Lessons from the Landscape: Kamberg and a return to wildness

As a kid we visited and fished Kamberg a fair bit.Many of us did. I have fond memories: Jumping out of my skin when concentrating on a rising fish, in my own little world, when a ranger came up on the river bank alongside me  unnoticed and asked “Liseeence?”  Followed by the rattling off of every Trout fly that he knew. He knew a lot of them! Booking  Stillerus beat number one, and being excited at being offered beat two in whispered tones by the lady in the office, as no-one had booked it that day. I felt so privileged!

Read More »

Books, Boarding School, and Beats

“Often enough, the best position for a trout to see and catch these active nymphs is near the river bed”   …….. ”It is useless to try to tempt such a fish with an artificial nymph fished just below the surface, or to cast a dry fly over him”  The words of Frank Sawyer, from the book Frank Sawyer, Man of the Riverside, compiled by Sidney Vines. Frank Sawyer was famous for, amongst other things, The Pheasant Tail Nymph, which you can watch the man himself tying in this link. Sawyer’s book “Keeper of the Stream was first published in 1952.

Read More »

Hope and despair

There are two river valleys I know in Trout country  that cause me despair. There are two others that give me hope. Let’s get the despair out of the way. If you have ever driven up the lower Pitseng pass from the turnoff outside Mt Fletcher, up to Vrederus on the plateau below Naude’s Neck Pass , you may have noticed the stream running parallel to the road for a long way. Perhaps you did not. You could be forgiven for not noticing it, because if truth be told, you seldom see it. It is completely inundated with wattle trees.

Read More »