While camping on the seemingly featureless middle reaches of the Breede River, I quite literally stumbled, through bushes and over boulders, onto a heavenly stretch of carp fly fishing water. Photos by Camm McDermott.

Imagine this; shallow stretches of braided riffles and cascades, bubble lines that glide over deep pools and run-after-run filled to the brim with hungry fish. In your mind the water is probably also as blue as a swimming pool, like on a Slovenian brochure? Wrong, it was a mud bath with maybe 30cm of visibility and stained from a recent sewage pump failure in the town upstream.

Reminding myself not to use my enamel nippers, I fished it anyways. Stripping bass poppers across the flow of slow-flowing stepped rapids and drifting suspended nymphs down fringed bubble lines resulting in nothing. I was expecting residential largemouth bass, the odd poesket, and maybe even a grazing carp, but nothing was biting at these blind casts which would otherwise work in a traditional trout stream.

Balancing waist-deep on algae-covered, jagged bedrock I saw the first tails waving at me from a pool upstream. The tips of red tails were poking out of the water, almost at eye level from where I was standing. About a kilometre downriver was a designated “fishing zone” where pap-gooiers could park their bait setups on the banks of a wide and deep, featureless stretch of the Breede. Bait fishermen wouldn’t think twice about abandoning the location where I was. Too fast, too slippery and too bushed in. Realising that I was possibly the first person to target these fish in an age, let alone on fly, was the biggest thrill.

“Shallow stretches of braided riffles and cascades, bubble lines that glide over deep pools and run-after-run filled to the brim with hungry fish.”

On water foreign to me, with fish foreign to me, I would’ve felt even more out of my depth if it weren’t for my limited recent experience with Platon on the Berg River and for the company of my older brother, Nicholas. Nick has caught barbs in Germany on the fly, but I get the sense that he wasn’t accustomed to using the highly technical drag and drop approach that we employ for a successful hookup. He was holding onto ingrained trout techniques, hoping for the drift of a suspended nymph to result in an eat. I explained to him that with Western Cape carp, you must quite literally feed the fish your fly.

After sighting a fish (preferably one that is feeding as the cruisers are non-committal bastards) and being as stealthy as possible to not spook it, you’re almost trying to foul hook them in the lips – that’s how accurate your casting and dragging needs to be. I’m no expert and still believe that the Berg’s variants are harder to catch (a badge I am still yet to earn), but having witnessed a few carp eats there, I knew I had enough know-how to be in with a shot on the Breede.

Small groups of juvenile fish were holding in each pool, generally at the tail out or inlet, in the faster flowing shallows. Grubbing between pebbles and rocks, the smaller carp would almost keel over while thrashing violently on the riverbed in search of food. Approaching from behind and walking upstream, most fish let us get a rod length away before spooking. Needing only the length of my leader out, I was able to high stick a controlled drift straight into the feeding zone of grubbing fish, most of which didn’t think twice before gobbling up my bigger nymphs and dragonfly imitations.

“The hook was set but I had to give the line a few yanks to get the message across.”

The bigger fish weren’t your typical fat bellied pigs. The odd serpentine dragon-looking carp, fish the size of my thigh, were bolting up rapids that seemed unlikely for a fish that size to scale. These bigger fish were more conscious of their surroundings and of our clambering in dodgy rapids, and unlike their more trusting offspring, would not allowing for close combat nymphing. In general, the fish seemed to be moving upriver during the day and were more active in the rapids at twilight. While the smaller juveniles were fun to tussle with in the rapids, it wasn’t until I hooked one of these bigger fish, cruising in a slower-flowing deep pool, that I knew what I was in for.

“I’VE HOOKED YOU BRUH!”

With the vantage of a raised rocky bank, I sighted a slow swimming zeppelin of a fish. Whereas a Berg River fish wouldn’t have allowed for more than one or two casts, this fish was more forgiving. The eat finally came after I lead it with a medium cast and dragged my Lalu Bug into its trajectory, not 10cm away from its mouth. The hook was set but I had to give the line a few yanks to get the message across. “I’VE HOOKED YOU BRUH!”. Around 15 minutes later my girlfriend netted the porker, and unbalanced by the fish and the rocks nearly landed up going for a swim in the process.

Depending on which fly fishing circles you hang around in, carp aren’t always held in high regard in the ranks of fish to target on the fly. They certainly haven’t received centuries of poetry, study and high level PR that trout have. My opinion on them has definitely shifted in the past few years as I’ve spent more time targeting them and now at the mere thought of carp I get my tail up. They aren’t all just sluggish brutes that float around dams eating recycled turds. Far from it. Many of them are fit river fish not dissimilar in behaviour or biology to our indigenous yellowfish. And, if you can get a handle on the nuances and variables each area’s carp seem to react to, you’ll enjoy some of the most satisfying, technical fly fishing out there.

For more on carp fly fishing techniques, watch the two Berg Buddies bash it out on the Berg River in Paarl, Western Cape. Platon Trakoshis’s sweet sombre vocals will put you right at ease and in the mood for labeo lips!