Equipment Outfitters

Dry Foods

The smaller collapsible cupboards that consist of shelf space only are as good for storing canned and dry foods as they are for storing clothes. The same goes for card‑board boxes, and these can be used in the usual way, opening side up.

Wet Foods

If you do not have a fridge or freezer, keep perishables such as milk, meat etc. in a cooler box. If you keep buying ice, you should be able to keep the temperature acceptably low. Pickling or marinating meat was an effective method of preservation before the advent of the freezer: vacuum pack the whole mixture in strong plastic bags (you can buy your own machine that does this) and keep it cool — it will not only last longer but will taste better as well. Vacuum sealable containers are particularly efficient if you exclude as much air as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re even thinking of going camping, you must like the idea of living in a tent. The good news is that there is an enormous range of tents, and the number continues to grow; every year seems to bring some new innovation.

The right tent will provide adequate shelter from the elements, allow reasonable freedom of movement inside and still have enough space left over to store sleeping bags, clothing and supplies. It will be easy to pitch and not take up too much space in the car or trailer. Read the rest of this entry »

Swimming long distances for sport is a challenge that only the most fit and determined extreme athletes pursue. Its roots can be traced back to1875 when Captain Matthew Webb became the first swimmer to cross the English Channel. Since then, crossing the channel has been one of the more defining feats of long distance, or open water, swimming. Open water is the appropriate term, since races and crossings are never held in a pool that would be too easy and lacking danger.

Open Water Swimming races are held globally, and were included in many of the early Olympic Games. Course lengths are usually 5, 10, 15, or 25 kilometers (3-15.5 miles) and require several hours to complete. The courses are set between two points on any large body of water. Some races require athletes to do several laps to complete a given distance, while others may consist of one very long lap. Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-trip checks

The first step is to take pen and paper and make a list of each and every item you intend to take, including food and water. Put in quantities and weights.

When I buy any new item I enquire about the weight. When I get home I weigh it again, both as a check, and to get a filled weight for such items as petrol stoves and water bottles. The new item and its weight are added to a list I keep pinned behind the equipment cupboard door. This list has proved extremely useful over the years and I suggest you prepare one.

Having compiled the list for the trip, criticize it. Is there anything you can leave out? Add up the weights. It concentrates the mind wonderfully to realize you may be planning to do 20 miles a day over mountains carrying 5o lb. of gear. Should you reduce the load, shorten the stages, change the route, or abandon the trip? Take only what you need, for it soon becomes clear that something must be changed. Having reduced your load to a reasonable, but not dangerous level, check every item carefully. Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-trip cooking

A large number of dishes, sandwiches, pasties, salads, cold meats, sausages and so on can be cooked at home and taken into the field to be eaten either cold or re-heated.

Many foods can be enjoyed equally well cold, accompanied perhaps by a mug of hot soup or a brew.

Replenishment

Here again, as is so often the case out-of-doors, the value of pre-trip information is apparent. Since the amount you can carry is limited on a long trip, it is usually necessary to find somewhere to stock up every three or four days and these stops are usually at country stores where special outdoor foods, in light, dehydrated form, are rarely available. You must check that the shops will be open, or even that they actually still exist, for quite a number of villages survive with only a church and a pub. Read the rest of this entry »

Jungles

To go to the other extreme, let us examine the tropical rain forest, or jungle. The first priority for entering the tropics, even without leaving the city, is to check on local and endemic diseases.

These thrive in the hot, humid, steaming tropics, so it is advisable to get a full range of vaccinations, inoculations and pills. Anti-malaria tablets need to be taken before the trip starts, and personal hygiene is most important.

The humidity in the tropics can be enervating, and time for acclimatization is advisable. Read the rest of this entry »

In the wilderness hazards are mercifully few and far between. Even where they exist they are merely potential hazards, quite safe if you, the traveller, take the correct action or observe a few simple precautions. The main danger lies in failing to recognize the existence of this potential danger. Unfamiliarity with the terrain is a prime cause of hazard, and any city-dweller venturing into the wild is automatically at risk for this reason. The same would be true of a shepherd who leaves his flocks and wanders among traffic.

