The Mission Fly Fishing Magazine Issue #33

STERKIES FOR NOOBS ISSUE 33

MAY/JUNE 2022

FREE

THEMISSIONFLYMAG.COM

BONNIES ON THE ROCKS, CHRISTMAS ISLAND, SALMONFLY HATCHES, GREG GHAUI, LIGHTSABERS, BEATS & MORE

FAIL is not an Amplitude Titan Big Water Taper “When it’s time to lock up and hold on, I run SA’s Amplitude Big Water Taper. With 100-lb. monofilament core, nothing gives me a better chance with the reef and an angry Giant Trevally.”

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Imagine our future is wild.

Magazine ads won’t save fish. But we can. Together.

Envision no river closures, no dam failures, no net-pen escapees. Imagine strong runs on free-flowing rivers, a vibrant community and a healthy planet.

We are wild fish activists.

Photo: DAVID HERASIMTSCHUK © 2022 Patagonia, Inc.

HOW TO ECLIPSE THE SUN WITH A UPF RATING OF 50+ EVEN WHEN WET, PRO SUN SYSTEMS BLOCK 98% OF HARMFUL RAYS 100% OF THE TIME

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Benny Blanco, renowned conservationist, guide, & Orvis ambassador, with his hands on the manual transmission of his client's destiny. Everglades National Park, FL.

Learn more at orvis.com/pro or your nearest Orvis fly shop In South Africa, visit Mavungana Flyfishing

W W W . T H E M I S S I O N F LY M A G . C O M ISSUE 33 MAY/JUNE 2022

CONTENTS Cover: Tim Babich in a ghillie suit impersonating a bush on Tim’s Rock at Sterkfontein Dam. Photo. Leonard Flemming

32. STERKIES FOR NOOBS At least five different winds, amorous wildebeest, rigging secrets, open-water cruisers and more. Fresh from his first visit to Sterkfontein with FlyCastaway, Tudor Caradoc-Davies breaks down what fellow neophytes might want to know about the fabled smallmouth yellowfish destination.

50. THE WINDOW Bonito on the rocks? Straight up! Southern Cape local Jazz Kuschke found a gap in the weather (and his workload) to pull off what might be a first in South Africa.

58. CHRISTMAS LISTS On the anniversary of his friend Ray Montoya’s 12th trip to Christmas Island, Peter Coetzee joined him for the pilgrimage.

From titanic triggers and moody milkfish, to crusty characters and lusty locals - the duo had a Christmas experience to remember.

76. SALMONFLIES ON THE HENRY’S FORK There are hatches and then there are HATCHES. Fishing the salmonfly hatch on the Henry’s Fork is the latter, a bucket list fly fishing experience if there ever was one. Idaho-based guide and Protea angler Craig Richardson gives us the low-down on this special occurrence.

94. SHUT UP ABOUT THE FLY After a client gave him shit about fly patterns following a trip to the Bokong River in Lesotho, fly-tying instructor and author Gordon van der Spuy would like us all to know that what’s on the end of the line is only 10% of the equation.

REGULAR FEATURES 16 Chum 20 Booze & Munchies 22 High Fives 82 Salad Bar

90 Pay Day 92 Wands 104 Lifer 108 Pop Quiz

Peter Coetzee attends a Zen picnic with one of many triggerfish caught on Christmas Island in the Pacific (page 58).

T&T Amassadors Justin Rea and Rob Kramarz in the Florida Keys.

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Tudor Caradoc-Davies

PROTECT YOUR POSTCARDS moments that fly fishing has brought me – from the mud flats of the Breede River to the jungles of Gabon, Botswana’s Okavango Delta or the mountains of Lesotho. I love these places and because I love them I also want to protect them.

That leads me to another quote from an interview we did last year with Fynbos Fish pioneer Dr Jeremy Shelton.

“Fly fishermen are probably the people who spend more time out on our rivers than anybody else and they are, in many cases, the most knowledgeable, the most in-touch, the most intuitive and the most passionate about our rivers.

I have a lot of respect for fly fishermen who are up in the headwater streams, which is where a lot of the healthy river ecosystems are still intact.”

I

watched an interview with Tom Dorsey (founder of Thomas & Thomas Fly Rods) the other day and this quote of his really stuck with me.

“A few years ago I was floating down the river and I looked at the person I was with, a fellow friend and angler, and I said, ‘We’re in the postcard. We’re IN the postcard.’ That’s what fly fishing is – you’re in the postcard.”

While it’s likely that most readers of this magazine no longer send them (because in these digital times a postcard is to Instagram, what cassette tapes are to Spotify), the sentiment behind Tom’s comment still holds water. What we do and where we go in fly fishing, takes us deep into postcard territory.

I experienced this over the Easter weekend when my friend Platon Trakoshis and I climbed high, up and over waterfallsplit boulders and along the cliffs and ledges of the Jan du Toit’s River (a tributary of the Breede River in the Western Cape). We slept in a cave before pushing further into the upper canyon, prospecting for rainbows in strangely blue crystalline pools and runs that lie in near constant shadow. It was a physically taxing yet extremely beautiful local mission, one that will remain in my memory for as long as I have my marbles. The postcard space it claims sits alongside other

WE HAVE SOME NEWS Over the years, we’ve received a lot of requests from readers (both overseas and in South Africa) to make print copies of The Mission available via subscription.

We held off doing it because A) The Mission has always been free, B) We’re a tiny team and firing it up seemed like too much admin, and C) We were too busy working on new issues. Until now…

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Tom’s take and Jeremy’s observation came together in a powerful way for me recently when we shared news of a public consultation notification about manganese and iron ore mining prospects in the Cederberg on our website (Cederberg Mining Prospects: Code Red). The informed backlash from the fly fishing community was immense. Everyone from environmental hydrogeologists, to microbiologists, investment bankers, lawyers and FOSAF (Federation of South African Fly Fishers) got to work on taking down the would-be miners. While the threat still remains (especially given our government’s track record when it comes to mining vs environmental priorities), the application should be dead in the water for a litany of reasons. At the very least, these schmucks will know they have a fight on their hands. What brought everyone together? A love for the Cederberg, its rivers and, no doubt, the postcard moments we have all enjoyed there.

From polluted rivers like the Wilge, (next issue will cover the acid mine drainage disaster there), to stagnant estuaries like St Lucia and our despoiled oceans, the threats from greedy, short-sighted dickheads in exploitative/extractive enterprises will keep coming.

Stay vigilant. Protect your postcards.

Don’t worry. The Mission is still free, both in print (at our stockists across Southern Africa) and online where you can read our entire archive for free in perpetuity.

However, if you live outside of South Africa and really want print copies, if you live in a remote part of South Africa (e.g. Pofaddersgatmeteenjakkalspoepfontein, Northern Cape) or if you really just want to support us (sniff, thanks), you can now subscribe and have each new issue delivered to your door.

Sign up at themissionflymag.com.

W W W. T H E M I S S I O N F LY M A G . C O M

Salty. And Sweet.

What perfect saltwater fly rod dreams are made of.

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When the guys at African Waters heard their colleague Greg Ghaui (pictured holding the buffalo skull in this shot) was going to be our High Fives guide profile, they were adamant we had to use this photo to find him a wife, because Tinder in the middle of the bush is average. African Waters’ Director Keith Clover says, “I was in the office and the ladies at Dun magazine asked if we had any steamy pics for their ‘guides in waders’ calendar. I sent message to the guides on location and these two (Andrew Danckwerts and Greg) took it super serious - location, props and tripods were all used. What gets us each time we see this pic is imagining them, alone on a sand bank, taking their kit off and setting it up. Too fokkin funny.” Sadly, their submission missed the deadline for Dun magazine. Their loss is our gain.

EDITOR Tudor Caradoc-Davies ART DIRECTOR Brendan Body CONTACT THE MISSION The Mission Fly Fishing Magazine for Soutie Press (Pty) Ltd 25 Firth Road, Rondebosch, 7700, Cape Town, South Africa info@themissionflymag.com www.themissionflymag.com

EDITOR AT LARGE Conrad Botes COPY EDITOR Gillian Caradoc-Davies ADVERTISING SALES tudor@themissionflymag.com

THE MISSION IS PUBLISHED 6 TIMES A YEAR. THE MISSION WILL WELCOME CONTENT AND PHOTOS. WE WILL REVIEW THE CONTRIBUTION AND ASSESS WHETHER OR NOT IT CAN BE USED AS PRINT OR ONLINE CONTENT. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS MAGAZINE ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE MAGAZINE OR ITS OWNERS. THE MISSION IS THE COPYRIGHT OF SOUTIE PRESS (PTY) LTD. ANY DUPLICATION OF THIS MAGAZINE, FOR MEDIA OR SALE ACTIVITY, WILL RESULT IN LEGAL ACTION…YOU BEING FORCE-FED CORMORANT (AKA ‘TROUT OF THE SKY’) AND, IN A WEIRD TWIST OF FATE, YOU WILL BECOME THE ETERNAL OBECT OF BAD ANDY’S AFFECTIONS.

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CONTRIBUTORS #33 Peter Coetzee, Pierre Joubert, Adi Badenhorst, Craig Richardson, Pierre Joubert, Jazz Kuschke, Gordon van der Spuy, Trevor Bourne, Tim Rolston PHOTOGRAPHERS #33 Leonard Flemming, Peter Coetzee, Ray Montoya, Carl McNeil, Greg Ghaui, Ed Ghaui, Nick Bowles, Pierre Joubert, Johann Rademeyer, Tim Babich, Justin Rollinson, Craig Richardson, Owen Bruce, Andre van Wyk, African Waters

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CHUM

A N EW D R I F T, A SC H O O L YO U WANT TO AT T E ND, P RES CRI PT I ON ME DS , BO OTS FO R A F R I CA AND T HAT DA MN CAT F I S H

GET A TASTE OF MONTANA …IN THE MALUTIS with Mavungana Flyfishing’s new Ash River drift.

Probably the only trip like it in South Africa (because most of our rivers don’t suit this kind of thing), this outfitter-style day-trip slinging streamers for solid rainbows in fast water sounds like the tits. Based out of adventure-village Clarens, your guide meets you at a local coffee shop for caffeine, croissants and a briefing. A 10-minute drive gets you down to the river on a private farm; you spend the morning fishing down braided channels and holes and across sandbanks; break for lunch under weeping willows; klap it again in the afternoon ending with a final session on foot fishing the evening rise on a tributary, before heading back to Clarens for drinks and dinner.

Head guide, Gareth Reid says, “Until now the Ash River has been spoken about in whispers and only attempted by a few. Restricted to walking the very high and unstable banks, fishing in the past has been largely ineffective, with access being the biggest hurdle.

