New Sean Mills DVD's

I recently had the opportunity to have a sneak preview at two of Sean Mills' new DVD's. The first one is "Fly Fishing for Bass and Bluegill in South Africa"

This new DVD take a different format that Sean's previous DVD's as this one is in a HTML format and is interactive. It opens in your browser and you browse through it just like you would on a web page.

In the DVD Sean covers all aspects of fishing for Bass and Bluegill in South Africa from when to fish, where to fish, the various techniques used, flies,correct knots to use right through to identifying the different species of bass.





 There is a good section on fly tying step by step patterns and some awsome pictures of bass and bluegill.

Screen shot from the DVD

Sean has some great underwater shots of bass

If ever there was anything that you needed to know about fishing for bass and bluegill in South Africa then you don't need to look any further than this DVD.

Fly Fishing for Bass and Bluegill in South Africa will be available soon through Sean' site SGM PRODUCTIONS, my Bid or Buy shop or Fly shops near you.

The second DVD is "An advanced guide to fly fishing Cape Streams"

This DVD takes the same format as the previous bass and Bluegill DVD, with the added bonus of having some great video clips thrown in.

Screen shot from the DVD

The section about Trout Food has some awesome macro pictures about all the life stages of the various insects that you will find on the  Cape streams and you will even find some underwater video footage of the insects.







Once again Sean covers all aspects of fishing the Cape Streams, from  the correct clothing and tackle needed, insects that can be found and imitated right down to the correct knots to use.

The DVD is extremely well laid out. While reading about soft hackle flies for example  you can click on a tab that will take you to a movie showing you how to fish them or another on how to tie them.

Screen shot of the soft hackle page with Video clip button

Sean covers all aspects of Cape stream fishing and teaches you how to fish and tie all the various flies from Nymphs, streamers, dry flies to Soft hackles. In the process you will find out what the real insects look like and how to imitate them.  You will find out when the seasons are, how to fish the different water levels during the season, the anatomy of the streams, how to get to the streams and much much more.

Learn where and how to fish a run

 As usual Sean's underwater pictures are brilliant and I can recommend this DVD to anyone that wants to learn more about fly fishing the Cape streams whether you are a novice or an expert.

An advanced guide to fly fishing Cape Streams will be available soon through Sean' site SGM PRODUCTIONS, my Bid or Buy shop or Fly shops near you.

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.

Just another fishing day

I finally had the chance to go fishing one of my favorite un-named small stream yesterday. My fishing partner and I wanted to get on the water early but shortly before we had to leave the heavens opened and it started pouring down and we decided to put the trip of.

Two hours later the sun was shining and it looked like it would be a stunning day. I phoned him to tell him the trip's on and an hour and half later we were busy gearing up.

Right form the first cast I missed a fish and it looked like it was going to be a good day. This particular stream doesn't hold any big fish and is so overgrown that bow and arrow casts is the order of the day. My friend fished his 6"6 2 weight rod and I had my 3 weight rod. We both fished dry flies the whole day and both of us landed a number of fish.

The missing evening rise

A friend and myself fished the evening rise at Blue Gum Grove last night. Unfortunately there was not much of a rise even though the conditions were perfect and there were lots of insect activity. We both still managed to land a good sized rainbow in the hour and a half that we fished.







  Jasper fighting his rainbow

And the result

                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                           


There was only the occasional rise and they were all over the place which made it a pointless exercise to chuck a dry or emerger out there in the hope of a fish swimming by. I fished streamers, dries and nymphs and eventually landed a beauty on a small Flashback Pheasant Tail Nymph.

The beers were cold, it was great company and you can not ask for a better way to start the weekend.

