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4 November 2012. It’s incredibly hot and the wind is shunting. I’ve come prepared for a day or three’s fishing: food, tent, beer, gear. The Upper Gouritz River at this point is a wide, powerful river, always flowing crystal-clear during the smallmouth bass spawn. I’ve fished many seasons here – I know the drill. The resident smallmouth yellows and smallmouth bass are suckers for a Peacock Woolly Bugger, and while the bass model is my preferred target, I’m chasing yellows for a start. Proper bass water only appears a few hundred metres’ walk upstream. I’d come to expect most of the bass to be under 18 inches long, so my Bugger and 3-weight combo really doesn’t feel like too little gun for this fight. Besides, the yellows are a jam on it and the wind is blowing upstream.
I open the tab with a beautiful yellowfish from the first run I fish, then proceed upstream to reach the biggest pool on the stretch. I’d taken some good fish from its tail-out, but never found it quite as productive as I thought it should be. Friends and family know all about my obsession with getting a 20 inch smallmouth bass, but, to be honest, many trips in I am not convinced it will ever happen. Imagine, therefore, my elation when exactly such a fish humours me, eating the small fly so gently as to only slightly interrupt my drift. I tighten up, impressed by the fact that for once I don’t fright-strike. Her solidness erupts from the water, and dive-bombs back with all the grace you’d expect from the 4,5lb brick she is. I finish shitting myself, ease into the fight, and net her after a few sweet, sweet jumps and about as much pull as my poor 3-weight ever had to endure before. She misses the 20inch mark only by the tips of her tail having been worn off during spawning. I’d done it - accidentally. I light a smoke and sit down a while, having photographed and released my prize. I’m an hour into my fishing trip and so satisfied that I decide to up and leave for home. I often do that when I catch exactly what I want. I feel as though the moment shouldn’t be watered down by continuing, knowing you aren’t likely to top what just went down. It’s stupid and I always regret it when I get home and, yet, I still do it.
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Little did I know at the time that a drought was a mere metaphorical minute away – the longest and worst ever seen in the Western Cape and one that very quickly turned the Upper Gouritz into little more than a memory. Along with the memories went my final opportunity to catch a smallmouth bass for many years. 13 November 2019. It is stupid hot, and the wind is ungodly. I’m in the Boland on non-fishing related business, but I have a 3-weight and a 7-weight packed just in case. If time allows, Gordon van der Spuy and I will meet for a spot of trout fishing on the Eerste River. Unfortunately, I have only a few hours in the morning, and Gordon (being one of those actor types,) ends up
W W W. T H E M I S S I O N F LY M A G . C O M
