ULTIMATE ANGLING - the Ultimate SA Fishing website
FRESHWATER ANGLING => Fly fishing => Topic started by: WalkersKiller on October 24, 2011, 12:16:44 PM
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So with the dissapointment of missing Vidal still in the air I decided to join my parents for a weekend of fly fishing along with Mrs. Simpson.
We left after work on Friday and on the drive up to Millstream Farm, all sorts of tactics were running through my mind... 2 and a half hours later we arrived and I was still unsure of what tactics to employ :cnfzd we unpacked and then Mrs Simpson and I headed down to the water with my Sage 5 weight, sinking line on my Abu reel and various Maxima tippets of different strengths, this is my absolute favourite outfit... I was thinking that similar tactics to when they spawn should be used so I put on a size 10 Olive Zonker and proceeded to fish the bottom in the reeds with a fast retrieve... We moved around a bit before we approached a very muddy weir called My Beauty, the weir was being fixed so now it was a stillwater system with very poor visibility... Perfect for the fast retrieve and flashy flies! First cast... Let it sink... Strip, Strip, Strip :ondad: and it happened the line started peeling out of my hands and after a minute or 2 there was a lovely 900 gram :trout: in the net :yipee: then it was Mrs Simpsons turn and the same thing happened except her fish was about 1kg bigger than mine :cry: ... As it was gettin dark we stopped at a weir near the house and tried the same technique this time with an Orange Woolly Bugger and 4 casts produced 1 fish each both under or about 500 grams... Then it was back to the cottage to get some sleep for Saturday...
5am and the alarm went off, to my suprise it was already light outside and quite warm... I messed around in a few dams until I went back to My Beauty, and while Mrs Simpson was still asleep I landed 5 Rainbow Trout between 700 grams and 1.5 kilograms :happ: all on the fast retrieve on the bottom all this in 45 minutes of fishing... I also saw 2 Wattled Cranes flying above, very rare birds and I felt privellaged after releasing some good fish before going to get some breakfast... As I looked back the weir looked like the banks of the Vaal Dam on a warm Summers day, 7 guys tring to fish the spot where I caught all the fish :hehe: ...
After Breakfast we fished other weirs and dams with 2 bumps and decided to return to My Beauty where I got another 2 fish and Mrs Simpson got 1, this time on a white Fritz... A few good fish well over a kilo were long line released by us as well...
Then it was time to fish the Trophy Dam called Lake Crystabel, where I wanted a Brown Trout! Man the fish in this C&R dam were smart... The water was crystal clear and I literally stalked the Browns with every wet fly and method known to man... Nothing :blush:
We then moved onto a Dam called Tintern, where I caught my PB :trout: of 2.4kgs many years back...
Spoke to a few of the guys and they hadnt caught anything the whole day, so you can imagine their disgust when I hooked a massive Rainbow on my 3rd cast with an Olive Woolly Bugger, it took me into my backing and as I could see the size of it after about 6 minutes she shook the fly with a beautiful jump 4 meters from landing her, was a huge Hen, maybe bigger than my PB :dunno: the same thing happened 10 minutes later, this time it was a smaller fish but I still wasnt impressed when the fly 'popped' once more :unhap
But then my luck changed and I caught and landed 2 beautiful Rainbow Hens in thje next 35 minutes both close to the 2kg mark :happ: amazing fights :yipee: ... Those were to be the biggest fish of the weekend...
After the sun had drained us so much we headed back to My Beauty and while Mrs Simpson got ready to go out, I got another 3 fish all close or over a kilogram, these fish were wild!!!!!!!! :shk 2 came on the olive wooly bugger and 1 fish on an Orange Zonker with a size 2 hook :shk :shk how the purists would frown upon me :lolo:
That was it for the day and we went out for dinner.
The alarm went off again at 5am swr and I went back to sleep before the heat woke me up, wow it was hot!
We prepared for one last session before we packed and left... Mrs Simpson and I both got 2 more Rainbows each on a size 14 Olive Woolly Bugger... We then were hot and tired and headed off... What an amazing weekend of action :happ: it could not of gone any better! In total Mrs Simpson and I landed 21 fish, she got 5 and I got 16 and we long line releaswed another 5 nice fish as we got them close to the net...
The destroying fly was the Olive Woolly Bugger, but the orange and black versions did damage too as well as the Olive and Orange Zonker and White Fritz...