Terry Pratchett on Mayflies

 This is an extract from Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

The shortest-lived creatures on the Disc were mayflies, which barely make it through twenty-four hours.
Two of the oldest zigzagged aimlessly over the waters of a trout stream, discussing history with some
younger members of the evening hatching.
“You don’t get the kind of sun now that you used to get, “ said one of them.
“You’re right there. We had proper sun in the good old hours. It were all yellow. None of this red stuff.”
“It were higher, too.”
“It was. You’re right.”
“And nymphs and larvae showed you a bit of respect.”
“They did. They did,” said the other mayfly vehemently.
“I reckon, if mayflies these hours behaved a bit better, we’d still be having proper sun.”
The younger mayflies listened politely.
“I remember, “ said one of the oldest mayflies, “when all this was fields, as far as you could see.”
The younger mayflies looked around.
“It’s still fields,” one of them ventured, after a polite interval.
“I remember when it was better fields,” said the old mayfly sharply.
“Yeah, “ said his colleague. “And there was a cow.”
“That’s right! You’re right! I remember that cow! Stood right over there for, oh, forty, fifty minutes. It
was brown, as I recall.”
“You don’t get cows like that these hours.”
“You don’t get cows at all.”
“What’s a cow?” said one of the hatchlings.
“See?” said the oldest mayfly triumphantly. “That’s modern Ephemeroptera for you. “ It paused. “What
were we doing before we were talking about the sun?”
“Zigzagging aimlessly over the water,” said one of the young flies. This was a fair bet in any case.
“No, before that.”
“Er . . . you were telling us about the Great Trout.”
“Ah. Yes. Right. The Trout. Well, you see, if you’ve been a good mayfly, zigzagging up and down
properly -”
“- taking heed of your elders and betters -”
“- yes, and taking heed of your elders and betters, then eventually the Great Trout -”
Clop
Clop
“Yes?” said one of the younger mayflies.
There was no reply.
“The Great Trout what?” said another mayfly, nervously.
They looked down at a series of expanding concentric rings on the water.
“The holy sign!” said a mayfly. ”I remember being told about that! A Great Circle in the water! Thus
shall be the sign of the Great Trout!”
The oldest of the young mayflies watched the water thoughtfully. It was beginning to realise that, as the
most senior fly present, it now had the privilege of hovering closest to the surface.
“They say, “ said the mayfly at the top of the zigzagging crowd, “that when the Great Trout comes for
you, you go to a land flowing with . . . flowing with . . .”
Mayflies don’t eat. It was at a loss. ”Flowing with water, “ it finished lamely.
“I wonder, “ said the oldest mayfly.
“It must be really good there, “ said the youngest.
“Oh? Why?”
“ ‘Cos no-one ever wants to come back.”

Is it worth it?

It starts of with a discussion after a session on the local dam.. The topic is how great it is to get out on the water, any water, and invariably ends up about how we miss fishing the streams. A plan is quickly hatched about how we should do an exploratory trip to some obscure little river somewhere to see how the fishing is. Plans are made and schedules get synchronized.

A couple of times it almost gets to happen but mostly the weather, work or a million other things don't play along. Eventually the weather gods and the boss (read wife) agrees with each other and the green light is given.


The night before fly boxes gets checked, and you realize that the flies in there are truly horrible little things. Never mind that they were working last season and will still be working this season , but you have evolved since tying the current stock and are a much better fly tier now and so the vice gets dragged out and you start tying the new and improved versions of last years flies. Once completed they look pretty much the same as the old ones, buy you feel much better about them.



The morning of D-day arrives and you drag yourself out of bed at the crack of dawn. Over a cup of coffee, you look out the window and see that the weather gods are still asleep and haven't bothered yet to start thinking about how they can bugger up your day.


Suddenly you realize that you cannot remember where you have stashed all your stuff when you last swapped your small steam rod for the still water rod. It is a mad scramble to get everything together and into the bag. Eventually you even find your wading boots that the wife has stashed in a far of deep corner of the garage to put as much distance between herself and the moldy smell that only a good pair of wading boots can have.

You eventually have everything in the car, crank up some good tunes and head of to some distant destination with the hopes of catching some fish.

On the way there you stop every time when you see the river somewhere in the distance to "Have a look". Not sure what that look is for seeing that you have already driven for more than a hour to get there and there is no way that you are going to turn back now, but look you must.

