This is a basic zonker streamer that I tied to catch some of our larger freshwater predatory fish. The colour combo is based on other effective streamers, especially tigerfish streamers, used across Africa (I took a page from Malcolm Meintjes' zonker tiger flies as displayed in the FOSAF Favoured Flies series). I’ve only been fishing [...]
This post has been in the pipeline for a while (here's Part 1), but the completion of this project was agonizingly slow. The finished product is absolutely everything I envisaged. In terms of desk space, I elected to make it as open as possible to avoid clutter. Some of the essentials on the desk are [...]
This is a follow-up post on Dubious Distinctions, going into more detail about how I catch carp on fly in the Western Cape. I put emphasis on the Western Cape as carp seem to be a lot more reserved, generally taking smaller patterns, in the waters of this province. This is as technical as I [...]
I have a fairly stressful job and although I enjoy what I do, there are times when I simply need to clear my mind and get away from it all. Unfortunately for most of us, it’s not possible to live the life of a quasi-guide like Dre does and time on the water is all [...]
I recently bought some of Ufudu's dumbbells and decided to get good variety with and without the lifelike eyes welded onto the sides. I obviously started tying flies with the 'pretty' ones first and soon ran out of the dumbbells with welded eyes. Just as well as I recently also received some Solarez UV resin [...]
As promised, here is a detailed step-by-step fly tying post on the Nuclear Hare's Ear (a great fly for yellowfish, bass and trout): 1) I like to use natural rabbit fur for the tail of this fly; this is red rock rabbit fur from roadkill that I picked up on a climbing trip to [...]
If you search for this SBS you'll quickly discover that the internet sometimes isn't forever. Dead links, media servers that have vanished or migrated, the Bauer Flats Crab SBS practically disappeared off the internet. Its DNA apparent in other patterns like the Contraband Crab, which has largely replaced the Bauer in younger fly fishermans boxes. [...]
A staple for many South African fly fisherman is the yellowfish. They are indigenous, eager to take a fly and accessible to most people. There are clear differences in tactics and techniques when fishing different river systems such as Vaal vs Orange river for largemouth yellowfish or the Doring vs Olifants river for clanwilliams but [...]
This post links up to a series of my favourite flies and the fish I catch with them. As mentioned in the previous post, The Natural Look, these flies are not necessarily new or spectacular inventions, but rather flies that have been tweaked to perform better under specific circumstances. The Nuclear Hare’s Ear is exactly [...]
While riding on the fly tying theme I thought it would be appropriate to introduce our readers to the Federation of Southern African Fly Fishers, aka FOSAF, and all the good things it does for fly anglers (and sometimes all anglers) in our country. Besides the frequent and interesting 'fly of the month' posts that [...]