“OUTFITTER-STYLE DAY-TRIP SLINGING STREAMERS FOR SOLID RAINBOWS IN FAST WATER”

With the introduction of a state-ofthe-art, full-frame inflatable drift boat from our friends at NRS in the States, it’s now a completely different story.”

According to Reid, the Ash River – which forms part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project – offers the ideal situation for year-round

DOCTORS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA ARE… …TAKING A LEAF OUT OF FLY ANGLERS BOOKS and prescribing national park passes to patients in an effort to combat rising rates of anxiety and obesity. Through a program called PaRx. eligible patients receive a free Parks Canada Discovery Pass (usually $72) to access the likes of Glacier National Park for a health fix from Mother Nature. It’s an idea we’d like to see rolled out all over the world, because the science is irrefutable - people who spend at least two hours in nature each week report significantly better health and wellbeing. According to our deeply scientific studies at Mission HQ (stokeometer readings of fly fishing friends and family), doing it with a fly rod is even better. parkprescriptions.ca

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fishing, because the flow is regulated 12 months of the year and water temperatures never go above 15 degrees. Throw fish of up to 8lb into the equation and you have all the ingredients for a phenomenal day out. Sounds perfect for a weekend away or bachelor party. flyfishing.co.za.

ENROLL AT… …FAR BANK FLY FISHING SCHOOL. Sage, Rio and Redington’s parent company, Far Bank has stepped out from behind its famous brands and is now front and centre. One of their projects is the Far Bank Fly Fishing School, run by fly fishing and casting pro, Simon Gawesworth. Aimed at people new to fly fishing, episodes contain on-the-water hints, top tips and techniques, in-depth studio analysis, guest talent, and incredibly shot casting footage from the Far Bank Loop Lab. farbank.com

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Distributed by Xplorer fly fishing www.xplorerflyfishing.co.za / Contact 031-5647368

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RIVER SALT BOOT U-S-A! U-S-A! A couple of years ago Patagonia teamed up with legendary Oregon boot brand Danner to make the brilliant River Salt and Foot Tractor boots.

FORRA BOOT - VIVA ITALIA! Across the pond in Europe Patagonia have just released a new wading boot collab, with Italian mountaineering boot brand Fitwell. The Forra (‘gorge’ in Italian) are ultra-lightweight, with Vibram® Mars sole technology, high ankle support, a rugged toe box and quick drying abrasion-resistant Cordura uppers.

“BRING TOGETHER COURTENEY’S AFRICAN BOOT SKILLS WITH PATAGONIA’S FLY FISHING CLOBBER KNOW-HOW”

COURTENEY BOOT - WAKA WAKA AFRICA (with thanks to Shakira) Assuming Patagonia are going continent by continent with their collabs (Australia would be either be Blundstone or R.M Williams), we’d like to weigh in with a suggestion for an African wading boot collab – Courteney Boots. As covered in Forbes, CNN, the BBC and elsewhere, Courteney Boots are one of Zimbabwe’s most famous and respected brands.

Founded by the late John Rice, an English bootmaker from the age of 15 who worked for Clark’s (of Clark’s Desert Boots

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fame), the company is named after famed hunter Frederic Courteney Selous. Today Courteney is run by Gale Rice, John’s wife. Their gameskin boots made with leather from CITES approved sources are hugely popular among hunters and farmers. Bring together their African boot skills with Patagonia’s fly fishing clobber know-how (e.g. some waterproofing, perhaps a Vibram sole and a reinforced toe), and you just might have the makings of a wading boot designed for African conditions. Yvon, if you’re listening… courteneyboot.com

THE BABER SCOPE YOUR FISHING FUTURE ACCORDING TO YOUR STAR SIGN AS READ BY BABERMAN, THE LEGENDARY GRUMPY CATFISH.

TAURUS (THE BULL): APRIL 20 – MAY 20 Hey you! Yes, you ya big cosmic cow. You stink worse than the corpse of that Highland heifer Liam Neeson climbed into in Rob Roy. It’s time to sluice the Aegean stables of your fishing and get out of your comfort zone. That same old, same old destination/species/approach you’ve been using to middling affect for years? It’s not going anywhere. What you need is a new challenge. Doesn’t matter if it’s sailfish off Sierra Leone or sawfin in the Cederberg, just set a few new goals and throw obsession at them.

GEMINI (TWINS): MAY 21 – JUNE 20 According to Mercury (your ruling planet) and Chiron (the touchy-feely centaur, not the Bugatti),you are under strict instructions to curb your inner-dickhead in the months ahead. When your friend is duffing casts on a perfect run packed with rising fish, encourage her or him, instead of calling into question their very existence. Do not comment on that newbie’s dumb Facebook questions, just tag a know-it-all. When Mars tickles your perineum and holding your tongue becomes too much, go for a solo session somewhere and scream all those negative thoughts into the valley so that they come echoing back.

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MUNCHIES & BOOZE THE WINE – PAARDEBERG PAPEGAAI Adi Badenhorst is a lot of things: a Maverick Swartberg winemaker, a Clanwilliam yellowfish molester and, perhaps most surprisingly, a patron of the Cape parrot (Poicephalus robustus). We caught up with him to find out more about both his light, fresh red wine the Paardeberg Papegaai Red 2021, his endangered feathered friends, and how the two come together.

PIERRE’S GREEN CRACK While on a guitarfish mission up the West Coast with Pierre Joubert of Stream and Sea (streamandsea.com), at the first evening’s braai the man whipped out a jar of what we now refer to as “green crack”. Ever since, this wunder-condiment (or “wundiment”) has been a mainstay for all The Mission’s missions. Pierre says, “Part chimichurri, part pesto, it’s a sauce, a marinade, a salad dressing, and a life saver at a bring-and-braai. We always have a fresh jar in the fridge and take it with us on every trip.”

INGREDIENTS 30g coriander leaves, roughly chopped 15-20g mint leaves, roughly chopped 15-20g flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped 1 hot chilli, chopped 1/4 tsp brown sugar 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped 1/2 cup olive oil (might be more or less) 2 tbsp red wine vinegar salt and pepper to taste METHOD 1. Place the herbs, chilli, garlic cloves and sugar in a mixing bowl.

2. Add half of the olive oil and red wine vinegar.

3. Give it a good stir to coat everything.

4. Add the remainder of the olive oil bit by bit until a sauce is formed.

5. Taste.

6. Add red wine vinegar, bit by bit, to counter the olive oil. Mix and taste after each addition until balanced.

7. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Keep in the refrigerator for up to a week.

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Tell us about the name of this wine.

I love a parrot. I have many parrots. But when it comes to the Cape parrot there are fewer than a thousand left in the wild. If they can be counted then there are too few! Project Papegaai started out with a white and red wine of various, very inconsistent small blends that we bottled for the Tate Modern. That’s an art place in London near the greasy River Thames.

A percentage of sales from this wine goes to the Cape Parrot Project, the NGO fighting to protect the birds. Is the idea for the Cape parrot to be reintroduced to the Western Cape again? If you manage to contribute to that, can we officially call you “The Papegaai Naai”?

Taai naai papegaai. Unfortunately re-introduction is near impossible because of habitat destruction. The Eastern Cape (and a few pockets in KwaZulu-Natal) are the last strongholds of these magnificent birds – hence the name Cape parrot.

Which varietals go into the Paardeberg Papegaai Red? It’s made from grapes from every single vineyard on the farm (Chenin Blanc, Semillon and Semillon Gris, Colombar, Chenin Blanc, Grenache Blanc and Noir, Muskadel, Cinsault, Bastardo, Counoise), picked together at the same time. It’s probably 65% red grapes and the rest white grapes, so it is a bit pansexual; not red, not rosé, not white, not orange – just smashable table wine.

When you’re not making wine, you’ve been known to fly fish for Clannies. It gets hot out there, whether you’re fishing or tanning a chop. Would you take the Paardeberg Pappegaai with you and serve it slightly chilled, or would you reach for one of your white wines in sweltering conditions?

The Papegaai of course, especially if it helps them bite. Fully chilled and sommer directly from the bottle – it’s called kissing the long-necked cat! Coincidentally, my neighbour’s dog is called Geelvis (yellowfish) because he doesn’t bite.

Find out more about the Cape Parrot Project at wildbirdtrust.com and get more info on Adi’s wines at aabadenhorst.com.

REP YOUR WATER – WHISKY GLASS As your lips sip from this glass, there will be a moment when they are smooching a rising trout. Your squinting eyes lock, the trout wriggles a little then relaxes… and as two (or three if you are counting the whisky) becomes one, you think to yourself, “If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” repyourwater.com

W W W. T H E M I S S I O N F LY M A G . C O M

“IF THIS IS WRONG, I DON’T WANT TO BE RIGHT.”

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HIGH FIVES

GREG GHAUI F R O M G U I D I NG FO R G O LI AT H T I G E R FI S H I N T HE CE NT RA L A F R I CA N RE P U BLI C ( CA R) , TO G UI D I NG I N CA M E RO O N A ND TA N Z A N I A WI T H A FRI CA N WATERS FO R N I L E P E RCH A ND T I G E RFISH R ES PECTI VE LY, YO U ’ D BE H A RDPR ESSE D TO FI ND A M O RE ACCO M PLI S H E D FLY FI S HI NG G U I D E T H A N G R EG G HAUI ACR OSS CE N T R A L A ND E AST A FRI CA . WE CAU G H T UP WI T H HI M I N A LULL B E T WE E N SA FA RI S .

Photos. Nick Bowles, Ed Ghaui, African Waters

5 best things about where you guide?

1. The quality of the soup (in-camp joke) and firewood in Tanzania – the only elements that can be guaranteed when tiger fishing.

2. The crystal-clean water of the Faro River in Cameroon and the Chinko and Vovodo rivers in the CAR. Evidence and reminder of how all rivers in Africa should be in the dry season.

3. A cold beer and a warm shower in the fishing camp in Cameroon, extra-special in the land of the cold shower and warm beer.

4. The fact that I can guide in my home waters in Tanzania, and work with my cousin Ed Ghaui in the CAR (campchinko.com) takes it beyond a job. Blood is thicker than water!

5. Everywhere I have guided is a huge distinct wildlife area. The access to and freedom within these areas was the initial attraction to guiding, and is still the driving force behind me doing it now.

5 items you don’t leave home without before making a mission?

1. Binoculars for breathtaking closeups.

2. A SeedCo bucket hat for sun protection.

3. A kikoi for a versatile towel/blanket/wrap garment.

4. A lighter so I don’t end up trying to short circuit a car battery over some petrol-soaked grass trying to light a fire again.

5. A notebook for jotting down what is seen, done, and said.

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Richard Vainer with Greg Ghaui and an absolute dinosaur of a Goliath tigerfish from Chinko in the Central African Republic.

5 things you’re loving right now?

