Fresh from Western Cape fly angler Spicer de Villiers is this beautifully shot three minute film about his journey with addiction, anxiety, depression and how fly fishing has helped him get back on track. Short and simple with poignant narration, it's well worth a watch. https://youtu.be/e_HaaOrcKew
From carbon fibre to bamboo and glass, ultra-lightweight blanks to those with a little more heft, rods designed for travel and one-piece rods that always stay rigged, Ed Herbst has spent years working on the idea of the ultimate small stream fly rod. In a one-piece CTS glass rod built by Derek Smith (that you [...]
Fishing the Elandspad river: "So, we fish upstream?" “Ja well, the fish are all facing upstream to intercept food, so that's a pretty good way to fish dries.” Tudor continues in the background as the reality of how we are going to be fishing dawns on me. I'm essentially going to be walking up river [...]
What to do if you (or one of your fishing buddies) gets bitten by a snake... The black mamba is pretty high up my shit-your-pants list. Right up there with a croc, bull shark and a grumpy dickhead of an old, lone, buffalo bull. This is only very loosely based on zoological fact, you understand. [...]
Two off-duty Orange River fly fishing guides, Matt Gorlei and Luke Pannell, return to Cape Town for some off-season down-time. What does a guide do when they are not guiding? Spam Instagram with species they, “Can’t stop thinking about…”? Fall into the loving embrace of their significant others? Have a shave, a hot shower, a non-longdrop shit and put on a nice shirt? Hit a club and tear the ring out of it? Nyet. They make a quick plan to head deep into the nearby mountains for a short, two-night session spent hunting fabled brown trout.
IN SOUTH AFRICA, we have just dropped down from Level 4 Lockdown (the second highest lockdown) to Level 3, which gives us a lot more freedom. Most businesses are back in some form or other, we can exercise when we want and it seems (there have been many false starts) that we can fish again. [...]
