MONSTERS
ORANGE RIVER
fishing
Barry Matthews The Orange River is one of the largest river systems in South Africa, stretching a mind boggling 2200km, from the highlands of Lesotho, flowing westwards into the Atlantic Ocean. Home to the biggest sharp tooth catfish found in our country. The Orange River winds its way through arid parts of the country with very little angling pressure and farming communities along its banks. Not only known for its catfish but also a fly fisherman’s dream come true when fishing for large and small mouth yellow fish, both indigenous to these waters. Back in 1995, I was paging through one of the local angling magazines, when I came across an article about the monsters that inhabit these waters, I was hooked and the rest is history. Twelve years later a few anglers and I have been fishing the river year on year. It was not an easy start and our research on both the river and its inhabitants was pain staking, with little to no information on where and how to catch these big fish. We had to start from the ground up and through trial and error, developed our own system to target these fish. Back then there were only a hand full of places that anglers could fish the river and they were usually situated near the few towns close to the river. Today there are a host of venues along the river that cater for these kinds of fishing adventures. Private farms along the river have opened their doors to anglers and even though there are more places to fish the best places are but only a few. 24
Vol 10 2012
www.africanadventures.co.za