1. Farming through the Regenerative Agriculture framework. There are so many changes to make and so much to be excited about. I balance out guiding with stints on the family farm in Tanzania, and this movement has really captured my interest.

2. Amateur botany. Knowing and recognising big and beautiful trees is like finding long lost friends. And following that, it’s an easy way to make new friends!

3. Walking guiding – another avenue to secure time in the bush, capitalising on a foundation from fly fishing guiding.

4. Motorcycle missions and maintenance. Makes A to B much more fun, and opens up routes C through to Z. 5. Hennessy Hammocks (hennessyhammock.com). These appeal to the minimalist in me while actually adding dimensions of value to a mission – no compromises here.

5 indispensable flies for saltwater?

1. An original Stu Harley Shake 2. A tan over white EP Fibre baitfish 3. A light-coloured Clouser 4. A versatile crab pattern 5. A mantis shrimp 5 indispensable flies for freshwater?

1. An original Stu Harley Shake 2. An olive brush fly 3. A tan Puma baitfish 4. A huge leggy terrestrial 5. A hotspot nymph 5 favourite fly fishing destinations across Africa?

1. The Mnyera and Ruhudji rivers in Tanzania for a full dose of tigerfish trials.

2. The Chinko wilderness in the CAR for a frontier adventure.

3 .The Faro River in Cameroon for sheer variety.

4. Sette Cama in Gabon for raw excess.

5. The Red Sea in Sudan for timeless flats and pinnacle wading.

5 of the most difficult guiding experiences so far?

1. Trying to front up in the grip of Malaria. Finding myself wearing my rain jacket for warmth at midday in the Kilombero raised a few red flags, and had me waving a white one.

2. After days of being on some clients’ backs to be quicker and harder on the hook set for big tigerfish, I have had a few of them lock down and hang on until the leader exploded when a really big fish came knocking. Finding the words to delicately explain that that wasn’t quite what I meant (without exacerbating the trauma) was difficult.

3. While trying to unsnag a client’s fly, I once snapped the leader at the same time as the top three rod sections came loose. Turning and handing back just the butt section to the client who enlisted my “help” was not easy.

4. Some of the remote pre-season camp preparations have been truly testing; when backed into a corner by

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deadlines and logistical constraints, the only way is to come out swinging. This is the dark shadow of the shiny guiding limelight that people probably don’t ever really understand, but is a huge part of it and always produces some of the most valuable events.

5. As exciting as being a part of opening up a new destination is, it can be difficult not having many of the answers or not having much of a framework to fall back on when it is inevitably tough, or there are fish everywhere that no one knows how to catch yet. And that often all falls on the guide, as the expectations somehow remain the same!

5 of the best things you have picked up from guiding?

1. A direction when I was at a loose end thanks to the wildcard thrown to me by Rob Scott and Keith Clover at African Waters. The significance of this is often reflected on, and not lost on me.

2. Some broken French with a niche vocabulary, rounded off with a Cameroonian accent apparently.

3. A belief and reassurance in the feasibility of the simple life, and doing something for the sake of it.

4. Access to a knowledge base – fishing, global, and natural – from some of the great minds and characters living and practising them. This has kept feeding the fire to carry on and see what else is out there and in reach.

5. Friendships forged in the fire of locations. Some of the camp staff and characters, boat drivers and guides who have endured the ride with me are some of the people I know best, and the best people I know.

5 of the worst things you have picked up from guiding?

1. A very rocky relationship and association with rain and wind that clashes horribly with my alternate agricultural interests. Even a slight breeze can put me on edge, and I either seem to be fearing rain or desperately hoping for some, but only the right amount.

2. Some irreparable damage to the aesthetics of my feet.

Lost toenails, barefoot living and trench foot have taken their toll.

3. Residual recurring malaria that is always looking for a chance to rear its head. In my experience I’m most vulnerable after a post-season decompression blowout.

4. A three- or four-month attention span that makes me restless for a change of scene.

5. A reputation for being unavailable for big events – weddings, birthdays, holidays. Eventually even the invites seem to dry up!

5 people you would like to guide or fish with?

1. Anyone from my first season of guiding. I’ve never felt like I’ve ever fully found my feet, but hopefully I’d be able to give them an improved experience!

2. Dale Steyn. A cricketing icon who loves fly fishing for tigerfish. There should be a lot to work with there.

3. My nephew. He is under one year now, but fly fishing might be the only thing of value I could help him with and I’m already looking forward to getting stuck in.

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4. Dan Lahren (Ed: legendary Montana guide who used to guide Jim Harrison, among others). He sounds like the real deal. I imagine there would be plenty to learn, and a lot of good stories in the process.

5. The next person off the plane. If we are in the same place, we are already off to a good start.

5 fish on your species hit list?

1. Tarpon, any way they come. A hook-up and head shake and I will be happy.

2. I’d love to plug a big gap by filling my boots with river trout. They are the original fly fishing quarry and I’ve largely missed the boat with them so far.

3. Yellowfish in South Africa – large and smallmouth in as many of the diverse ways of catching them as possible.

4. Bonefish. Raw speed is exhilarating, and by all accounts these are up there.

5. Redfish in skinny swamp water. A big bow wave is a beautiful thing.

“Get to da choppa.” Greg ferries clobber to and from the transport in CAR. Below: “The Red Sea in Sudan for timeless flats and pinnacle wading,” can result in impressive Giant Trevally.

5 shower thoughts that have occurred to you while fly fishing?

1. Would I listen if I was being guided by myself?

2. How many of the many baboons who watch us fish in Tanzania could competently throw a loop by now?

3. Can a tigerfish that is so tuned into its surroundings sense any shred of the joy it brings the angler who caught it and is holding it in the water?

4. What is it that is transmitted down a rod and line that separates fishy folk from un-fishy folk, and can it be learned or practised?

5. If a rod could capture data based on fish-fighting criteria (e.g. degree of flex, duration, line tension/speed, grip tightness and heart rate) and then compute it to spit out a score after each fish encounter, wouldn’t that be a much more complete way of judging a fish than size or weight?

5 of the most underrated species in your book?

1. Yellowfish and Labeobarbus species as a whole.

They are so diverse, and quietly dominate vast niches.

Their appearance spares them a lot of deserved attention.

2. Bluefin trevally are highly commendable for sheer bloody willingness.

3. The bigger members of the Brycinnus and Alestes species.

They can be incredibly aggressive and opportunistic omnivores but require some presentation.

4. I see the Distichodidae family as dark horses harbouring more than a few sporting species, such as the fig-eating ndungu in Tanzania.

5. Barracuda. Everywhere else toothy predators are top of the pile!

5 things (outside of the fishing) that make where you fish so special?

1. The dawn chorus in Cameroon. Loud and colourful like Cameroon in general.

2. Encounters with elephants immersed in the water on the Ruhudji River. Scenes from deep time.

3. Hearing chimpanzees vocalise in the riverine forest of the Chinko Nature Reserve. This stirs some primal juices.

4. The spring flush of new leaves and flowers in the East African Miombo woodlands and West African savannah respectively.

5. The night fishing in Cameroon is special. The inversion of sun to stars comes with a whole switch in the dynamic of animal behaviour and your own sensory shift towards sound and self-awareness. There are positive spinoffs through scouting, science, reporting, training and poaching prevention that we can contribute to when out and about on the rivers. The status of these areas is always on the line and it feels good to chip in.

5 flies that to look at make no sense but that catch fish all the time?

1. The colour and some of the material combinations – like huge, spiky, deer hair heads without eyes, and the mystery of EP fibre flies – are hard to explain.

2. Black and purple seems to transcend any water and fish without clearly stating why.

3. Chartreuse working in freshwater stumps me.

4. So does pure black, even in clean water.

5. The UV contrast of different materials while night fishing was a huge eye opener for me. Some combinations do make more sense under torch light, but how or why is another kettle of fish.

5 destinations on your bucket list?

1. Alaska for a foreign big wild fix, and some trout and bears.

2. Mexico for some scenic lifestyle fishing.

3. Cuba for the same reasons as Mexico.

4. Brazil for an iconic Amazonian experience.

5. New Zealand for some beach and back country action.

5 things about fly fishing that you may never understand?

1. How, in the quest to simplify, streamline and improve fly fishing, anglers now “need” to have more clutter and gear than ever.

2. How the best casts hardly ever catch the fish.

3. How the other side of the river always looks like a better setup.

4. How fly fishing seems to induce unseasonal or unprecedented rain or weather in new destinations.

5. How stationary rods on a boat find a way of tangling themselves.

5 things you would take up if you weren’t always fly fishing?

1. Surfing…

2. … and scuba diving to expand my salt water skill set and horizons.

3. Playing more sport – rugby (Ed: Greg is a Tanzanian test international), cricket and tennis. I’m not ready to hang up the boots for a while yet.

4. Walking safari guiding. I’d love a chance to rack up some more hours in the bush on foot.

5. An intensive grazing land management trial on the farm.

5 essential ingredients for an incredible mission?

1. Wheels – four-wheel drive or two, and some carrying capacity – to put some distance and allow some time away from distractions.

2. Water for any combination of the following: drinking/ swimming/fishing/washing.

3. A couple of comrades; a handful who heed the call.

4. A degree of discomfort. As in, just far out enough of some comfort zones to know you are being tested on some level.

5. An agenda or focal point, even if it never gets done, just to get things started in a direction. A destination, a peak, a point, a quest – a mission, if you will.

5 common mistakes that most clients make?

1. Waiting far too long between finding fishing to going fishing again, with their best years in between.

2. Fishing too far and too fast, ignoring the possibility of close-by, cautious fish when covering a lie.

3. Often clients seem to find it easier to cling to their existing knowledge, even of different fish or situations, than to try and step out and try something different. Like what the guide is suggesting...

4. There is a wide spectrum of clients’ ideas of the abilities or duties of the guide. It is somewhere between “I’m a guide, not a God” and “I’m a guide not your dog!”

5. I often feel that the presence of a guide makes people feel like it is now serious business, and that they must be seen to be taking it seriously, or try to prove they are better than they are. There is nothing to hide on a day’s fishing and nowhere to hide it even if you tried.

Your last five casts were to…. … Lazily rolling Goliath tigerfish that were clearly not eating.

“THERE IS A WIDE SPECTRUM OF CLIENTS’ IDEAS OF THE ABILITIES OR DUTIES OF THE GUIDE. IT IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN “I’M A GUIDE, NOT A GOD” AND “I’M A GUIDE NOT YOUR DOG!” 28

W W W. T H E M I S S I O N F LY M A G . C O M

From tigerfish in Tanzania (above), to Nile perch in Cameroon (below), where Greg Ghaui guides the freshwater fish are from the heavyweight category.

