Recently I decided to drop in on a new piece of water that’s been haunting me. Blueliners will know how unknown possibilities can chip away at you. You just gotta scratch that itch. The water looked small , thin and off colour due to rains. Doubt started welling up as I “trekked” downstream to a suitable starting point. Per fact there should be fish in this stream…But is there? I surveyed the head of a pool and crept into position trying to get a feel for the place since I couldn’t see into the water. I dropped a tentative cast in there. The fish took the nymph on the dropped and my click-n-pawl sang like a morning canary…SURPRISE!
Now a fish on a first cast can be a bad thing at times if your’e the superstitious kind .The rest of the morning panned out superstitious free and a couple more followed. Some were strong fish in thin water, hunting ‘trikes’ (trico-nymphs).
I got a solid take in a bucket between some boulders that held promise. When I brought the fish to hand, I got my biggest SURPRISE. I noticed that it had an odd-looking mouth. There were no signs of injury and it looked like this could very well be an Incomati chiselmouth (Varicorhinus nelspruitenis). It could also be a deformed smallmouth yellowfish, because this fish is very much outside of the chiselmouth distribution. But the more I study the photos (I’ve included all below) ,the more I’m convinced it could be a chiselmouth. I would appreciate any feedback from fish fundi’s and anglers familiar with chiselmouth?
