8 August 2021
The landscape swells
Appreciating a familiar landscape goes way beyond the beauty of a backdrop. Ted Leeson explains this beautifully.
12 November 2020
25 October 2020
9 July 2020
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
Pewter and Charcoal: a little Brown and Catlow
The boyhood joy of small Brown Trout, the writing of Laurence Catlow, and the rich texture of black and white imagery
10 May 2020
Pewter and Charcoal: Gierach and conservation perfection
Exploring the writing of John Gierach, and a flyfishers obsession with stream restoration
7 May 2020
The black mist
On the eve of our planned trip, I happened to be up on the river. Call it a bit of a “forward patrol”. It was late afternoon, and I was peering into what looked like slightly brown water, squinting against the harsh afternoon rays of the sun, that were beaming in from the west to burn my corneas. “I think it could be clear by tomorrow” I reported to The Viking, factoring in the that there were 14 hours between us and our planned trip, as well as the fact that we would be about 3kms upstream. I was not
11 April 2020
Fishing with Worms
At a time when so many South Africans are emigrating and the grounds that there is nothing left worth staying here for, it was refreshing to see at least our fishing, through the eyes of a foreign visitor this week. “Wow, Wow, Wow!” were the words that Bert Worms kept repeating, as we drove up the valley, and as we stopped to look out over the vista before us. It is a valley that I travel to most weeks, and it has become old hat to me. You can see Inhlosane mountain off to the south, and northwards is the
15 March 2020
Photo of the moment (110)
I was fishing this stillwater over the Christmas break, and I looked down and saw this one dragonfly shuck. Then I started noticing more, and more. There were dozens. I wish I had been there to witness the hatch !
15 January 2020