Arriving at the parking spot it is a scramble to get your boots and vest on as fish fever is high. Leaders gets checked, fly boxes gets packed and its a race to see who get to the water first.

That first step into the cold water is a doozy, but a few minutes later your legs are numb enough that you don't care anymore.

For the next few hours it is you and your rod, fly line, leader and fly against nature. You scramble over rocks, slip and fall, crawl on your knees through bush, shoot off some bow and arrow casts, hook trees, hook rocks, hook yourself, swear that there is no fish in this damn river, but still you and the river are one.

Then suddenly, you see a small flash, the anticipation shoots through your body and then ....BAM ..... the fish hits your tiny little dry fly, you set the hook and land a beauty.

The rest of the day nothing further happens and you put it down to some or other weather system that is on the way,the Fish Eagles ate all the fish, the fish are still in shagging mode or some other obscure reason, but you are satisfied that at least there is fish in the river.

You hike back out for the next hour, pack up your stuff and drive the hour home.You get on the computer, download the photo's and tell the wife to come and look at the pretty fish you caught.

She takes one look and says "I dont get it. All that effort for that? Was it worth it?"

HELL YES!!!

DEER HAIR EMERGER

DEER HAIR EMERGER

HOOK: Knapek Midge Pupae

TAIL: Partridge

BODY: Hare'e Dubbing

WING: Deer Hair

LEGS: Partridge

From Left to right: #20, #18, #16

FROM THE TYING BENCH

RABBIT STRIP STREAMER

 

HOOK: Streamer

BODY: UV Dubbing

EYE: Jungle Cock

WING & TAIL: Rabbit Strip

A few other variatons

FROM THE TYING BENCH

WOOLLY BUGGER

There probably is not much that can be said about the Wooly Bugger that havn't been said before. Love it or hate it, it should be in everyone's fly box as it is a proven fish catcher from Trout, Bass, Bluegills, Carp, etc.

From What I can gather a Pennsylvania fly tier, Russell Blessing tied the first "Buggers". He added a marabou tail to a woolly worm fly, to help suggest a swimming movement as the fly was retrieved in the water.The Wooly worm is very old and was already mentioned in Izaak Walton 1653 book "The Compleat Angler". The original Woolly Bugger was tied to imitate  the Dobsonfly Lava.

Woolly Buggers suggest lots of different trout food: Dragonfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs, leeches, baitfish, or just something that might be alive and edible. 

To fish the Whoolly Bugger you can use a countdown and retrieve or slow retrieve. Vary the retrieve until you find what works best at the moment, slow and steady, fast, strip and pause, or what ever works for the fish on the day.

Below is my favorite variation. 

 HOOK: Streamer

TAIL: Olive Marabou

FLASH: Crystal flash

BODY: Seals fur dubbing

HACKLE: Olive

BEAD: Brass

A new bug is born

With the start of the river season still a month away I decided to give Blue Gum Grove another try today. It was mainly to give my new Barrio Fly line a test and I can tell you for the price of these lines I am suitably impressed.

While bobbing around on my float tube I noticed the below little bug popping to the surface. Unfortunately I just had my little point and shoot camera with me and sitting on a float tube taking macro pictures is no easy task so apologies for the poor pics.

A few seconds later he started to make his appearance.

Next thing you know the wings came out, and at this point I was praying for a Rainbow Trout to come and get him.

And in a matter of just a few seconds a new bug was born....

You would be excused if you though that just witnessing this that I would off course find a suitably imitating pattern in my fly box to tie on, but at the end of the day the good old Olive Woolly Bugger did the trick just as well.

Own little piece of heaven

Blue Gum Grove is a dam a few minutes from my house. Some friends got together and stock the dam with some rainbow and brown trout.

A Sunny day at the dam

A mixture of Browns and Rainbows

One of the first fish coming out after giving the dam a few days rest.

And the result. Just look at that smile....