Rainbow Trout

Book-end ants

Several months of obsessing over flyfishing the trout streams in KZN, are neatly framed by two ant hatch interludes on stillwater.

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You name it

There are so many flies out there, that everything one invents has invariably been done before. There was this one inspired by a friend of Fran Better’s Dad….one Eddie Lawrence of the Green Drake Club, who gave it to him, and which he passed on to Fran who refined it and named it as the “Haystack”.  (Info from HERE) . Then it was sort of copied  in Al Caucci’s  Compara Dun, and Bob Wyatt used a similar concept when he did his DHE (Deer Hair Emerger).   I like and use the DHE. (also called the Berg Emerger as created

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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

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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

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How to count fish

As fishermen, we can sometimes look down on people who count their fish.  There are those who take a little toggle counter pinned to their vest, and ratchet up numbers long after dark while everyone else is around the braai fire. (Not my type!) Then there’s the guy who says “oh …I got enough of them to make me happy”. (Bloody irritating! …but I think I have said stuff like that before) I have to count my fish. If I didn’t, what would I write in my logbook?  I know…I don’t have to have a logbook. But I do have

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