Equipment Outfitters

Stories of fishing spring creeks, with their selective rainbows, slow, clear water and heavy insecthatches, have always captivated me. I have dreamt of fishing one spring creek in particular, the Harriman State Park water on the Henry’s Fork in Idaho. While South Africa is not blessed with spring creeks, the Witte River in Bain’s Kloof Pass, although a freestone river, possesses so many spring creek characteristics that it could well be called a freestone spring creek. It lacks the heavy insect hatches that make other spring creeks world famous, but holds trout that, at times, can be infuriatingly selective. Its waters are as clear as any other blue-ribbon stream and it has slow, flat- water sections that will tax an angler’s casting and presentation abilities to the fullest.

Some time ago Ed Herbst and I were wading the Witte’s quiet waters; by late afternoon we reached a section known to me as ‘Guy’s Glide‘. This slow-water section ends in a deep tailout, which poses presentation and concealment problems. The river’s wary browns almost always hold at the tailout in the shadow cast by the bank and, since the glide must be approached at close quarters concealment is always a problem. Coupled with this is the fact that the trout have ample time in which to scrutinise the angler’s offering during the fly’s drift through the slow water. 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 »

Because the spinners fall to the water’s surface and become trapped there with wings outstretched, trout have ample time in which to ingest them,feeding in a leisurely fashion while cruising in long rise paths. The mostprolonged sequence of rises to thesespinners that I have seen was a series offifteen at Hopewell, a large lake in EastGriqualand. Other anglers I have spokento have had similar experiences duringhatches of these mayflies. It is easy to understand why American anglers call these fish `gulpers’, since they often gulp down several spinners in one mouthful. Trout do not inspect each insect during these gluttonous feeding sprees, since their window of vision is extremely small at such shallow depths. However, any dry fly that does not resemble the adult in size and shape will usually be rejected outright, particularly if the pattern is a high-floating one. Read the rest of this entry »

The mayflies are without doubt the most abundant mayfly in our stillwaters and in someareas provide consistent action for several months of the angling season. They often provoke highly selective feeding, and the spinner falls of these minute mayflies offer the angler a unique opportunity to go one-on-one with large trout using small imitations and light tippets.

As a neophyte fly-fisher I was fascinated by *fish fly- fishing magazine articles on the emergence of Caenis mayflies on stillwaters, and the name ‘Anglers‘ Curse’ left me in no doubt as to what they did to anglers in the United Kingdom. However, as I became acquainted with Tricorythidae mayflies and learnt more about their life cycle and the angling techniques used when fishing appropriate patterns, I came to enjoy the challenges that mayfly emergences provide and began to look forward to the dense hatches that came off on many of the stillwaters that I fished. 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 »

I first met Ed many years ago during a fishing trip to the streams of the Western Cape: I had spent a long day on the upper Elandspad River with two friends and was making my way downstream when I happened across two anglers fishing a quiet run on the bend of the river. One waved me a cheerful greeting as I walked behind through the bush, giving them ample berth to continue their upstream angling. These two anglers, it later transpired, were Ed Herbst and Tony Biggs’s late son, Damon. Though we did not meet officially that day on the Elandspad River, I followed Ed’s writings with interest. His experiments with artificial flies interested me because he was forever importing unusual fly-tying materials to try in his patterns. To me, Ed is the Gary LaFontaine of South African fly-tying, and I believe that in the Xmas Xaddis he has developed a patternthat will come to be regarded as an African fly-fishers.