Two good examples of terrain which will always be unfamiliar to the majority of outdoor people are deserts and the jungle. Unfamiliar as they are, they can still be entered in safety, provided certain basic situations are understood and allowed for. Read the rest of this entry »

Tent pegs, ‘dead men’, and guys

Getting a peg to hold in snow or soft ground can be a real problem, especially in high winds. Hammering a peg into frozen ground can be very difficult. In winter carry some thin steel pegs to cope with the latter difficulty and take a selection of long wooden, serrated plastic, or aluminium pegs for better holding insoft ground.

If they still fail to provide sufficient grip, you can use a `deadman’. These are flat metal plates which you can bury in the soft ground or snow, and their shape offers good holding properties. You can, however, use your initiative and construct your `deadman’ from your normal pegs, or whatever aids come to hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Priorities

To state priorities for a set of stock solutions is not possible, for the range of problems is infinite. However, certain steps must be established, and the following are fairly typical and should serve as guidelines. In a survival situation you should:

1 Treat any serious injuries, if they exist, or send for medical help

2 Seek shelter

3 Get warm

4 Eat

5 Try not to worry and don’t panic. Read the rest of this entry »

Like parachute-style flies, thorax-style dry flies are vastly underrated and under-used in South Africa, even though they frequently outperform their more established cousin, the Catskill-type dry fly developed by Theodore Gordon in the early 1900s.

Thorax-style dry flies were developed by Vincent Marinaro in the 1950s after he became dissatisfied with the performance of many of the dry flies of the day, such as the Catskill patterns which were used by most anglers fishing his home waters of Pennsylvania. Marinaro felt that there had to be a more productive style of tying dry flies for the slow, clear waters he frequented. His prototype Thorax flies were an attempt to fashion an artificial that would deceive more trout under the often demanding conditions that he faced. These tying developments were described in his classic book A Modern Thy Fly Code and to a lesser degree in his subsequent In the Ring of the Rise. Like many other patterns, the Thorax dry fly has, through the years, undergone several stages of development and the current Thorax patterns differ considerably from Marinaro’s prototype. However, as a pattern type it has endured and deserves the attention of all who enjoy the thrill of taking trout on dries. Read the rest of this entry »

The Umkomaas River, a challenging stretch of water situated near thesmall village of Bulwer in the foothills of the KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg, provided good trout fishing to anglers for many years before the Natal yellowfish established itself in those waters. In particular, one fast-water section of this beautiful river used to captivate me with its dancing riffles and swift pocket water.

Here a large midstream boulder broke the current into two well-defined tongues; one of these was diverted, almost at right angles, towards the bank where it welled up as it struck the side, forming a deep undercut I knew held good fish. On two previous visits to this stretch of water, I had drifted a small rubber-legged Bitch Creek Nymph into the undercut and on both occasions the pattern had produced several yellowfish, some of respectable size. Read the rest of this entry »

The Stimulator is a favourite dry-fly pattern, which, coming from someone with vastfishing experience across the globe, says much for its effectiveness. It will take fish under varying conditions and Randall uses it on lakes and streams, but is at its best in fast water. The Stimulator is a combination of several attractor and exciter patterns and imitates caddisflies, stoneflies and, at a pinch, grasshoppers.

What makes the Stimulator so effective? Like many successful dry flies, the Stimulator imitates several food forms in general, yet nothing in particular. By varying tail, hackle, body and wing colours a variety of insects — both terrestrial and aquatic — can be matched. The Stimulator combines the general shape and characteristics of patterns such as the Trude series of flies with the attributes of more established downwing patterns such as the Sofa Pillow, all of which were designed initially to imitate the adult stoneflies found on rivers in the western United States. Kaufmann’s Stimulator, however, is not limited to the imitation of stone- fly adults: it is used with great success to imitate other aquatic and terrestrial insects, including adult caddisflies and terrestrials such as grasshoppers and cicadas. The Stimulator has all the characteristics of a western-style dry fly designed for fast-flowing freestone waters and consequently is ideally suited to the fast pocket-water stretches of South African rivers and streams. Read the rest of this entry »

During hopper feeding sprees trout usually lie in the shallow water close to the edges. This makes them more vulnerable to predation than at other times and, as a result, they are skittish and far more alert to abnormal disturbances. It therefore pays to adopt a careful approach at all times and to keep as low a profile as possible, avoiding wading whenever possible and quick movements.