STERK FONTEIN FOR NOOBS

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 plan to get to the Free State’s fabled smallmouth yellowfish fishery, either on a DIY mission or guided, as he was, by pros like FlyCastaway.

Photos. Leonard Flemming, Tim Babich, Justin Rollinson

I woke up at 5.30am and my back was killing me.

In part that was because I had spent so much time casting at cruising fish over the previous two days.

It was inevitable something would ache, but it was also because I was sleeping on the couch in the living room of Wildebeest 3. That’s the chalet we – Warwick Leslie, David Reverdito, Peter Whittaker and myself - were staying in at Qwantani Resort at Sterkfontein Dam. It was an appropriate name for our digs given the nocturnal, wild, semi-bovine sounds echoing out of the middle room.

Leaonard Flemming would like you to look at his smallmouth yellowfish

GO

N DO

STERKIES

SA according to Capetonians

R

MORDOR

THE SHIRE

Until this trip I had considered myself, somewhat apologetically when in my wife’s radius, as a champion snorer. From school, to varsity and on many fishing trips, I’ve been labelled that guy. However, after trying to share a room with Warwick Leslie - aka Warrels, aka ‘Snorrels’ – I now realise I am, at best, a Tier 2 player. My fatigue and sheer panic that the Balrog from Lord of the Rings would leap fully formed from his gullet signalled to me that Snorrels had won the snore-fest. I conceded defeat and retired to the couch. What sleep I managed to salvage was intermittent, with scattered birdshot dreams of countless missed fish and a perpetual loop of a phrase veteran FlyCastaway guide Paulie Boyers had shared the night before. It was an anecdote about a French client who not only liked to shoot cormorants, but he also loved eating them.

In fact, the Frenchman thought cormorants so delicious that he described them (no doubt with the requisite chef’s kiss of the fingers) as, “the trout of th e sky.” For some reason, that phrase buried itself in my subconscious.

As I lay there I made notes for this story, trying to figure out a way to tell the tale in a fresh way, because Sterkies has been covered so many times before by other South African fly fishing media. And yet, there are still many fly anglers in South Africa, like me, who have never made a plan to get there.

Call it a rite of passage, a pilgrimage or whatever you like, but don’t neglect it like I did. Here’s why.

CLOSE ENOUGH One of the outcomes of the last couple of years is how fisheries, like the Orange River and Sterkfontein Dam, that have looooong been known and loved by slackjawed yokels and dedicated yellowfish fans, are getting a bit more love than usual.

With international travel curtailed and outdoor activities in general booming after enforced lockdowns, South African fly anglers have been looking harder at their local options than ever before. There are, obviously, downsides to this (see issue 32 of The Mission with Ewan Naude’s piece on over-crowding on the Orange) but, in other ways it is good for the industry, sustaining guides, lodges and tackle shops. The fact is that more people fishing means more people caring enough to protect these places.

Why I had never made it to Sterkies before can probably be ascribed to the deep laziness often associated with people who come from Cape Town, my home town.

We are stuck in our ways, and see anything beyond the Cape fold mountains as a hobbit hike to Mordor and back. Getting to Sterkies is much easier for those in Gauteng or Durban (roughly equidistant from both centres). Getting there from the Cape takes a little more effort - a two hour flight, a 3,5 hour drive including a rapid supermarket dash in Harrismith and a 20 minute wait in the Post Office to replace the fishing licence I’d forgotten at home. Still, I now know, it’s really not that big of an ask.

"the Frenchman thought cormorants so delicious that he described them no doubt with the requisite chef's kiss of the fingers as,"the trout of the sky."

David Reverdito would like you to look at his smallmouth yellowfish

DECEPTIVELY “WORLD CLASS” “World class” is how Sterkies is described again and again yet, if you’re doom-scrolling through social media it’s not immediately obvious just why people say that.

A large reason is the visual aspect. What you see of Sterkies in other people’s trip reports is like that sunset photo from your family holiday – they don’t do it justice. Photos on social media of a bunch of guys (either bent over cradling a bank side yellow or sitting on

the deck of the boat doing the same) seldom manage to show off the magnificence of the fish or the surroundings. When I asked him why this is, professional photographer Ryan Janssens said, “I think mainly because it’s so open and flat, usually with these big open skies. Other than the angler, there’s not much point of interest in the shot.”

It’s definitely one of those places that is incredible to see in person, but weirdly average in a regular Joe’s mobile phone snaps.

“SMALLMOUTH YELLOWFISH NEED AN AGENT” sets of lips that vary from snub-nosed to pulchritudinous. Their eyes hint more at fear and self-preservatory caution than the ability to cause chaos and carnage of their own.

And yet, when you talk to any of the legion of yellowfish fans in this country, you will soon realise from the rapturous response that there must be reasons why smallies are so highly rated.

All it takes is one visit to Sterkies or the Orange River (or even a great day out on the Vaal River) to remove the blinkers from your eyes.

Similarly, and I feel like a traitor for saying this, smallmouth yellowfish need an agent.

To people who have never caught them before, they just look like fit carp. With their mild onderbek (under-mouth) they simply don’t come across as menacingly predatory as do most of the planet’s more famous freshwater game fish. Instead of the Ramboesque jawline of dorado or Nile perch, the pronounced kype of trout or salmon and the cartoon villain teeth of tigerfish or payara, smallies sport

That smallies fight harder than any trout is a given, but they have much more stamina than most other lauded African freshwater gamefish species like tigerfish. Many would argue that they fight harder, pound for pound, than their more beefy brethren, the largemouth yellowfish. Throw all those qualities together and serve them up in an incredible setting like the Eastern Free State and it starts to make perfect sense why Sterkies deserves its place among the world’s special still waters, alongside Jurassic Lake in Argentina, Pyramid Lake in Nevada and Lake Thingvallavatn in Iceland. And that’s even before you’ve got to “the how” of fishing at Sterkies.

FAT LIZZY & FRIENDS We know, we know… ultimately, we could be fishing in the sewers of Johannesburg and if the fishing was good enough it would cancel out the pong, but at Sterkfontein the fishing and the scenery are not mutually exclusive. As the guides took us from spot to spot - Elizabeth, Barbel Bay, Driehoek, Wild Horses - the scenery changed from relatively gentle slopes, to steeper cliffs and, in the case of the magnificent Elizabeth area, an array of imposing busty buttresses frequented by vultures and eagles.

You’re in the middle of an 18 000Ha nature reserve and can spot game (eland, wildebeest, oribi, mountain reedbuck, grey rhebuck etc).

The wildebeest are a theme it seems. On the way to Elizabeth each day, we’d pass an island populated by a lone bull who allegedly shares his principality with a lot of snakes. Apparently he prefers puffies to the company of the herd.

BANK VS BOAT I had the privilege of one day’s bank fishing and two days on one of FlyCastaway’s Fusion 17 boats guided

by Justin Rollinson (aka the Bush Pig) with head guide Tim Babich assisting. Milan Germishuizen was the guide on the other boat. Over the three days I briefly experienced the difference between the bank vs boat approaches. I also canvassed a few opinions from guides and regular punters who have fished Sterkies for years.

Tim says, “I used to guide the dam from the bank and it is hard. The fish see you more easily and it’s super-technical, even on a good day. You can sit on a bank, see fish off the cliff but, if the client

elizabeth

can’t get a back cast right, he’s in the bush more than he’s in the water. Then the wind changes, it’s fine tippet, 5x, 6x, and he hooks a tree. Change again. Tie knots. Change, change, change, because he’s still hooking bushes. A fish comes and he’s hooked another bush. Finally, he gets it out, but the tippet is floating. He misses the strike or strikes too hard and you’re back at square one. It’s hard to fish from the bank. You need to be a really competent angler.”

I have no doubt that if I’d grown up in Joburg or KwaZulu-Natal and visited Sterkies over the years, I would have now a deep, masochistic affinity for fishing off the bank. In fact, until this trip,

I had assumed I would almost always prefer being on foot to being on a boat. Over the few hours I experienced on the bank, I got to see the yellows up close and personal on their spawning beds. I got to grapple with the constant changing wind direction, to take shots at the odd splashing cruiser and I got broken off while distracted. I also had the pleasure of watching a lone bull wildebeest crest the saddle of two hills and moan amorously at David Reverdito’s casting for three hours. I would have missed that if I’d been on a boat.

“What most guys end up doing,” Tim continued, “Is they’ll find a windward bank that the wind is blowing off and they will cast out.

Then they sit and wait until somebody comes and visits. They’re not seeing the fish because it’s a flat piece of ground with nothing to look up at in the back. It’s either that or they are going to go sit on a spawning bed, because at least there they can see the fish are moving.”

The fish though, can also see you more easily.

Tim is convinced the banks have been fished for so long that, genetically, the fish have adapted to fear anything that comes from that direction.

He says, “They don’t know what you are when you are fishing from the boat, so they are less likely to pick up on what you’re doing.

They are scared of anything from the bank in the same way that they would be scared of a diving bird or shadow. Now it’s genetically bred into them.”

The real eye-opener for me was how much of a difference a boat made when the wind became unplayable in one spot. Rather than just martyr myself against the windy whims of the weather, having the ability to move and find a new bay with a forgiving lee was such a win. Compared to fishing off the bank, what I got from the boat was way more actual fishing time. It felt like we had the cheat codes to the game.

"It's hard to fish from the bank.

You need to be a really competent angler."

Tim says, “Fishing off a boat is just different.

The ordinary guy that wouldn’t catch fish off the bank can now catch fish. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy. You just have a different, higher level set of problems and you’re more productive.”

As another FlyCastaway guide Nic Isabelle put it to me, “It’s not like one way is right and the other is wrong. Some people get their kicks fishing for tarpon on foot in Gabon while others like to fish off boats. It’s the same here. Some people want to DIY everything and bleed, others don’t have that much time in their lives or want more chances to catch fish. For those guys they want to maximise what time they do have and when it comes to Sterkies that means getting on a boat so you can drift and get a lot more shots.”

BEETLEMANIA Omnivorous as yellows are, caught on streamers, nymphs and dries in the Orange and Vaal River systems, you don’t come to Sterkies to throw meat or stuff around with nymphs unless A) your name is Leonard Flemming (the man loves a micro-nymph) or B) something is really off with the conditions.

No, if you get a thrill from the visual aspect of fly fishing, Sterkfontein is the destination for you because you can fish dry flies pretty much all day every day. Which is exactly what we did for three days straight. At the beginning, we played with hoppers, a few large caddis patterns and other dries. There were also moments when the guides Justin, Tim Babich and Milan Germishuizen sniffed the air like weasels, tracked the swooping flight paths of swallows and started tying on ant patterns in anticipation of a hatch (a common occurrence that we did not experience). But, for us, beetles were by far the most effective flies.

HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND Because the weather changes so frequently and so fast at Sterkies, so too does the light. You can be sighting the fish clear as day and then out come the clouds and you’re almost fishing blind. If it didn’t look like a temporary sun shut-out, the guides would almost immediately move the boat closer to dark tree-lined banks. Tim says, “If you don’t have good light, you have to move to dark banks, to create contrast on the water so you can see them.”

Encyclopaedias have been written about Sterkies pioneer Dr Hans van Zyl and his incredibly effective pattern, “The Good Doctor’s Beetle.” Arno Laubscher of Scientific Flies sent me an infestation of the lifelike ones his Mbombela-based brand ties on Grip hooks in both copper and a dark purple colour. These I duly handed out like M&Ms to Leonard, Warwick and whoever else wanted some. The purple, in particular, accounted for 70% of our fish and as Justin steered us through weed beds it was easy to see why. We frequently spotted scarab beetles struggling in the surface film. Bombing casts towards sunken trees along the shore, it was ridiculously entertaining to watch the Pavlovian dinner- bell response these fish have to the plop of a beetle in their feeding lanes.

The slight adjustment in direction to home in on the snack; the ‘will it, won’t it?’ moment as their fins fan out and almost hover suspended and then, the slight breach when the dorsal fin breaks the surface as the fish slurps down the beetle. Mayhem.

Perhaps, what surprised us most about the efficacy of beetles, was that they have been fished for these yellows for so long at Sterkies, that you’d imagine the fish would learn to avoid them. Because if a yellow checking out a beetle is the equivalent of the dopamine hit of a Facebook ‘like’, then the beetles are cat videos racking up millions of views. As Leonard put it, “I was amazed at their willingness to smash beetles, which indicates either there are a shit ton of fish, or they are not picky, or that there are tons of beetles.”

"if you're not using a bead and a tippet ring, you're just going to pull your hair out"

RIGGING Flies aside, FlyCastaway have a very specific approach to rigging bulky flies like beetles that was developed by Tim who grew up fishing this dam. To the end of a 10-foot 3x tapered leader, they slide on a 1.5mm tungsten bead, then tie on a tippet ring. They then add a 2-foot section of 5x tippet and finally the beetle, hopper or other dry fly.

The idea is that the bead and the tippet ring help sink the leader. They also sink the beetle just enough so that it lies ever-soslightly sub-surface, which makes it easier for the slight onderbek nature of a smallie’s mouth to properly envelop the fly. Tim says, “With the thin tippet we use at Sterkies, you lose a lot of fish, so you want to stack

the odds as much as you can on your side.

We used to use tungsten putty, but that was a pain in the arse. We also tried an extra nymph, which works but, ultimately, this set up just clicked as the perfect rig. Tippet ring, tungsten bead, badda-bing, badda-boom. If that tippet is floating those fish aren’t going to hit the fly, or it will happen very seldom if they come from the back. But with this set up it’s going to sink every time, guaranteed.”

Being a lazy chancer, I re-rigged once and thought I’d get away with not doing the bead and tippet ring thing. I then watched as several fish came up on the fly and either rejected it entirely or couldn’t hit it properly.

Don’t be like me.

2 THINGS NOT TO ASK THE GUIDE (according to Justin Rollinson)

1 “How deep is it here?”

“How the hell do I know? And, who cares?

2 “After a few years of this, what are you going to do next?”

“This is my job. What are you going to do after dentistry?

Tim says, “Some guys don’t like using a bead or tippet ring. Others choose to de-grease their leader in order to sink it, but then when a fish breaks them off, they have to re-tie everything.

With the tippet ring, if am broken off, I just re-tie a section and I am back in the game. We developed this approach because when you are fishing off the boats you’re actively fishing more and getting way more shots at fish. This was the most user-friendly thing we could do for both the client - to maximise their shots at fish - and for ourselves, because we don’t have to tie one million knots a day and go through spools of tippet section. If you’re not doing it, you’re just going to pull your hair out.”

THE DRIFTERS There’s using a boat to get places at Sterkies so you can fish off the bank again, and then there’s fishing off a boat at Sterkies.

FlyCastaway guides have perfected the latter approach based off Tim’s years spent fishing the dam as a kid with his brothers.

“We’ve been coming to Sterkfontein every December holiday since I can remember. My dad actually held the light tackle record for trout out of this dam. He was also the old toppie (geezer) who hated jet-skis and guys that jetskied, because his view was that they were idiots for riding around wasting fuel. He liked to play games to teach me and my brothers life lessons. At Sterkies, there’s always been this mentality that, ‘the fish are on the other side of the dam.’ No one ever fishes right by the slipway, they insist on going over theeere. So, between his aversion for wasting fuel and the fact that there were fish right near the jetty, my dad taught me a lesson about looking at

what’s right in front of you by only giving me one tank of fuel to last for the duration of our two-week family holiday.”

Tim learnt to drift a boat both to make the fuel last, but also because with the cliffs at Sterkies accessibility from the bank can be very tricky. Pretty much everyone who has fished the dam a bunch has either broken something or fallen in at some stage.

He says, “I would go to these spots, see the fish and begin to weigh up my options. Sure, I could get on the bank and catch fish – it was not impossible – but was I going to kill it like that? I realised the other option was to wait for the right wind and then drift the boat down the bank.”

After a lot of trial and error – trying out anchors (the dam is too deep); trying out paddles; learning how to use the wind to your advantage instead of getting blown away from the bank or out into the open and eventually progressing to electric trolling motors – they now have the system waxed.

Beginning upwind about 10-15m from the banks, Justin would switch the engine off, drop the trolling motor and control it via a hand-held remote while he stood on the console and helped Leonard and me to spot fish. While our fish-spotting improved and you have to give credit to his sharpened spotting skills, Justin’s a short shit and the extra height he (or any guide for that matter) gets from standing on the console makes a massive difference to his ability to spot smallies at least several metres before they came into view for us.

OPEN WATER CRUISERS On the subject of spotting fish, to my surprise the guides seemed to get more excited about fish spotted out in open water than they did the schools cruising the banks. My brain tends to calculate that fish + structure = good, while fish + open expanse of nothingness = meh. Not here. Usually, whoever was fishing in front was blinded by the reflection off the water so, by listening to Justin’s instructions, the visual game switched to a surprisingly satisfying aural game of, “pin the fly on the smallie.” Just why the guides love open water cruisers quickly became apparent because these fish were almost always keen to eat.

Tim explains, “I’ve fished world championships in Scotland, Poland etc and when you do that you start diving deep into how the top guys do it, reading about still water tactics, midge fishing, boat fishing, wind lanes and currents.

When we got on the boats at Sterkies and started moving around, we realised there are currents in this dam and wind lanes and... hang on, there are fish feeding in the middle of the dam. These fish have never seen anybody before, because they never even frequent the bank. They are dumb as hell. Finding feeding cruising fish opened up a whole new spectrum for us.”

PREMATURE GESTICULATION Inside I’m feeling dirty Inside I’m feeling dirty Inside I’m feeling dirty It’s only cos I’m hurting That’s the chorus from the Young Fathers track I Heard, which I have no doubt was about something completely unrelated to fly fishing but, for most of my last day at Sterkies, it was the ear-worm stuck in my head. You see, I’d fished well enough in the morning, notching up five fish before lunch and I felt confident (bordering on arrogant, no doubt) that the afternoon would be even better. Boy, was I humbled. My strikes that had been perfectly languid earlier that day, became too short and too sharp, resulting in either numerous misses or break-offs and a few McEnroe-level tantrums within my pip.

Whether you are on the banks or on a boat, the fishing at Sterkies is deeply technical.

The wind or winds can easily come from several different directions at the same time. A storm can build quickly above you yet, just a five-minute run in the boat away, the skies are sunny. You might whizz across the dam to escape the prevailing wind on one side, only to find that around each new

corner there’s a wind coming from another direction. It’s incredibly frustrating but in a deeply appealing way, if that makes any sense.

When you do manage to navigate everything Sterkies can throw at you and still hook and land a few fish, it tickles the pleasure centre in your brain reserved for trick shots, secondguess Wordle skills, scoring a SARS rebate and solving a Rubik’s Cube. Blindfolded.

The best trips are the ones that leave you thinking about them months later and my three days with FlyCastaway at Sterkies had that effect. Back in the suburbs, low-key sights and sounds take me back there in an instant. When I see the yellow of the DHL on the Stormers rugby jersey, I think of the 7th scale towards the mouth from the anal fin on the underbelly of a Sterkies yellow.

When my dogs snore, I think of Warrels and his Wildebeest impressions.

When I see a cormorant, I immediately mouth the words, “Trout of the sky.”

"when i fish dead beetles out of the swimming pool, i wonder if the smallies are thinking of me too"

When I fish dead Christmas beetles out of the swimming pool, I wonder if the smallies are thinking of me too.

And sometimes, in a flowing gap in the traffic, I stick my head out the window as I drive and imagine I’m back there, sitting on the coolbox in the front of the Fusion, zipping across the waves, out-running a storm, out-foxing the wind, the Bush Pig at the helm as we bee-line for the next honey hole.

"The best trips are the ones that leave you thinking about them months later"

shop the mission sterkies

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SCIENTIFIC ANGLERS AMPLITUDE SMOOTH INFINITY 6-WEIGHT LINE When the goal is to make long accurate casts, wind be damned, you need a line that can both bomb out casts and lay down dries like gossamer. This is the line for that. scientificanglers.com

SCIENTIFIC FLIES TAPERED LEADER AND BEETLES. New, strong, South African-made leader material from Arno Laubscher and his team. Plus the beetles. Never forget the beetles. scientificfly.com

THE BEATS – STERKIES SMASH HITS

es

terki

Sm

ts S Hi

TO LISTEN PRESS

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Like the weather at Sterkies, this playlist is all over the place.

From the fast and the furious (Black Francis, Sharhabil Ahmed, Wells Fargo and Freddie King), to funk (Money Mark, Shintaro Shakamoto), soul (The Chakachacas, Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway) and a whole lot more, it’s got a bit of everything.

THE WINDOW NEGLECTING WORK TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A GLORIOUS GAP, JAZZ KUSCHKE FINDS SUCCESS TARGETING BONITO OFF THE ROCKS IN THE SOUTHERN CAPE Photos Johann Rademeyer

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn.

Climb that goddamn mountain” - Jack Kerouac

T

he window creaked open at the worst imaginable time, dusting my keyboard with a load of guilt and blowing my notebook, with its two full pages of to-do’s, clean off the table. For the first time in my ten-year career as a freelance writer, I had recently had to turn down work. I had not breathed much fresh air.

The dictionary will tell you that a weather window is, ‘a limited interval when weather conditions can be expected to be suitable for a particular project, such as laying offshore pipelines or reaching a high mountain summit.’