The Xmas Xaddis, like many successful South African dry flies, evolved on the fast, tumbling mountain streams of the Western Cape. Ed says the pattern is a combination of existing facets of fly design and two new materials - Cactus Chenille and nylon organza - which, when incorporated into a dry fly, significantly enhance its appeal. 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 »

The unparalleled DDD is without question the most famous dry fly in use on South African stillwaters today. The DDD was created by the now legendary South African fly-fisherman Tom Sutcliffe, a person who has channelled all his free time and energy into the pursuit of trout and all activities allied to fly-fishing. Tom graduated with a medical degree from the University of Stellenbosch, and it was on the streams surrounding Stellenboschthat he was taught the skills of fly-fishing by the late Mark Mackereth, an angler well known for his abilities to deceive trout with a fly. Tom’s occupation later took him to KwaZulu-Natal, a province renowned for its lake fishing, and it was on the lakes in the Impendhle and Dargle areas that the DDD quickly established its reputation. 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 »

Ants, which play an important part in the diet of trout, occur in every terrestrial ecosystem except in Antarctica. Because they forage for food in bankside vegetation they are easily blown into the water where they form an abundant food source for trout. When falls of flying ants occur on streams and lakes (this is not common) trout will usually feed selectively on them to the exclusion of all else, making for particularly frustrating fishing. While most anglers encounter ants at some point while fishing, and despite the fact that ant imitations often fool wary fish that may shun better-known and more widely used flies, almost all fly-fishers neglect the role of the ant in fly-fishing. Fly- fishers will find that it pays to carry a selection of bothwinged and non-winged ant varieties. These tiny imitations may save the day when fish begin to take ants that are trapped helplessly in the film. The best falls of the winged ants occur on hot, humid days, either during or after a spell of rain, whereas the terrestrial ants encountered along streambanks can be found on the water during any warm month of the year, especially when strong winds are blowing. Read the rest of this entry »

Most still water fly-fishers have fished damselfly nymph imitations, and patterns such as Hugh Huntley’s Red-Eyed Damsel are firm favourites in many fly-boxes. However, few anglers use the adult form of this abundant insect even though it can produce some spectacular action, particularly on days when the weather may seem too hot for enjoyable fishing.

Adult damselflies are easily distinguished from dragonflies by the attitude of their wings when they are at rest. Damselflies hold their wings folded together over the top of their abdomens, while dragonflies hold their wings at right angles to their abdomens. In addition, damselflies are not as large and robust as dragonflies, and are more likely to find themselves on the water, particularly during strong winds. Once on the water, they are unable to escape and are easy prey for an opportunistic trout on the lookout for a high- calorie meal. This usually occurs during the warmer months of the year when adults can be seen flitting over the water’s surface as they deposit their eggs. Read the rest of this entry »

Most South African anglers consider the Woolly Bugger to be a stillwater pattern. My confidence in this pattern as a producer of trout in stillwaters is such that I reserve an entire fly-box exclusively for Woolly Buggers in various colour and size combinations. While I suspect that the Woolly Bugger is also capable of producing some very large trout from the slower-moving pools on the lower sections of many of our rivers, I prefer fishing in the riffles, glides and runs and so cannot testify to the pattern’s effectiveness in these waters.

The Woolly Bugger is extremely versatile and can be used as both a suggestive and an attractor pattern. I fish it as a suggestive imitation in subdued tones during most of the year (alongside other great producers such as dragonfly and damselfly nymph imitations) and as a streamer pattern tied in bright colours during the winter months‘ spawning season, when trout often aggressively attack the pattern. Read the rest of this entry »

East Griqualand is reowned for producing oversized trout, and Stiggs Cathcart’s beautiful lake, Belmont, is no exception. When anglers first began fishing this lake several seasons ago it was producing wild, powerful rainbow trout which averaged over eight pounds. The evening before I tested the waters, one of my companions, Roland Walker, landed the smallest-ever fish from the lake, a trout of four pounds which cartwheeled over the water just as the last rays of sunlight left the valley; the largest fish ever taken, almost twelve pounds, had fallen to the rod of well- known angler Mark Yelland. I shivered with anticipation as I paddled out into the clear, winter water of the lake, that tested a frigid seven degrees Celsius on my thermometer. The lake was heavily weeded in its shallower margins, making them almost impossible to fish with a fly. A broad channel snaked through the weed in lazy bends, a reminder of the old riverbed that had once cut through the now flooded valley floor. It was in this channel that the majority of the fish had been taken, and as I finned towards this wide passage in the weed, I considered my chances of landing one of the lake’s leviathans. Read the rest of this entry »