Since the best hopper fishing usually occurs during windy conditions, and since the patterns are usually large, bulky and wind-resistant, rods that generate high line-speeds will greatly aid the angler in his efforts to cast hopper imitations. In the steep-sided kloofs of the Western Cape winds usually blow upstream during the day, which makes fishing hopper patterns that much easier. On rivers and streams of a lower gradient, such as many of those in KwaZulu-Natal and the north-eastern Cape, winds can blow from any direction, making casting the wind-resistant hopper patterns a real chore. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the best areas to prospect with a DDD in our still- waters is along weedbeds that reach to the surface. Trout often cruise along these weedbeds in search of aquatic and terrestrial fare, and weedbeds that grow in deep water and which reach to the surface are favoured, since they provide food as well as the protection afforded by deep water. The imitation should simply be cast out alongside the weedbed for the trout to find of their own accord. If the surface action is slow, it pays to give the pattern an occasional twitch with a single, short strip of the line.

Another excellent area to prospect with the DDD is along the windward shore of lakes, where terrestrial and other wind-blown insects are found during and after windy weather. Strong winds stir up the bottom silt close to the bank, making the area even more inviting for trout to feed in as they can go largely undetected. Read the rest of this entry »

‘OPPERTUNITY TIME‘, as well-known angler, authorand entomologist Dave Whitlock calls it, is a unique time of the year when anglers are able to deceive some of the largest fish of the season on dry flies. As summer advances, grasshoppers become increasingly active in streamside vegetation and may end up in the water as a result of strong winds, rain, annual crop harvests, grassfires, predation or severe cold. Once they become trapped in the surface tension, they are relished by observant trout on the lookout for an easy meal, and may afford the angler some of the most spectacular sight-fishing of the year.

Grasshoppers thrive in areas with over sixty days of sunshine a year, and with daytime temperatures that average fifteen degrees Celsius, and so do exceptionally well in South Africa. Hopper activity increases as temperatures begin to climb above fifteen degrees Celsius; to most South African anglers this translates into mid-spring to late-autumn fishing, with peak hopper fishing occurring during the heat of summer. Hoppers are welcomed by fly-fishers as they become active along river and stream banks at a time when the more significant hatches are on the wane. Consequently they are of great importance, particularly to anglers who enjoy the sight of trout feeding actively at the surface. Read the rest of this entry »

Like ants and grasshoppers, beetles are terrestrial insects that do not willingly enter the water. When theydo, however, they are usually eaten by observant trout on the lookout for an easy meal, and consequently deserve the attention of all fly-fishers. Fishing terrestrial beetle imitations was perfected by anglers such as Vince Marinaro, Ed Koch, Joe Brooks and others who frequented the fertile spring creeks of the Cumberland valley in Pennsylvania. These creeks are home to large, shy, selective brown trout that often ignore hatch-matching patterns, yet frequently succumb to terrestrial insect imitations such as the Crowe Beetle and Letort Hopper.

My research indicates that anglers fishing the Pennsylvania spring creeks were using foam beetles as early as 1960. Vince Marinaro used a beetle consisting of a coffee bean glued to the hook shank, while Don Dubois used a pattern called a `Flure’ — a combination of a fly and a lure. The Flure was made by tying a section of oval foam to the top of the hook shank, but many anglers refused to use it because it wasn’t made of the traditional fur and feather materials. Today, almost every fly-shop sells foam body material. Read the rest of this entry »