Lots of pictures to follow :-) stay tuned w;k :ult:
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:trout:
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Mrs Simpson getting stretched by a 1.5kg :trout:
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The Fat Hen :trout:
All fish were handled safely, revived properly and released :-)
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Awesome stuff Gareth, very lekker! :corrct: :envy
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Awesome stuff Gareth, very lekker! :corrct: :envy
Thanks Rory :tkx:
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Nice fish dude... now u got to teach me how to fly fish so i can out catch u, like i do at loskop :udman:
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Nice fish dude... now u got to teach me how to fly fish so i can out catch u, like i do at loskop :udman:
:hehe: thanks dude but keep dreaming :crzy
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AWESOME fishing their Gareth ... (clap)
Man, you and Mrs S caught more fish in a day and a half than all of us put together at Vidal the entire week ... :cgrts: ... :resp:
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AWESOME fishing their Gareth ... (clap)
Man, you and Mrs S caught more fish in a day and a half than all of us put together at Vidal the entire week ... :cgrts: ... :resp:
Thanks Jakes... But I dont care wish I was with you guys at Vidal even if the weather was bad :envy
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Great catches Gareth. & Mrs Simpson.!!!
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:happ: what a great weekend with stunning weather and AMAZING fishing!! couldn't have been better.
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Great catches Gareth. & Mrs Simpson.!!!
Thanks Pierre!!!
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:happ: what a great weekend with stunning weather and AMAZING fishing!! couldn't have been better.
I agree :-) was superb!!!!!
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Maybe we should all go and do a Fly fishing social bash ... at least we'll catch fish then ... :craz: :craz: :craz:
R&S is for the BIRDS I tell you !!! ... duh duh duh
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Maybe we should all go and do a Fly fishing social bash ... at least we'll catch fish then ... :craz: :craz: :craz:
R&S is for the BIRDS I tell you !!! ... duh duh duh
:crzy :lolo:
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Eish, you like the Stockies. When are you showing us your skills on a Wild Trout Stream???
With all your skill you should be able haul them in on a KZN Stream or what?
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Eish, you like the Stockies. When are you showing us your skills on a Wild Trout Stream???
With all your skill you should be able haul them in on a KZN Stream or what?
:hehe: :hehe: Koos, stockies are great w;k , the only time I have fished 'wild waters' was in the EC, Rhodes, nailed fish in the 150 gram range on nymphs... Believe me bru I have been wanting to fish KZN streams for a long time... Just a bit far and expensive for a weekend :-( the thing is those wild trout in the EC were small but they fought like an 800 gram stockie, will never forget that fishing session, wading cold rivers and nailing the wild Rainbows, amazing stuff!
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Eish, you like the Stockies. When are you showing us your skills on a Wild Trout Stream???
With all your skill you should be able haul them in on a KZN Stream or what?
:hehe: :hehe: Koos, stockies are great w;k , the only time I have fished 'wild waters' was in the EC, Rhodes, nailed fish in the 150 gram range on nymphs... Believe me bru I have been wanting to fish KZN streams for a long time... Just a bit far and expensive for a weekend :-( the thing is those wild trout in the EC were small but they fought like an 800 gram stockie, will never forget that fishing session, wading cold rivers and nailing the wild Rainbows, amazing stuff!
Rhodes have water thats easy and it has difficult water. Easy is like the Sterkspruit you could catch 40-50 Rainbows with the odd Smallmouth Yellow inbetween. Difficult, I would rate as Balloch and some other unknown waters where you have one cast, one fish per pool. If you catch 2 or more you have done good for the day.
Now the KZN Streams are in a league of it's own. Recently blanked on the Bushmans, but it's fine cause these things happen on Brown Trout Streams. When I go to KZN again I will inform you beforehand, maybe you could go and show me a thing or two???
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Good report back and nice pics Gareth.
Are you joining us on the Vaal Trip ? After all it's time you put a River SM yellow and a muddie on your catch list. :crzy
The Chalets are SWAMBO friendly and the first run is very easy wading. :-)
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Eish, you like the Stockies. When are you showing us your skills on a Wild Trout Stream???
With all your skill you should be able haul them in on a KZN Stream or what?
:hehe: :hehe: Koos, stockies are great w;k , the only time I have fished 'wild waters' was in the EC, Rhodes, nailed fish in the 150 gram range on nymphs... Believe me bru I have been wanting to fish KZN streams for a long time... Just a bit far and expensive for a weekend :-( the thing is those wild trout in the EC were small but they fought like an 800 gram stockie, will never forget that fishing session, wading cold rivers and nailing the wild Rainbows, amazing stuff!
Rhodes have water thats easy and it has difficult water. Easy is like the Sterkspruit you could catch 40-50 Rainbows with the odd Smallmouth Yellow inbetween. Difficult, I would rate as Balloch and some other unknown waters where you have one cast, one fish per pool. If you catch 2 or more you have done good for the day.
Now the KZN Streams are in a league of it's own. Recently blanked on the Bushmans, but it's fine cause these things happen on Brown Trout Streams. When I go to KZN again I will inform you beforehand, maybe you could go and show me a thing or two???
:lolo: Koos, your a fly fishing machine, the only thing I could show is how to catch a 1kg Stockie on a saltwater fly :hehe: :hehe:
But seriously if you organise a trip to any wild waters or rivers please let me know... Would love to fish them!
Also with Rhodes, was there for 2 days, the first day I managed 5 fish, with about 4 kilometres of walking but the second day, we fished 'easier' waters and got aboiut 30 fish out :-)
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Good report back and nice pics Gareth.