Or, in my case, chasing bonito on fly from the shore. For that to happen, the window meant a spring low tide, an open ocean swell of below 1.0m and a light breeze in the right direction. And the most important factor. The fish had to be around.

Consider the humble bonito (Sarda sarda). Prolificbreeding, fast-growing, beautiful. It is so iridescently easy-on-the-eyes in fact, that the Spanish and Portuguese ‘bonito’ translates to ‘pretty’ (although there is some disagreement that this is the true origin of its name). For those that pass through Southern Cape waters, bonnies’ great downfall is that they are regarded as baitfish.

The hardcore rock-‘n- surf manne see them as shark fodder.

To target them is regarded on the same level as cast-netting for mullet. When the summer south-easterly pattern is at play and the water is above a certain temperature and the bonito are aggregating in reef-sized shoals, it is a fourrods-off-the-back-of-the-boat-and-trawl-to-fill-the-quotaas-fast-as-possible kind of situation. One might be bled for sashimi or bound for the smoker, while the rest are destined to be bait for big bronzies and raggies off the

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deep water ledges. So, in many people’s eyes, a bonito is a trash fish. But then there is, of course, the cliched adage about ‘one man’s trash’ …

In fact, so much of a treasure is the Sarda sarda that Peter Coetzee of Feathers & Fluoro once referred to fly fishing for them – when they’re on the full boil – as ‘the most fun you can have without rum.’ That fun, for the likes of Peter, a salt-encrusted veteran, Henkie Altena, my fellow Southern Cape local LeRoy Botha, myself and others, has traditionally been boat-based. Each year, come October/ November LeRoy and I start obsessing over bonnies and, as he so aptly says, ‘In faith we tie,’ because it’s not every season we get to go.

I have been fishing for bonnies since I moved to the Southern Cape around eight years ago. While these sessions are mostly offshore, for the past five years I’ve been paying serious school fees off the rocks, blanking and getting beaten up, but learning. As with most of these things, education comes in bursts, followed by long

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periods of silence. There was nothing to ‘figure out’ about the species. It was all about accessibility, tactics and the right tools. Mostly though, it was about timing.

‘It’s not THICK thick, but we’ve each gotten a couple,’ read the text from Johann Rademeyer. I was sampling some rare fresh air on a sneaky cappuccino break from my desk, when the message came through. He and a mate were fishing a spot that can only be accessed for a couple of hours on either side of a spring low tide, that is if you know how to navigate your way through the labyrinth of gullies and dodge the mussel beds and sea urchins. It’s a place that eats lures and leaders, but when it’s on, it’s always a story. Johann is one fishy fucker so I never take any intel from the big brah lightly.

I’d never really considered this particular spot for fly because of the height above the water and the wash around the rocks. Even on a small swell, your running line would surely be sucked down into the mussel-covered ledges…if you manage to get a cast in at all.

Cuppa in hand, I drove to a vantage point from where I knew I’d be able to see them, thinking just the view will be the fix to carry me through the afternoon work grind.

As I got there I nearly spewed up my coffee… Squinting through the glare and my -1.50 specs I saw Johann and his friend each bring a solid bonnie to hand… all in the space of two minutes. I raced home, not to make my 11 am Google Teams call, but to grab my spinning rod rigged with a shiny pink spoon. I didn’t even bother to change my clothes and waded the knee-deep gully in street sneakers (barefoot would’ve been too much of an urchin risk).

Boiling. In a word, it was absolutely boiling. One of those shot-for-shot days you simply can’t describe to someone unless they’ve experienced it themselves. Rock dancing.

Broken leaders. Taxed by seals. I’d never seen the bonnies as frenzied, nor as close to shore. They would go off the bite for five minutes and then someone would get the big yellowtail plug out and throw it way beyond the reef. Each time that would trigger another wave of pandemonium.

After 20 minutes of mayhem, I scrambled back over the

For bonnies off a boat, Surf Candies are the way to go. Off the rocks in the Southern Cape, you’re going to want Clousers.

rocks and raced home once again. This time to get the fly rod. ‘This was it,’ I thought. There was maybe another half hour left on that spot before the tide came to ruin the party and if I was ever going to get my bonnie from the rocks, this was my moment.

Now, I’d been trying for them from shore on fly for more than half a decade. This involved scheming setups, trying spots, losing flies and fly lines, blanking time after time and going back to the rigging table with a new idea. They get bonnies Stateside in New England from the shore where, for many, it’s the ‘holy grail of northeast saltwater fly fishing,’ but I’ve never found any info on anyone getting one in South Africa. This mattered little, I had always thought how epic it would be to tussle with one of those little bullets from the rocks.

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Back at home, sweaty and salty, I half thought to quickly check my emails (but didn’t) and grabbed the 9-weight I keep ready-rigged for estuary leeries. I also managed to remember a stripping basket before screeching back down to the spot. Only to hack. And I don’t mean the cyber kind…

The wash was way too much for the floating line and in my feverish state I was crashing casts and hanging-up surf candy after lovingly-crafted surf candy in the rocks. By then the wind had also picked up from a highly unwelcome angle, forcing me to cast over my left shoulder. Somehow during that blur of 30 minutes (in which Johann and his mate pinned another five each), I did manage to get two legitimate eats, but couldn’t make them stick.

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“WHAT PEERING THROUGH THAT WINDOW DID THOUGH, WAS OPEN MY EYES TO FISHING OLD SPOTS IN NEW WAYS ON FLY” That night, bleeding from the ego and the shins, I reevaluated what I had done in the past and realised that all the surf candies in the world (the default starter fly for bonnies off the boat) were not going to work off the rocks.

So I tied up a few Clousers and rigged a sink tip line with a short 20lb furled fluoro leader. That night I had nightmares of watching the silver-flashed eat 15-metres out and not making it stick.

Next day: Same time, same story, but with a different result. As the news had somehow filtered out, there was one extra guy on the rocks. This meant we could keep the shoal closer for longer. They were less frenzied than the day before but still thick and eating close.

As with the day before, the tactic was to get them amped with the surface lure way out deep and then throw the spoons on the light sticks close for 20 minutes.

“WITH GOPRO IN ONE HAND JOHANN DEFTLY PIROUETTED OVER THE EXPOSED REEF AND TAILED IT. SOME FIVE YEARS IN THE MAKING, THE FEELING THAT WASHED OVER ME WAS ALMOST MORE STUN THAN STOKE.”

“THIS IS NO COUNTRY FOR NEW RODS, PRECIOUS REELS AND FANCY LINES. YOU BASH ROD EYES AGAINST THE RODS AND SCUFF REELS. YOU SACRIFICE LINES, FLIES AND SKIN.” I was better prepared than the previous day and my head was also more in the game. With a left-shoulder cast and a fast double overhand retrieve, I finally managed to make one stick.

He ran straight into the backing and then suddenly came at me, causing all sorts of slack-line management issues on the rocks. Turns out he was running for the safety of the gully as a seal pup had just surfaced some 20 metres away. After Johann had been taxed by a big blubber bull the previous day I thought this one was a goner for sure.

Never had I detested a cute, whiskered little face more.

Fortunately, the guys made a huge commotion on the rocks, shouting at the pup as though it was a rabid dog.

Somehow the bonnie stayed clear and eventually came close. With GoPro in one hand Johann deftly pirouetted over the exposed reef and tailed it. Some five years in the making, the feeling that washed over me was almost more stun than stoke.

The action was still hot and I had a looming work call that I couldn’t miss. The second fish was a far better one, it ran into the backing twice before coming to hand, fortunately without the attentions of the pesky pinniped.

The afterglow was like a lemon sorbet high with AC/DC playing in the background. Think mild, floating euphoria and the peace of knowing you’ve made a deadline (something I’ve missed a few of thanks to Sarda), but behind it all your heart is beating to the slightly irregular rhythm of Thunderstruck… Ah-ha-ha-haa. Ah-ha-ha-haa.The following

day the tide was too high and the swell too big. The window had shut. The bonnies I got were as much Johann’s as they were mine. If he hadn’t alerted me that the gap was open, who knows when I’d have had another shot? What peering through that window did though, was open my eyes to fishing old spots in new ways on fly. And, it made me think of what is possible at some of the other places I’d blanked at in the previous five years. You just need that window.

Subsequently, I stole half an hour here, and an hour there almost daily trying to force open the shutters.

My go-to setup has evolved into a two-pronged attack. I invested in a Spey-style running line and built a shooting head out of a broken 12-weight floating line, on which I rigged a small Clouser below a big, fugly popper, New Zealand-style. On another older rod is the sink-tip of the first success. This is no country for new rods, precious reels or fancy lines. You bash rod eyes against the rocks and scuff reels. You have to be willing to sacrifice lines, flies and skin.

I also managed to pilfer the odd stupidly good fly off LeRoy Botha. These Clousers would be way too good for fodder off the boat, but I’ve realised that you have got to have every possible chance from the rocks, including dryfly hackled mackerel Clousers.

I haven’t been close since those two breakthrough bonnies off the rocks but there is always next season. That window opened at the worst possible time, but perhaps it was the fresh air I needed to survive.

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

Sarda sarda Common name: Atlantic bonito. In waters surrounding the Cape Peninsula, it is most commonly known as Katonkel. It is found across the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and Black Seas, and around the coast of South Africa to the Eastern Cape. In the Garden Route we simply like to call them ‘Bonnies’.

Sarda orientalis Common name: Striped or Oriental bonito. Erroneous Latin and common names: Sarda Sarda, Snoek.

Oriental bonitos are found in the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Pacific Oceans and, give or take a few nautical miles, are replaced by the Atlantic bonito in the Eastern Cape. Although the species are extremely similar, the Oriental bonito can be identified by having no more than 19 dorsal spines, whereas Atlantic bonito always have 20 or more.

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CHRISTMAS

LISTS ON T H E A NNI VE RSA RY OF HIS FRIEND RAY MON TOYA’S 12 T H T RI P TO CHRI STMAS ISL AN D, PETER CO ETZEE JO I NE D T H E VE T E RAN SALTWATER FLY AN GLER FOR T HE P I LG RI M AG E TO ONE OF THE WORLD’S FABLED SA LT WAT E R FLY FI S HIN G DESTINATION S. DETAILED IN A NECD OTA L S NA P S HOTS - FROM TITANIC TRIGGERS A ND M O O DY M I LKFISH, TO CRUSTY CHARACTERS A ND LU ST Y LO CA LS - THE DUO HAD A CHRISTMAS EXP E RI EN CE TO REMEMBER.

Photos. Peter Coetzee

THE TRUTER TREATISE The Crazy Charlie’s simplicity as a fly unsettles me, and while tying a few one night in preparation for my trip to Christmas Island, I recalled reading about Ed Truter’s experiences fishing them in the Pacific. Ed’s a pioneering angler (both fly and heathen-ware) who has been to more places than most. He’s not an academic per se, but he might as well be because his knowledge of fish species, behaviour and ecosystems is encyclopaedic.

