Fishing and some poppers

I managed to get out for some stream fishing yesterday. I got out on the water slightly before 8am and when I arrived a downstream wind was already starting to blow. We had some rain earlier in the week as well and the river was flowing quite a bit stronger than I expected. Never the less I rigged up and headed down to the river. It was one of those days though where you wonder if it wasn't better to stay in bed. On the first cast I manged to get a tangle in my leader which had me cutting everything off. From there things just got worse. As mentioned the river was a bit high and the by now strong downstream wind made getting a decent cast in next to impossible.  I did manage to get about 8 fish and also missed a few, but after numerous tangle's, a head first plunge into a deep pool and hooking myself and every branch around me, my heart just wasn't in it anymore, so I just mechanically kept on fishing till my exit point.

No, the sparkles weren't intentional. Only realized afterwards my new camera has a "add sparkles" feature.

Today I was in the mood to tie some flies, buy after my piscatorial misadventures yesterday I thought it might be best to stay away from the small stuff, so I tied a few poppers.

Some popper bodies in the curing rack

Bassing around

I ventured out for a few hours to go fishing for some bass at our local dam today. I started out with some poppers and the smaller fish were hitting the poppers all the time. It really was fun targeting individual fish and then to see a few small bass all storm at the fly as soon as it lands. The bigger fish would however just swim up to the fly and inspect it  for a few minutes before it would turn up it nose and swim away.

 

FRUSTRATING and yes I was sitting in the tree trying to get this guy to take my fly

It's just not going to happen

Eventually I had enough of the smaller fish and set out to get my revenge on some of the larger fish. I tied on a fish skull streamer and low and behold on the fist cast one of the larger fish chased it as if possessed and  I watched it as it opened its mouth and swallowed the fly. I was a bit quick on the gun though and pulled the fly out of its mouth. I few choice words and two casts later another fish chased the fly and it was fish on.

My arm just wasn't long enough to get the whole fish in the pic. :-)

I was pleasantly surprised at how effective the Fish Skull fly was as it landed me quite a few decent sized bass.

Happy but tired little soldier

OOPS, hero shot gone wrong

Random Stuff - Africa Edition

Things on the fishing front has been rather slow lately. Work and other commitments have kept me away from the rivers, though I did get to go fish this past Sunday after first watching our national team bow out of the Rugby World Cup. I got on the water rather late and only fished for a few hours. The water levels are near perfect and I managed to catch quite a number of Rainbow's on both dry flies and nymphs. I took lots of pics but when I downloaded them I found out that I had my camera on the wrong setting all the times so all I have is a mix of blurry photos. When I have the time I might turn them into some obscure work of art though.

Anyway with not much else to report I though that I would share a few random items with you guys and girls.

Firstly a new Fly Fishing E-Zine. With these thing a dime a dozen now a days I can at least say that this is a Proudly South African one, though there is not much content about South African fly fishing in the first edition.

Some local guys took on a epic trip to Bassas Da India of the African coast. They are in the process of writing an epic trip report on the Flytalk Forum. This must be one of the best trip reports I have ever read. Check it out HERE.

A friend of mine also send me the below cellphone pictures of a monster Barber (Catfish) that he caught on a 9 weight rod and a Fish Skull fly this past weekend. The fish took him 35minutes to land.Awesome stuff.

And lastly, just to proof that Africa is not for the weak check out the below video.

Fish Skull Deceiver - Step by Step

 

 

 

Materials

HOOK: Mustad 34007
BODY: SF Flash Blend
FLASH/LATERAL LINE: Krystal Flash
HEAD: Small/ Medium Fish Skull

 

STEP 1:

Attach thread to hook.

 

 

 STEP 2:

Tie in your chosen color of SF Flash Blend.

 

 

Fold the Flash Blend backwards and tie the remainder down.

 

 

 Step 3 :

Rotate the hook and repeat step 2 on the bottom of the hook with a different colour of Flash Blend.

 

 

 Step 4:

Return the fly the right way up and form a small head for the Fish Skull to fit over. Attach the Krystal flash. Whip finish the fly at this point. Add a drop of superglue to the head to help the Fish Skull to seat properly.

 

 

Step 5:

Fit the Fish Skull Head over the eye of the hook and make sure it seats properly. Re attach the thread in front of the Fish Skull Head and whip finish immediately making sure that the Fish Skull cannot slip of the hook.

 

Step 6:

Trim the Flash Blend to shape.