Saterday outing

Things at work is still going crazy, but at least it seems to that things will slow down shortly. In the middle of all the work I did get a chance to fish last weekend with my fishing buddy Roland. We got on the water at about 07h30 and for the first time in a long while I actually had a shiver from the early morning cold. The water temperature had also seemed to have droped to a much cooler 14C.

Things started of slow with no rises and nothing taking a nibble on our nymphs. Eventually Roland hooked a beautiful brown trout and we were starting to hope for better things. The water in the river was still very low and we were fishing the shallow sections quite fast trying to get to some deeper pools higher up. Unfortunately as we got there we saw some kids swimming in the pools and they were throwing rocks all over the place. Our moods dropped a bit and we quickly walked around them.

In the first pool after the swimming kids I finally landed a beautiful brown trout. It amazes me how big these browns got in the last year as they were recent accidental releases in the river. They certainly seemed to have adapted in the river, though it remains to be seen if they will survive. Brown trout were introduced to the river decades ago,but only the rainbows have adapted and managed to flourish in the river.

We were off the water by about 11h00 as it was starting to heat up and the water temperature was also rising. At the end of the session we only landed two browns, two rainbows and a small mouth bass.

It was a pleasure to be out on the rivers again with some good company though.

Rigging up in the shadows of the mountain

Roland fish the tail end of a pool

Trout candy

Saterday small stream fishing

With temperatures in the high 30C this past week I didn't have to much hope for fishing this weekend. Saturday proofed to be a bit cooler and I though I would go check out one of my favorite little streams. The section I planed to fish is mostly covered in trees and shade so I thought that I might stand a change to still get a few fish early morning.

On arriving at the river I notices that it was considerably lower than the last time I have been there, with some of the normal pools only ankle deep. I rigged up however and walked up the river to only look for deeper pools. I found a few and casted a dry fly over the water. I had plenty of strikes at my fly, but these were all really small fish. However in most of the deeper pools I could find there was always a bigger fish sitting in the head, and they were more than happy to take my fly.

I ended with three relatively decent sized fish for this stream, but it was a nice day to be out and enjoyed the walk much more than the actual fishing.

First outing of the year

I managed to do my first fishing trip of the year this past Saturday. Unfortunately there is no pictures of fish because I forgot to charge my camera's batteries. It was very slow day anyway and between the two of us we only landed two Rainbow trout and a few Smallmouth bass.

We got to the water at about 8am, which is very late for us, and it was already clear at that stage that it was going to be a blistering hot day. We fished dries and nymphs the whole day but it was tough out there. We would fish a run or pool, chuck various flies without spotting any fish and as soon as we walked through we would spook a few fish.

At one stage I was walking along a very shallow pool and grabbed hold of a bush hanging in the water and about 20 fish came charging out from underneath it. I guess they felt like us and hid in any shade that was available.

We got off the water at about 11am as it was just not comfortable anymore and you could actually feel the water warming up.

I did manage to snap a few pics before my camera died on me.

Happy new year

I would like to wish all of you a happy new year and may it be blessed with lots of fishing time, family time and good health. Since our clocks runs a little ahead of most of you that reads this blog from over the seas that separates our various countries, it means our headaches from celebrating the end of 2010 has already kicked in. I woke up this morning to some lovely cool rain so today will be spend lying in and recovering. In fact I am typing this as I lie in bed trying to convince the wife to make some coffee and possibly a greasy bacon and egg breakfast.

I did go out fishing yesterday to celebrate the last fishing day of 2010 and it was a super day on the streams. I don't have the energy to tell you all about it, but below is some pictures. I know that most of you are staring at very cold weather and snow, so please don't send any hate mail.

Also a big thanks to all of you for reading my humble little blog over the last few months and for all the comments that you made. Thanks to all of your own blogs this fishing addict on the southern point of South Africa has been able to fish far flung places with all of you and shared in your excitement of landing the next one. Keep it up.