berg. Today is a lovely sunny day. Expect severe frost tonight. So all in all it is pretty average weather. The hell not! But at least

27 July 2016

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22 July 2016

Is there a dry fly in your coffee?

James and I entered a coffee shop in the high street of Matatiele. We ordered cappuccinos. The willing young local made one, and the aroma was great. Just for fun, I said that it looked great, but could he do a palm tree, or a heart or such artwork in the foam. He knew how to do a hut, he said. I was impressed. I hadn’t seen it yet, but if this man could do a foamy African hut on the top of my cappuccino, it would make the road trip all the more memorable. We watched with anticipation as

20 July 2016

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11 July 2016

Hook thoughts

TTP (2) Tips, Theories & Pointers Back in the day, nymph hooks were quite the thing: we started getting hooks that had a longer shank to accommodate the nymph patterns we were all tying, and I for one, went crazy on them. Our human aesthetics (and tunnel vision on the matter) dictated that a nice long hook fitted with the nymph shape. But nowadays it seems to have gone full circle, and for good reason I think. Take a look at these: the shank lengths are about the same (so we can tie the same nymph on them right?). But

8 July 2016

The reachable, the authentic and the appealing.

Questions I ask myself: What if a trip to catch Golden Dorado or Milkfish is not reachable. What if GT’s and Jurassic Lake are beyond the reach of your pay-cheque? Will you dream instead of fishing? Or will you go explore that stretch of stream that has never featured on facebook? The one that looks a bit grim at the road-bridge lower down, and that would take a lot of effort to go explore. Or will you stick to the best “front-page waters” your pay-cheque and leave balance can get you to, in the hopes of getting closer to the

4 July 2016

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1 July 2016