Are you joining us on the Vaal Trip ? After all it's time you put a River SM yellow and a muddie on your catch list. :crzy
The Chalets are SWAMBO friendly and the first run is very easy wading. :-)
Herman I will send you a pm :-)
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Will keep you in the loop :hnthnt:
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Will keep you in the loop :hnthnt:
:tkx: :trout:
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Ok forgive my ignorance but what is the attraction of fishing difficult waters? I understand fishing wilder areas rather than trout farms for the scenery but why would you want to fish a stream that could produce 2 fish and you are having a good day? I'm not saying it wrong or stupid or anything like that I'm just trying to wrap my head around the attraction
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Ok forgive my ignorance but what is the attraction of fishing difficult waters? I understand fishing wilder areas rather than trout farms for the scenery but why would you want to fish a stream that could produce 2 fish and you are having a good day? I'm not saying it wrong or stupid or anything like that I'm just trying to wrap my head around the attraction
Well Brad IMO you said it there its being in a scenic wild place an d knowing that you are targeting wild fish and to catch wild trout you have a few chances before you spook them, so its for the challenge :-) and once you get that fish its an amazing feeling as its loike you have accomplished something awesome, just my thoughts though...
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Ok forgive my ignorance but what is the attraction of fishing difficult waters? I understand fishing wilder areas rather than trout farms for the scenery but why would you want to fish a stream that could produce 2 fish and you are having a good day? I'm not saying it wrong or stupid or anything like that I'm just trying to wrap my head around the attraction
That's a bit like asking why guys would want to hunt in the bush when they could just go to some "canned hunting" spot and take pot shots at game that have been crammed into a small enclosure.
Bare in mind that I don't hunt, that's just the first comparison that came to mind.
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Ok good comparison there!
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Ok forgive my ignorance but what is the attraction of fishing difficult waters? I understand fishing wilder areas rather than trout farms for the scenery but why would you want to fish a stream that could produce 2 fish and you are having a good day? I'm not saying it wrong or stupid or anything like that I'm just trying to wrap my head around the attraction
I would like to answer this as honest as possible please.
When you start out to Flyfish with that El-Cheapo Combo all you want to do is catch a fish. Then you evolve a bit and you want to see how many you can catch, then you want to catch the biggest. Then you get into the Species thing and all you want to do is catch different species on fly.
At this point you realize that the El-Cheapo is just not cutting it anymore. Now you start investing in different rods, cause every type of water/species needs different sort of rods.
For Yellows and Carp and trout in Lakes you will need a 5/6wt
For Bass/Barbel/Tigers anything from 6wt up to 9wt
For Kurper and Panfish Something in the 3-5wt Range
For Trout in a Smallstream you will need anything from 0wt - 3wt, but on most you can get away with a 3wt.
For Saltwater 9 - 12wt Would serve you well in most conditions
So during all of these phases you will get to a point where Stockies and a Kazillion fish in a day is no challenge anymore.
This is where you will start focusing on Smallstreams. On some days you can hook a Wild Brown on just about any fly in your box and on others no fly in your box will bring a fish to the net. Yes you can fish in the middle reaches where the fish tend to be bigger, but it is the upper reaches where the fish are smaller, where they show more character and stealth and presentation is everything. So here size doesn't matter, what matters is whether or not you can actually land one.
No Stockie can beat the feeling of a Wild Brown fooled to take that Dry in Ankle Deep Water. Rainbows tend to be less fussy and they are easy compared to Browns. So for me a Wild Brown is that Proverbial Cherry on The Cake and nothing comes close, not a Yellow, not a Bass, Nothing!!!!
I still have days where everything falls in place and I hook one fish after the other and it's lekker, but was it a challenge in the end? Nah, all the happens is your head swells and you think jeepers I am good, till you hit the mountains again and you take a beating and all you do is eat humble pie. Then you realize that you are only as good as the last fish you caught :bow:
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Photos courtesy of a friend....
(http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/KOOS_ECKARD/JindrichBehounekhandleonHarvestblankjxMedium.jpg)
(http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/KOOS_ECKARD/DerekSmithOrvisTroutBum2Medium.jpg)
(http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/KOOS_ECKARD/JindrichBehounekhandleonHarvestblankAMedium.jpg)
Need I say more????
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I guess its also a personal thing because I have been flyfishing for the last 10 years and I'm still not over the more and bigger thing :blush: I don't think I ever will be actually
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Photos courtesy of a friend....
(http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/KOOS_ECKARD/JindrichBehounekhandleonHarvestblankjxMedium.jpg)
(http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/KOOS_ECKARD/DerekSmithOrvisTroutBum2Medium.jpg)
(http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/KOOS_ECKARD/JindrichBehounekhandleonHarvestblankAMedium.jpg)
Need I say more????
:shk :happ: :happ: :happ: :happ: :happ: :happ: :happ: :happ: