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Flouro knots …..and fables?

TTP (3) Tips, Theories & Pointers Local wisdom has it, that when using flourocarbon, in place of Mono, one should be mindful of the following knot issues: Flouro to mono knots are problematic, they slip Surgeons knots, done in Flouro, require you pass the tippet through the knot three times, not just two like you would with mono Perfection loops just don’t work with flouro. Period I did have some difficulty backing these claims/ideas up with a Google search. What I did do was to take a piece of 5X flouro, and tie a perfection loop in one end, and

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23 June 2016

TTP (1)

Tips, Theories and pointers My friend Wayne Stegen made a valid observation the other day. He was advocating the use of an anchor when float tubing, especially when imitating naturals.  As he put it, when you are dragging around a large woolly bugger due to un-noticed drift, it doesn’t really matter. But when you are trying to inch along a tiny damsel, or dead drift a snail, and your retrieve is being accelerated without your knowledge by your drifting tube, you are not applying the formula you thought you were. Do you know whether you are drifting or not?  I

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14 June 2016

Are you being poisoned by your great grandfather?

Since I am more interested in rivers than history, I have yet to establish whether the original farms “Manor Farm” and “Brigadoon” actually share a common boundary or not. I have been busy working on a river instead of pouring over old surveyor general maps, which I would also like to do, if I could just find some time. What I can tell you is that you can see one farm from the other, and that the Umgeni River flows first through Brigadoon and then Manor farm.  Brigadoon being on the southern bank, and Manor Farm on the northern one.

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25 May 2016

The big bass problem (part 2)

I am going to make a giant assumption, that having read part 1 of this story , you are in agreement with me that bass are a problem in the Trout areas here in  KZN , and that something needs to be done about them. If you haven’t already agreed with the above, then you probably won’t be reading this anyway. The biggest issue here, is that nobody knows how bass spread. There are however some theories. I will list those here, and then alongside each theory, suggest an appropriate measure to stop the spread. Theory no 1:  Bass eggs

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9 May 2016

The Big Bass problem (part 1)

  Because Trout and bass are being labeled as “alien invasive” by authorities in South Africa, they are together on the same side of the battle lines. That is perhaps the reason that little is being said by Trout fishermen about the bass problem. But a more likely reason is apathy, or some other failure on the part of us fly-fishermen to galvanise into action. I say that, because the unwanted, unchecked spread of bass in the uplands of KZN has been going on for thirty years. Those, by the way,  are 30 years in which Trout have not “invaded”

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6 May 2016

A snake in the fridge

For a while now, I have been telling my fishing buddies my clever trick. “When you get back from fishing, hang your waders on a coat hangar, behind the fridge”. The slow release of dry heat, gently dries them, and it is so much better than putting them in the sun. By morning they are generally dry, and you can roll them up and put them away. Or just leave them until you are ready …like next Friday when you get around to it.  In fact I have a chest freezer in front of a window, and it is perfect.

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27 April 2016
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