Old Sterkies hand? Then there’s a good chance this article will make you yawn and mutter something along the lines of, “No shit Sherlock”. But that’s alright because, as one of the uninitiated, Tudor Caradoc-Davies put this together with fellow Sterkies neophytes in mind. It’s for Noobs, like him, who have just never made a [...]
The Orange River surged in popularity over the last two years as more anglers than ever discovered what a gem we have right here in South Africa. With that came problems, as Ewan Naude points out in issue 32. How we manage it will dictate the future of this special fishery. I’ve been very [...]
Freshly returned from a trip to the Bokong river in Lesotho with African Waters, Gordon van der Spuy (author of The Feather Mechanic), shares this quick foam ant tie that proved highly effective for both yellowfish and trout. He says, "I absolutely love Larva Lace dry fly foam. It's great to work with as it's [...]
From exploring India and catching world record masheer as a feral youngster, to growing up and spending his working days on location with Flycastaway in places like Providence, St Brandon’s or Sterkfontein - Nic Isabelle has a pretty schweet life (and a porno tache). Before he returned to Providence for the first time since the [...]
It's been a fun couple of months and one of the highlights was a mission we made to the Orange River where we teamed up with Jeep Apparel, makers of gritty outdoor/urban clobber, who have come out with a new range of clothing that they wanted to test in the field on us. That was [...]
The life and soul of Walkerbouts Inn (walkerbouts.co.za), the Wild Trout Association and Rhodes village, Dave Walker is an institution in the world of South African fly fishing. --- My first fishing experience was fishing for “Bullies” or “Klipvis” in rock pools at Cape Aghulas using a length of cotton and a bent pin with [...]
According to my knowledge, in fly fishing 'bloodworm' may refer to three different things: 1) Red midge larvae, 2) reddish coloured freshwater annelids (aquatic oligochaetes that are the freshwater analogs of terrestrial earthworms) including tubifex worms (sold as 'bloodworm' in frozen blocks to feed aquarium fish), and then 3) the well known marine bloodworm (a [...]
The ongoing pandemic has been detrimental on a worldwide level and continues to, sadly, run its course in 2021 thus far. It’s truly difficult to see the silver lining during such a tough period but at least there’s been some light at the end of the tunnel for both myself and Philip Geldart, both junior [...]
Lockdown - I'm tired of hearing it and avoid the subject these days. But during the lockdown, my fly tying station was my psychologist. Years ago my tying desk was in something close to a cellar, the living space was two floors up. My wonderful wife, Belle, wouldn't have any of this so she bought [...]
On fly fishing on the Orange River... Were we going to get lost? That was one of our main concerns leaving Cape Town. Our mode of transport was Warwick Leslie's Alu-Cab Hilux, the ultimate overland machine, we could have gone to Cairo in it. But we weren't, we were on our way to the Orange [...]
