Truttablog

Waelcyrge

Waelcyrge is the Gaelic spelling of the word Valkyrie. And the Valkyries, are apparently winged figures of Anglo-Saxon mythology. They come swiftly over the battlefield after the dust has settled, and choose at random, the lucky souls that are destined to Valhalla (Heaven). And loosely linked to this, the Vikings may have brought to Britain when they invaded, the practice of planting Yew trees in their graveyards, as a means of linking the bodies below with Valhalla above. Yew trees still grow in English graveyards to this day. The first Viking king of Britain was King Canute, who was famously

4 May 2013

A sense of space: composing your fishing picture.

Forget the camera for now. Let’s just look at composing a picture in the countryside. Here we are experiencing the river running as a relatively thin thread through beautiful countryside. The angler is far off, and barely visible. He is diminutive in the large landscape, and that landscape is wide open, and it’s vastness is evident: In the picture above we lose the sense of high mountains. We cannot fully appreciate how high they are, and the degree to which they dominated the river valley that lovely morning. To achieve this, try orienting the picture the other way. In other

28 April 2013

A short visual on the North Eastern Cape experience

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj7zYGLFjyk&w=448&h=277&hd=1] Some “eye-candy” for fans of small stream fly-fishing

25 April 2013

8 things to consider about sun gloves

I recently started wearing sun gloves when out fly-fishing. Here are my personal observations: 1. Sun protection. I suppose this has to be number one on the list. I started wearing them for this reason alone. I simply didn’t want my hands to look like my grandmother’s did, with large dark spots on the back, and with a leathery look, and regular little bleeding nicks. The gloves seem to do the job well, and considering that sun-cream washes off ones hands, the glove would be the way to go. We have harsh sun conditions here in South Africa, and one

23 April 2013

The call of a crane

A kind and generous friend recently asked me to describe to him in words, the sound of a crowned crane. I suppose it was because I had recently done a short piece on cranes. Perhaps it was because he hasn’t heard a crane before, but on reflection, I think it had more to do with him setting me a writer’s challenge: The sound of a crane comes on the wind. A wind that whisks through swaying grass, and moans off against the far hill, like air over an open bottle. A wind that briefly rattles the thousand paper leaves

22 April 2013

Going back

Once every two years we go back to the North Eastern Cape. It’s not often enough, I know, but we figured, when we started this thing all those years ago, that we could sell every second year to wives and family. In fact we were confident that we could ensure the event would take place if we did it seldom enough. And we were right I suppose, because we have indeed been back every second year like clockwork.

20 April 2013

The simple act of changing fly

17 April 2013

Inhlosane

I grew up within sight of this mountain, I live within sight of it,and a great deal of my fly-fishing is conducted within sight of it. Picture courtesy of Paul DeWet

9 April 2013

Cranes

I am not quite as obsessed with cranes as a fishing buddy of mine is. His ringtone on his mobile is a honking crane, and often when we are fishing quietly side by side, in response to a small passing speck in the sky, he will blurt out “wattled!”, referring to his identification of the species. But they are the most stunningly graceful birds, I will admit. Their presence on our waters is a rich blessing for reasons I struggle to describe. Perhaps it is their size, perhaps it is their muted calls, perhaps it is the rarity of them,

4 April 2013

Gill bodied nymph revisited

I recently wrote about a new technique for created in a nymph body with breathing gills along the sides. In more recent weeks, I have been working up a few more variants and exploring the concept further.Fly tiers will know that such experimentation is a frustrating thing in many respects. You end up with several disasters before you get anything worthwhile. Materials are not as fine as you thought they would be, or not quite subtle enough, or too slippery to bond against, and so it goes; and you end up with little film canisters of tangled cast offs, of

29 March 2013