I'm on holiday in South africa visiting family, not a fishing holiday but I packed a 4 and 8 weight just in case!
We spent a few days in the Natal Midlands and the guys at Wildfly kindly invited me to fish one of the waters they guide on. I didn't bring any still water tackle or flies but I reckoned the Hardy Zenith 9' 4wt was more than up to the job and I needed a few hours on the water.
I got on the water a little before 7am and saw some large bow waves in the shallows, just what I had hoped for. I also saw some small creatures breaking the surface: putting the 2 observations together I guessed the fish were either chasing small baitfish or emerging insects (although there were no adult insects about except for the occasional caddis). Fishing a dry is always my first choice so I strapped on a CDC caddis and covered a couple've rises. 2 refusals. clearly the fish weren't focussed on emerging caddis. So, option 2, small baitfish. I looked in the nymph box and figured that my extended body Danica nymphs (#8) could pass as a baitfish if I work them with a steady hand twist retrieve in front of the bow waves.
We spent a few days in the Natal Midlands and the guys at Wildfly kindly invited me to fish one of the waters they guide on. I didn't bring any still water tackle or flies but I reckoned the Hardy Zenith 9' 4wt was more than up to the job and I needed a few hours on the water.
I got on the water a little before 7am and saw some large bow waves in the shallows, just what I had hoped for. I also saw some small creatures breaking the surface: putting the 2 observations together I guessed the fish were either chasing small baitfish or emerging insects (although there were no adult insects about except for the occasional caddis). Fishing a dry is always my first choice so I strapped on a CDC caddis and covered a couple've rises. 2 refusals. clearly the fish weren't focussed on emerging caddis. So, option 2, small baitfish. I looked in the nymph box and figured that my extended body Danica nymphs (#8) could pass as a baitfish if I work them with a steady hand twist retrieve in front of the bow waves.
I stalked the margins looking for bow waves, plopped the nymph gently ahead of the bow wave (helped by a 16foot leader tipped with 5X).... twist... twist...twist... bang!
Got 2 fish that way and then the sun was beating down on the water and the fish moved into the depths. I'm not big on blind fishing in still waters so I got back to the family in time for breakfast at 9.
what a great little stillwater, thanks Gareth, Jan and Juan at Wildfly!
Hopefully I'll be meeting up with some old friends later this week to fish the upper Bushmans river in the Drakensberg for wild brownies and rainbows... I'll let you know how I go. now off to the beach with the family.
Any thoughts on stillwater rainbow flies Keith. A friend is looking for a few for a holiday in december
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