Also known as “Fowlers Magic Dragon”, “Puff the Magic Dragon”, or just “the Puff”, but most likely not known at all. I suppose I have done very little to spread the news about this fly, but that was borne out of a desire not to be pretentious about the thing, rather than any motivation to keep the pattern to myself. This fly is a catcher of fish in stillwaters in South Africa. And a catcher of some large fish too.
Once you own a collection of boxes, as one inevitably does after a few decades of fly-fishing, it becomes quite difficult to justify buying a new one. I drool over boxes in shops regularly. I turn them over in my hands. I stand there in the shop, thinking that if I bought this one, I would use it for my Caddis & Midges, or my general purpose river nymphs, or some such thing. Then I put them back, and move on. Because you see, at home I have whole collection of perfectly good ones.
Us fly-fishermen are a fairly obsessive bunch. Obsessing about fish mostly, and everything to do with catching them. I certainly do. But as my good friend Roy has noticed, of late I have started to take note on the wonderful flowers we encounter when we go fishing. Here is a selection of what you can expect to see in the highlands of KwaZulu Natal if you take the time to notice. One day perhaps I will develop the skills required to identify them all properly, and maybe I will commit their names to memory.For now I just looked them up
I strolled into a haberdashery yesterday while my son had his hair cut. The woman behind the counter viewed me with suspicion over the top of her bifocals. I was an uncommon sight for her I suppose. She seemed happy enough when I bought a few things however. One of those things was a small reel of glistening green material, with no name on it. While she was ringing it up I converted it into a Caddis pupa in my minds eye. After dinner I converted it into a Caddis pupa in my vice.
Here in South Africa, and certainly in my own home waters of KwaZulu Natal, our river fish are not expected to grow very big.
Five years ago, I was given a wonderful gift. It was a Garmin e-trex vista HCX GPS. A nifty little handheld, waterproof “hiking type” unit, that slips into your jacket pocket. At the time, I was pleased to receive it, and was sure it would come in use out there in the veld somehow. But I had no idea how much I was to end up enjoying it. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that us humans are great measurers of things. And many of us outdoor types all the more so. Perhaps I speak for
I suspect that knotting ones own nylon leaders nowadays, is a little like carrying carthorse food in the boot of your car for a long trip. We have simply moved on. We have knotless tapered leaders, and they are great. Correct. We do. But I am an eternal fiddler of the piscatorial type. And none of the tapered leaders I have bought come with an explanation as to what taper they were designed on. None of them come with a boiled butt, or a switch in material from nylon to fluoro-carbon somewhere along their length. Tying your own tapered leaders
Some time back, I fished the Trout Bungalow section of the Mooi River with a good friend of mine. It was a magical April day. We arrived late morning, perhaps a little too late, as I like to be on the water by about 10:00 am at the very latest. We tackled up quickly and headed upstream to do battle. I carried a particular air about me that day. It was an air of curiosity and comparison. An introspective sense of evaluation, and an acute appreciation of the nature of this river. The reason for this is that the outing
There is a place we visit, where the grass is short, and the Trout are strong. We often just walk there with a camera. Sometimes we take the dogs. Mostly we just take ourselves. It is a windswept place; stark and open. Even the streams and dams are hard to find. When you look across the apparently flat landscape, it belies the folds and valleys that secret its lovely waters. Some of our friends spend a lot of time driving to find those folds and their Trout. We park and walk more. It is cruel for its lack of shade