It’s a “secret” valley high up in the Southern Berg that I have written about several times before. I even named my blog after the stream. I have decided that there’s no point trying to keep places like this a secret. It’s too remote and inaccessible for 99% of people to venture up there. I have realized that people are generally not as adventurous as they think. The fish are also pathetically small so it doesn’t matter if I mention the name or not. The upper Mzimkhulu River is some of the most remote trout fishing in Natal. This is what makes these little tiddlers so special.

On my GPS it was a 16km hike to the last pool on the Mzimkhulu River that held trout. That means that it’s a more than 30 km hike to fish this beautiful water. What’s best about this gorge is that it’s off the major hiking trails and you are unlikely to see another soul. In my opinion it also happens to be in the most spectacular area of the foothills of the Drakensberg. The unexplored sandstone gorges and and forests make this one of the best places for the adventurous stream fisherman.

This last weekend I had initially planned to climb to the top of the Drakensberg and fish a small stream in Lesotho for the day as training for a 65 km trial run I plan to do in April. My mate who is running-fit pulled out so I roped in Andrew Descroizilles, my regular fishing buddy for a less strenuous trip involving only a 32 km hike.

The fish we caught were ridiculously small. Definitely smaller than those we caught in April last year. I’ve never caught anything much bigger than what you see in the pictures, but the majority of 4 to 6″ fish that we caught in April, were now replaced with 3 to 4 inch fish. I presume this means that bigger ones have moved down stream and left their offspring up top? The numbers of fish up here at least bode well for the fish stocks lower down which are depleted after the drought of 2016.

I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story of our amazing day out.