I decided to call Ed to ask him about flies and tactics.

Unexpectedly, he immediately questioned my decision to go to Christmas Island at all.

“You can fish almost anywhere in the Indian Ocean for the price it will cost you to get to Christmas Island and back, let alone the time it’s going to take to get there.”

He wasn’t wrong. A Pacific Ocean atoll that makes up 70% of the Republic of Kiribati, Kiritimati (aka Christmas Island) is the literal definition of “the middle of nowhere”. But what Ed didn’t know was that, for me, going to Christmas Island (CXI) was more than just another saltwater flats trip. CXI was the 90s poster child of atoll and flats fishing and, although the articles I’d read over the years seldom showed anything other than bonefish, it had become a critical part of the imaginative development of my odd fly-fishing tastes. In my mind, going there was a rite of passage for any serious saltwater fly angler. It was also my friend Ray Montoya’s 12th anniversary trip.

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Once I’d explained myself, in his deep voice with that unmistakable, thick Eastern Cape accent, Ed said, “I had a feeling you’d say that. Good for you.”

He then proceeded to impart the usual specifics that I froth for: “Incorporating this fluorescence in a fly triggers X…” “These legs move just like those of Y crab…”

“Use this dye to achieve this effect, especially on a full moon…”

I hung up before the fly confusion hit.

A short while later, while discussing the upcoming trip, Andre van Wyk of Feathers and Fluoro told me to call Eugene Burzler. A South African living in the UK with enviable fishy profile pics, Eugene had recently spent a lot of time in CXI. “Peter, you WILL see 20lb triggerfish. I know that sounds ridiculous, but you will.”

Eugene had also encountered milkfish on foot.

“20lb triggers.”

“Milkfish on foot.”

The thought of those two things was enough for me to forget the four-day journey it would take to get there. All I hoped was that The Burzler Brief would hold true.

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“PETER, YOU WILL SEE 20LB TRIGGERFISH. I KNOW THAT SOUNDS RIDICULOUS, BUT YOU WILL.”

Gluten intolerant tailing milkfish.

THE BURZLER BRIEF As the plane banked, revealing almost endless sand flats, holes and other likely-looking spots, Eugene’s tale of 20lb triggerfish was about the only thing I could focus on. It would take only five days for the fairy tale to come true.

Ray and I had been looking for the famed GT haunt named Huff Dam when we got lost in the impossible maze of waterways that eventually becomes Y site. This is a name that derives from British military ordinance, like many other areas of the atoll. Deciding we’d spent enough time lost and with enough fishable water around, we headed off further into the unknown. Ray picked the bonefishy-looking stuff to the right while I headed towards a braided lagoon scattered with deep holes on the left. The most alien saltwater ecosystem I’ve ever experienced, it looked almost man-made, like a lagoon with 50 craters, or a saltwater golf-course with triggerfish lurking in the bunkers.

I’d walk around each crater while scouring the edges for any sign of life. I was starting to feel a bit despondent with my choice of direction, when I spotted what I thought was a turtle in the metre and a half deep edge, just off one of those ominous holes. Then the turtle stood vertical.

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It was a hideously large yellow margin trigger. I’d seen big triggers before in Seychelles, Egypt, Maldives and Sudan, yet nothing came even close to what was in front of me. In comparison to anything I’d ever seen before, this was a fish of Belgian Blue cow proportions.

I doubted my ability to fool what must have been a fish as old as me as the cast turned over, but the sink or drift didn’t spook the fish and I quickly read the interest in its body language. A few strips in and it ate. I clearly remember setting three times before the fish reacted, its scarred mouth probably weathered by 10000 crabs.

I was fishing 25lb fluoro and fancied my chances in a 20-yard draw. The fight was quick, I was in shock and I soon had it next to me. On closer inspection I was even more gobsmacked. It didn’t look in proportion with the two eyes like tiny vents on the top of a blimp, its fins dwarfed by its body. It was the size of a dustbin lid and disgustingly ugly.

I reached for my net and as I lifted the behemoth’s head, the fly pulled out. I was devastated but, two crater walks and a swim later, I would land what was easily my personal best, although a fraction of the fish I’d lost. Even that fish was much larger than anything I’d experienced before and I was amazed to see it was bigger than the entire rim of my XXL floating net.

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RUBBERBAND MAN Kirimati marked the first time I’d ever departed for a fly trip fully satisfied with my fly selection. Bonefish all eat spawning shrimp. Right? Therefore, I had every variation of spawning shrimp. I had variations of my fool-proof crabs, EP shrimp and other Indian ocean triggerfish killers.

You name it, I had it in every colour, sink rate and size.

The problem was, nothing worked. Between the hundreds of patterns in my fly boxes and Ray’s, we could not get a bonefish to look at a fly, let alone a triggerfish. ‘Crazy’ this, ‘Spawning’ that, ‘Fleeing’ this - all useless.

The bonefishing, (and the code for them), was so difficult that eventually only tiny worm flies fished completely static worked - static to the point of waiting to see your leader moving before setting. Clearly, these were not the starved bonefish of fly-fishing lore, but I was happy to be here regardless.

The triggerfish were different, not so much in choice but in approach. These were for the most part deep water fish, and extremely spooky. Just in terms of numbers, over 100 fly fishing guides call Kiribati home, so the bulk of these triggerfish have seen more fly patterns than you or I. That may seem disheartening, but they were here and I welcomed the additional handicap. They had to be catchable somehow. The other anglers’ advice of telling us not to even bother trying, was fuel to the fire.

Knowing none of the patterns in my fly box would work, I set about deconstructing and reconstructing crab flies for deep water, where drifting flies into fish in heavy current was the required technique. The hardware store hunt in Tabwakea revealed only one useful material - vinyl glue. I had brought some EP fibre and decided the best way to make realistic bodies would be to use bottle tops to mould EP shavings and vinyl glue into crab bodies.

EP fibre and impressionistic patterns did not work, so I needed to figure out what would, using the feedback to date as my reference point. Somehow the realistic patterns designed for the circumstances worked and worked well, and the puzzle was unlocked. We could finally get the triggers to eat.

“BETWEEN THE HUNDREDS OF PATTERNS IN MY FLY BOXES AND RAY’S, WE COULD NOT GET A BONEFISH TO LOOK AT A FLY, LET ALONE A TRIGGERFISH”

Flies made on site from vinyl glue, EP fibre shavings and bottle tops unlocked the triggerfish of Christmas Island.

ENTER ANDYMAN Bad Andy, an American truck driver from Chicago with a pony tail and a distinct absence of un-tattooed skin, entered the guest house like Charlie Sheen in Major League.

Although Wild Thing wasn’t playing, the Polynesian ladies visibly melted at the sight of him. He took one look at the two misfits in Room 8 and decided we were his kin.

Like Ray, Andy has a way of integrating with people in almost no time. Substitute Ray’s honey-tinged voice and old man charm for nervous energy and a great sense of humour and you get the same net effect.

We shared a dry wall with Andy who was in Room 7 and one night we heard what was either a muffled murder or fornication. Andy appeared soon after with an even more mischievous smile than usual, telling us that one of the ladies had pushed him against his door and shown him (as he put it in his Chicago accent that somehow also sounded Southern) her, “tiddies.”

Like one playground kid to another, I was unable to resist the question, “And? What were they like?”

Andy has a laugh and a way that reminds me of Goofy.

“I don’t know, brown, you know, nice, good… ha ha.”

As often happens on fishing trips, catch phrases develop from things that happen. On this trip ‘brown tiddies’ became a meme for the rest of our time in the Pacific and daily, without fail, one of us would laugh under our breaths and whisper the line. a I met up with Andy in Chicago a few months ago for some chicken wings in a sports bar and reminded him of the moment. As I write this Andy is in Mexico doing what he does - looking for bonefish and…you guessed it…brown tiddies. *disclaimer – With an understanding that we live in a sensitive time in history, I was pretty nervous about telling this story, but on considering the universality of lust and the anatomical presence of tiddies on all of us, (brown in Ray’s case), I decided to hold faith in The Mission readership’s sense of humour.

“ANDY TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE TWO MISFITS IN ROOM 8 AND DECIDED WE WERE HIS KIN.” Lockjaw bonefish that fell for LeRoy Botha’s green clam fly.

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THE FIGHT STARTS IN THE HOLE I’m painfully slow at rigging and, as I walked down the steep beach onto the coral flats, I could see that Ray was on, and then stuck. Whatever it was had given him a hell of a fight so I was excited to hear the story.

I found him perched on a rock, rod bent parabolically down, sporting a silly smile.

“It’s under here.”

“What was it?”

“Sweetlips, a big one.” Ray calls Spangled Emperors by this name.

With a bachelor’s degree in coral triggerfish extraction, I quickly assessed the cave and decided Mr Emperor was going nowhere. ”Ray, just wait for it to come out.”

“What?” He laughed at the thought. ”Ja, just wait for it,” I said, “it has to come out some time.”

Tickled by the thought, Ray decided to give it a go. Lo and behold, 10 minutes later I looked back and there was Ray, fish in hand.

I walked back to him laughing at the fact that it had worked.

“He just started reversing out, and I grabbed him”.

So often when a fish like this finds a hole, you just decide it’s over and break the fish off, particularly with triggers. On the drive back that day I decided that from that point on, the fight only starts in the hole. There will be no more hiding.

DON’T TELL ANYONE After an entire day of casting every pattern you can imagine at milkfish on foot, I decided that we’d try chum for the bastards. We stopped at the small line of shops that separated the newer section of town from the coconut harvesting houses, and bought enough bread to put me (gluten intolerant) in anaphylactic shock.

Ray and I found the milks again and, with the hope of what we decided would be the pledge, turn and prestige* in one baked package, we stumbled down the banks like a couple of drunken catfish noodlers.

We chummed a small bay area that the milkfish seemed to patrol, but got nothing. For an entire tide we discarded loaf after loaf in milkfish-size bits before deciding it was hopeless. The surprise of the day however was that the lock jaw bonefish could be fooled by Garden Route fly tying genius Leroy Botha’s green clam fly. It happened when a bone that was shadowing a formation of milkfish quickly scoffed up my desperate offering. * The three parts of a magic trick.

THE PARTY STARTS AT 7 You can blame the international date line that Kiribati sits on, the nuclear tests that were conducted by the Brits and the Americans in the 50s and 60s, or simply time’s relativity, but everything about time behaves a little bit differently in Kiribati.

Ray tells a great story in this regard.

On one of their earlier trips, he and his long-time fishing buddy, Kamal, were invited to a party by some friends on the island, and had been told to arrive at seven o’clock.

