In issue 21 Tim Leppan wrote about 'The Foam Dungeon,' his go-to articulated streamer for largemouth and Clanwilliam yellowfish. Here's Tim with the Step-By-Step. "After sharing this pattern with a group of mates, I received a lot of questions back about how one ties it and how to fish it. In saying that, I thought [...]
Perhaps South Africa's most renowned dragonfly pattern, Herman Botes's Papa Roach has accounted for a lot of trophy stillwater trout, plus many other species in between. A year or two back at the Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Expo, I shot this Step-By-Step of Herman tying his pattern. For more on Herman, check out 'The [...]
Del Brown, a name synonymous with Permit fishing, is often credited as the man who originally cracked the Permit code. The secret to his success was his Merkin Crab. Del used strands of rug yarn, tied square to the hook shank, trimmed into the body with a very basic addition of feathers for pincers and [...]
"Never again will I be unprepared for an ant hatch" were part my thoughts on the drive home after watching sceptic Clanwilliam yellowfish refuse some of my 'buggy' nymphs over the weekend. The fishing was phenomenal, best I had ever experienced in the Tankwa Karoo, but I missed out on about three extra yellows that [...]
Having to channel all my fishing desires into fly tying like many others in these strange times I have been honing some pattern ideas for carp. One fish food source that is abundant in most freshwater bodies is tadpoles and around here they are about all year round. Like many creatures, hundreds are born to [...]
I've encountered swarming termites too many times on fishing trips to ignore them as important food items for fish in Western Cape rivers (the fish also started feeding like crazy during the termite swarms). Other, buggy flies worked well to catch fish during these ant hatches, but there were also picky fish (and some really [...]
April 2005 I was fortunate, along with my late old man, to wrangle our way on to the first FlyCastaway "PAYDIRT" trip... 14 Anglers, 2 Guides... 2 weeks, two Seychelles outer Atolls which at that stage had virtually never been fished.. or if they had, it was VERY little... Cosmoledo for a week, and then [...]
Over the last few days I tied a small army of Skeleton Minnows to try out on our larger, more aggressive yellowfish and bass over the next year or so. In the process of tying them I enjoyed playing with different colours of flexo tubing, fluorescent beads (which may add the desired colour and weight [...]
All the cool kids are digging into their archives, so let’s throw it back… (Is #ThrowbackThursday still a thing? It is Thursday today, right? With the current mindfuck of day-to-day lockdown-sameness it might as well be Tuesday). Anyway it’s a good time to reminisce… This installment in the tailgate confessions takes us to 2018. Though that [...]
While bored at home and dreaming about fishing for yet another day during 'lockdown' I took out my fly tying stuff (again) and fiddled with streamers for our yellowfishes...After spending an entire morning in front of my vise (while trying to keep the kids happy in between, cooking breakfast and lunch for them and feeding [...]
