Truttablog

Golden threads

A little photographic trick: Look for opportunities where the fly-caster has a dark background behind him, or at least a patch of dark, across which his fly line will pass when he casts. You might have to ask him to step forward out of the shadows just a little in order to get the sunlight to catch his arcing line. Then take pictures on continuous shooting , in order to get the line at the perfect spot. These opportunities will present themselves more in the early morning or late afternoon, and more so in steep river canyons, where shaded vertical

3 July 2013

Furled leaders

Just this last autumn, we were on a stretch of the Bokspruit river on a windy day, and PD was as usual ,using a furled leader. While he was catching fish, he was having one of those days, where he was battling to turn the fly over neatly at times, and he decided on a leader change, as part of a process of elimination. That is a sensible thing to do when you are having a “tangle-day”. You have tangled days too? Good: you are human like me. Anyway, he changed to a tapered mono leader. Within half an hour

25 June 2013

Showing the others a toffee

Over the years, there have been more occasions than I care to remember, where my colleagues have out-fished me a dozen to one, or where they have caught fish and I have not, or perhaps I caught all the small ones, and the other bloke landed several ‘lunkers’. Those are the days when you try to copy their retrieve. You borrow an identical fly, and then at some point they will start giving you advise, or let you take their spot. This just makes it worse, as you try desperately to bury that nagging human nature called competitiveness. I am

20 June 2013

You can’t catch a Trout with a yo-yo

A good many years back, we were out on a first class piece of water in the Kamberg valley, and I had my two young boys with me. They were really little guys at that stage. “Knee high to a grasshopper” as the saying goes. We were tackling up at the time, but the boys had got distracted, and just as I finished tying on a fly, I looked up to see they had diverted their attention to perfecting the yo-yo. It was in vogue at the time, and they were distractible youngsters, but as my gaze shot over to

16 June 2013

Doughnuts

I can’t be sure when I first stepped into a float tube. What I do know, is that on the morning of 29th June 1985 Roger Baert arrived on the farm, to come and help us see if we could catch some of the Trout we had stocked in our new dam. He was a little late: He had stopped on the way in to watch a duiker for a long while. I fished from the little rowing boat that my father had bought us, aptly named “DryFly”, and Roger fished from a float tube. Not just any float tube

10 June 2013

Big “Nasties”

As the weather gets bitingly cold, and the landscape loses the soft warm comforts of summer, one’s demeanour as a fisherman probably changes. By that I am suggesting that when you are out there in a cold wind, with waves coming in at you across a large stretch of cold water bounded by drab dry grass, and no sign of anything moving, you are less likely to fish a #18 emerger. Well I certainly am less likely to do so! Less likely that is, than when it is spring, and a soft breeze brushes a water surface occasionally disturbed by

31 May 2013

Up the creek without a net!

There was a time when I was less than diligent about carrying a net. It was in the days before magnetic net keepers, and at a time when long handled retractable nets were the order of the day on stillwaters. The problem lay in carrying the net. I’d clip it to my belt, but when I went to crouch down, it would hinge around and the handle would catch me in the groin unexpectedly. I would try shoving it down my trousers, which worked ok until you went down on one knee and it poked you in the sternum.

27 May 2013

Means fair or foul

Breeding season for us ‘week-end hatchery guys’, brings on some peculiar behaviour. We go fishing with toolboxes, brush-cutters, wire cages, cleaning equipment, poles, thermometers and the like. And on many trips we don’t get to fish at all. But we still have a lot of fun. While we catch most of our brood fish fairly, and on fly, it is silently acknowledged that to trap them is equally honourable. This requires a good fish trap in the feeder stream. Fish trap building:

23 May 2013

A Photo tip for fishermen

So often we fish a piece of water that is not quite as clean as we would like it. Added to this, it seems that our cameras pick up the brown in the water well beyond levels that we experience out on the stream. The result is a set of photos to which your friends may visibly recoil, even if just a little, or perhaps the pictures will draw the odd remark. At the risk of misrepresenting the truth, here is a little tip to clean those pictures up, just a little. Here is your original picture:

16 May 2013

Standing still

Many years ago, I used to fish stillwaters with a fellow by the name of Guy, who had bad knees. I don’t know how bad the knees were. All I know is that when I was crouching in the tall grass or beside a bush at the water’s edge, he was standing tall, because it was uncomfortable for him to crouch. So I was at an advantage. I could take cover just a little more than he could. So the fish were less likely to see me, and I would catch more fish. Neat! Except that it didn’t work like

10 May 2013