Losing Nemo. Making sense.
Exploring beads, bobbers and other other affronts to our idiosyncratic sense of flyfishing aesthetics.
7 March 2023
7 April 2021
Book-end ants
Several months of obsessing over flyfishing the trout streams in KZN, are neatly framed by two ant hatch interludes on stillwater.
3 April 2021
Making my way West to Winter
Making my way west, away from the brutal hissing, rattling black highway, puts me in the folds of soft hills. Soft hills decked in the ochres, fawn, brown, yellow, maple orange and bare sticks of winter’s onset. The only hard lines are the escarpment, where the berg presses against the sky in a stark outline. It is an outline of a boundary against which we retreat. It reminds me of my prized dorm bed at boarding school, that fit in a corner against the walls of the basement boiler, and was warm in winter. So too, the berg is a
5 June 2020
27 April 2020
Photo of the moment (114)
I saw this somewhere on the net…the G & H Sedge done in CDC. Simple, light, casts with less air resistance. Can’t wait to give it a try!
19 April 2020
Midge designs explored
With thoughts of reverse tied flies running through my head, and the recent sound of buzzers hovering in the cattails at the lake shore, I tied up these midge emergers: Upside down: you know….get the hook point up into the hackle and have all that steel less obvious. The other benefit, is that your tippet is tied to something under the surface. If you consider this the dropper and tie a point fly on the eye of the dropper fly you have this: …. and then you use a very small larva pattern to sink off the point and
19 September 2017
You really have to watch yourself
I read somewhere recently that the character trait in which one favours nostalgia, is in direct contrast to to the trait in which one seeks new adventure. Put another way: If you spend your time in fond reminiscence, you are less likely to be trying new fly patterns, and new tippet rigs and heading out to new fishing destinations. It had me thinking. I have to watch myself! I am a nostalgic. By that very definition, I am at risk of being an old fart. So to comfort myself I stay abreast with things and keep my mind open to
1 July 2017
Midge emergers
Which way up? CDC vs Deer Hair? Roy Christie style vs Bob Wyatt style? Grip hook vs Hanak? Tail breather vs none? I am leaning towards the reverse fly, which puts the tippet below the surface, and I like the CDC for its delicacy and movement. The Hanak hook has a wider gape, which I like. The hackle on the CDC fly should help float it, but I am thinking I could go with more sparse and longer hackle. There are worse ways to occupy an evening…..
2 June 2017