The Zonker is a time-consuming and elaborate pattern to tie and requires a fair deal of practice before its proportions are correctly mastered. The underbody, which gives it its underslung shape, is normally formed with aluminium or lead tape, which is bent around the hook shank and then cut to shape. If a translucent mylar is used as an overbody, I like to colour the underbody with floss or waterproof marking pens. When tying several Zonkers I have found that it is most time-efficient to shape and colour the underbody tape before starting. Because of its mylar body construction, the fly is quickly shredded by the trout’s teeth, so I now coat all my Zonker bodies in epoxy.

As small baitfish will often be found along the shallows of our stillwaters, it is here that the fly-fisher should concentrate his efforts. My technique is to wait for a disturbance to erupt and then cast the Zonker as quickly as possible into the area of feeding activity. This requires a powerful, fastactioned rod. My previous favourite was a nine-foot rod designed for a seven-weight line; however, with the graphite fly-rods on the market today, a five-weight outfit is more than capable of handling these patterns. A stiff, fastactioned rod is required to cast the Zonker, because once its rabbit strip ‘wing’ has soaked up water it is difficult to cast the pattern efficiently with a light-line rod. Read the rest of this entry »

The muddler minnow, or ‘Muddler‘ as it is usually called, is justifiably famous and is used throughout theworld with great success. It has its origins on the Nipigon River — famous for its large brook trout — in Canada, where it was developed during a fishing trip by the late Don Gapen, a well-known Canadian angler whose ambition it was to catch a world-record brook trout. After clamping his vice to a boat beached on the banks of the river, Gapen set about tying flies for the following day’s fishing. Little did he know that the pattern he was about to tie would become legendary.

The q was known as Gapen’s Special Fly or simply Gapen’s Fly. Gapen tied these flies by the dozen and sold them at his fishing lodge (called the Chateau Bungalow). Because of the pattern’s incredible popularity, his friends urged him to give it a name. He decided to call the pattern the Muddler Minnow in memory of the small sculpin minnows that lived in the Wisconsin streams and rivers he fished in his boyhood. These small fish were commonly called muddler sculpins or muddler minnows by the locals, and they produced large brown trout when fished as bait. Read the rest of this entry »

The Zonker, a baitfish imitation, is one of my favourite streamer patterns and has accounted for someof my largest stillwater trout. When trout begin to concentrate on small baitfish in the shallows, the action can be fast and furious, with strikes that leave the angler shaking with excitement. The Zonker is a superb searching pattern, especially during winter when trout aggressively hit streamer and attractor patterns, and it is also a good fly to choose when trout are visibly chasing minnows.

The Zonker was invented by Dan Byford of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and is one of the most realistic yet suggestive baitfish imitations available. It demands a fair deal of patience during tying and can prove a tricky patternto tie properly, particularly for novices. As with all patterns, the only way the fly can be mastered is to tie several, until all the problems associated with its tying are overcome. Read the rest of this entry »

How to make one:

1. Tie in two uneven strands of Flashabou halfway along the hook shank. The longer of the strands should be at least the length of the hook shank.
2. Select a marabou plume and tie it in by the butt, halfway along the hook shank.
3. Wind the plume forward in open turns, tie it off and trim the excess.
4. Tie a mallard flank or similar feather in by the butt directly in front of the marabou plume. The concave side of the feather should face the hook shank.
5. Take two or three turns of the feather around the hook shank in front of the marabou, tie off the feather and trim the excess.
6. Form a small, neat thread head, half- hitch and trim the thread. Apply head cement to the thread wraps.

The names pheasant hopper, Sparrow and Evening, Star may not mean much to most South African fly-tiersand fly-fishers, but these patterns are well known in the United States. Created by Jack Gartside, an angler whose reputation as an innovative fly-tier has spread, not because he has published any books or magazine articles but simply by word of mouth, the patterns are all extremely effective and, most importantly, are very easy to tie, making use of materials which are cheap and freely available. Read the rest of this entry »