They had a great day on Banana flat, caught a few bones, probably had a nap or two (knowing Ray) and then set about an early return to freshen up at the lodge before heading out. Sporting collared shirts, and with some car tunes to get them in the mood on the 30 minute drive from Tabwakea the village in the north, they talked the party up and considered some co-ordinated dance moves.

What they saw on arrival was both amusing and confusing. In the darkness they could make out two large topless passedout women, their deflated zeppelin breasts hovering above the coconut mats, bottles, other bodies and dogs that were littered all over the yard like a battlefield scene.

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Eventually they spotted the guy who had invited them.

His eyes glazed over and smelling of the local fermented coconut sap toddy, he said, “Where have you been man?!

We started at seven.”

Kamal and Ray finally realised their mistake.

“Oh, you meant seven am!?”

If you think about it, you can’t take electricity for granted in the middle of the Pacific, so an early morning party makes perfect sense.

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SAVING PRIVATE RYAN The morning of day four, I was in an almost trance-like state. Other than the fact that nothing wanted to eat our flies, I was completely relaxed. The presence of other humans on the bonefish atolls meant that Ray and I would fish the windy reef flats of the outer atoll. We parked in the mangrove-like trees and headed towards the sound of the waves. In typical Ray and Peter fashion, we’d wander off in separate directions, usually only finding each other in the early evening before heading home.

There was some idle chatter, an Arizona iced tea or two and then Mary appeared, holding my box, blissfully unaware of the stress I was hiding. I could not believe we had pulled it off. Owing so much to Sean and the incredibly kind nature of the Kiribati people, I only had a few days with shoddy imagery. We were now back on track, my OCD forever triggered by the moment I unconsciously drowned my camera.

Introverts unite! Separately. On your own flats.

The cuts in the coral looked phenomenal, and I quickly spotted some parrotfish tails emerging out of the wash with every receding wave. Not willing to eat any of my flies (now standard procedure for Kiribati fish), I decided to explore the shallower sections behind me. A decent bluefin appeared and I cast the small crab I’d tied on for the parrotfish at it. It ate on the drop and I was elated to have it in the net.

I have spent a fair amount of time trying to decode what happened next. I took my backpack off, and lay it down on the water, my Fuji camera on the strap. Then I just kind of stared at it before I shook myself out of my daze, realising I’d just drowned all chances of decent imagery.

The thought of coming all this way and only having cell phone and GoPro pics made me sick to my stomach. I spent the rest of the day in denial, trying to think of a plan B should the ‘immerse the camera in rice’ gods not smile down upon me. They didn’t, so I would spend the night on my back myopically thinking of options. By morning I had a plan. We had one friend on Hawaii, Sean from Nervous Waters Hawaii (the fly shop on Honolulu). I knew I’d be able to find a camera on his island, but then we’d have to find a mule to get the parcel to me on Kiritimati. We’d start at JMB, our one-stop-shop for everything, hoping they could be both the courier and freight forwarder too.

One awkward knock and Mary (the M in JMB) answered.

I quickly explained my predicament and she mentioned that her sister Anna would get it on to the next flight.

With some tricky low phone data throughout to process, after WhatsApp calls to a camera store in Honolulu, some Instagram chats to Sean and his ground work on Honolulu, eventually, around midnight, I got an image on Instagram of Anna holding my box marked “Peter Coetzee, Ronton, Kiritimati.” There was hope.

It was inbound flight day, so we decided to fish Banana flat, our closest bonefish haunt. I watched the 737 arrive in circuit and hoped to hell the package was on there, and would somehow arrive at Mary’s.

THE FADS OF HUFF DAM. Ray and I were now good friends with the guiding population of Kiribati, regardless of our DIY status. Almost daily we’d shoot past one of the trucks, usually with Anderson Paak on the stereo, courtesy of DJ Ray. “Trump’s got a love child, and I hope that bitch is buck wild, I hope she sip mezcal”…

We’d had one other incident with some other DIY anglers, who, upon hearing of our trigger successes decided to follow us to our exact spot. To their dismay, they popped their heads around a shipwreck to find Ray draining the old lizard.

“I knew it,” he said, “You guys are trying to see my dick.”

That dispatched them with record speed.

Despite connecting with our guide friends, we’d yet to come face to face with some guided clients, until we finally found ourselves at Huff Dam. I soon learned that the famous GTs of Huff Dam were in fact trapped in the system with a series of boulders at its drainage point. In order to survive, they had almost no choice but to eat the chum (and often a brush fly mixed in with the milkfish presentations).

I decided against the canned hunt and walked off to look for big bones instead, on the windward outer edge which formed part of the active lagoon system.

In usual Peter fashion, I hiked myself nearly to death to get there and, as a gesture, the guides who’d driven clients out to the area and had been watching me, came to get me to give me a ride back to our trusty but rusty Rav 4.

The guide gestured for me to hop on the back, where two benches held some rather large clients from another southern hemisphere destination that South Africa quite often competes with in sports. Stoked with my ride back, and with the sight of other anglers, I reached out to shake the first guy’s hand with a, “Hi!, I’m Peter!” To my amazement, the khaki clad man shook his head and looked away. ’Alright then,’ I thought, and tried the next guy, until all three had very awkwardly refused the gesture. I looked up at the guide who was grimacing and shrugging his shoulders. I sat in amusement for the ride back, after which the guide jumped off, lit up a smoke and said to me, “I don’t know man, they’re miserable, they don’t tip either.”

In all my years I’ve never been denied a handshake, and I cannot imagine traveling half way across the world to a coral paradise in misery.

The Fat (insert country) Dickheads were now a thing.

EAT YOUR ENEMIES We set off out of port on the postcard red and white outriggered boat. I’d decided while waiting at the dock that, like a tinny, the design was somehow less offensive in photos than a traditional fibreglass hull. I had two boat mates, one who apparently knew how to find the milkfish, and a boat driver whose primary talent was breaking the pull cord. We shot up and down the area outside the atoll’s mouth, me refusing multiple gestures to troll my “lure” for tuna. My boat mates were unimpressed by my great selection of algae and other weird flies. “This won’t

bring home dinner,” was the response I could see on both of their faces as they inspected what was in the fly box.

As we aimed for a current line heading straight out of the atoll, I heard a familiar name “manta.” As we sat just off the stream, a few milkfish appeared in and among a pod of manta rays and a free-swimming sailfish. I tried my best to explain to my boat mates what sort of proximity and drift was required in order for me to have a shot. I was trying to stay hopeful, but the odds just didn’t seem high enough.

There were maybe 14-20 fish around. I’d spent enough time chasing milkfish to know that a wall of open mouths is usually required to pull your fly through for hopes of a conversion.

A few casts in I spotted three milkfish swimming directly at the boat. Standing in the nook of the rigger, I watched as they swam within casting range, and then came even closer. At two rod lengths away the three started daisy chaining in a tight radius. I was toying with the idea of taking photos as it didn’t seem like an eat would even be possible in this configuration, and in the calm outside of the current. Before reaching for the camera, I decided to have a throw and lobbed a short backcast into the circle of water made by their daisy chain. Then something remarkable happened. One of the fish broke formation and swam into the centre eating the fly. I set the hook, the fish sat and paused, before shaking its head. Then it swam forward a metre, stopped, and shook its head again.

Strange I thought. Maybe this happens with other fish, but we just don’t see it from far off. There was enough of a pause for me to glance at my two companions who, amusingly, both did a thumbs up.

Then, all hell broke loose. The fish shot off in an enormous arc, way into the backing. Just at the end of eyeshot it took to the air. My heart was in my throat knowing I’d likely not get another eat or chance this trip. Then the milkfish dived like a tuna. As it sounded, I cursed the lack of backbone in my Scott S4s. I eventually got the fish to the boat, and on two occasions the guys failed to net it, instead hitting the leader, resulting in a long blink each time from me. Finally, on the third attempt, they did it and I let out a scream that would rival a Bieber fan. The two Kiribati men looked at each other, paused, and then burst out laughing.

I remember reading somewhere that the cannibalism between Papua New Guinean tribes is largely as an insult.

Something along the lines of, “I hated that tribe so much we killed and ate a dude. That’ll show ‘em”. Well, I ate my enemy that night too. Juvenile yes, but somehow satisfying. A fitting end to my milkfish tale.

WELL, I ATE MY ENEMY THAT NIGHT TOO. JUVENILE YES, “BUT SOMEHOW SATISFYING. A FITTING END TO MY MILKFISH TALE.” 72

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Peter with a milkfish (destined for the pot) that fell for one of his weird algae flies.

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SALMONFLIES ON THE HENRY’S FORK TO SEE STONEFLIES ON STEROIDS GETTING MUNCHED BY BIG-ASS FISH, YOU HAVE TO EXPERIENCE THE USA’S SALMONFLY (PTERONARCYS CALIFORNICA) HATCH. TO FIND OUT MORE, WE CHAT TO FORMER PROTEA FLY ANGLER CRAIG ‘YETI’ RICHARDSON WHO LIVES IN IDAHO THESE DAYS WHERE HE GUIDES ON THE HENRY’S FORK RIVER. Photos. Craig Richardson

What was your first experience of the salmonfly hatch like?

My first salmonfly experience was on the south fork of the Snake River in Idaho. A WorldCast guide and friend of mine, Zack Barrett, took me out. The flow was higher than anything I had ever seen. Growing up fishing the Vaal River a lot and seeing it in full flood, this river looked higher and faster than anything I had ever seen there. Zack picked out this gigantic #6 foam thing called a Water Walker and told me to get it as close to the bank as possible. After a few casts a trout that looks like an average Smalblaar trout came up and ate it. I was blown away! Zack rowed to me to a bank and told me to walk through the grass and I’d find some salmonflies. I wasn’t expecting to see so many in the grass but they were everywhere. Picture a fly, the length of your pinky finger that every trout wants to eat.

before they can breed. They live for two to four years, so if you have a bad year with bugs getting washed away, chances are the hatch will suck in three years’ time.

Er...why is it called a salmon fly? Is it safe to assume that salmon chow them too or is there something else to it?

I’m not sure why they’re called salmonflies. I’ve asked everyone I know and no one has given me an answer.

Spending their entire life in fresh water, salmon won’t go out of their way to eat them but I’m sure a few have over the years. Maybe it’s because the body is salmon pink/orange?

There are constant reports worldwide of how insect populations are plummeting due to pollution, pesticides etc (eg. more than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered). Any idea what the status of the salmonfly is? Are the hatches as good as ever or do resident old-timers see a difference between today’s hatches and those of a few decades back?

Some say it’s better than ever and some say it’s worse. The Henry’s Fork Foundation (henrysfork.org) is doing some incredible work documenting everything from flows and snow pack to the density of bugs in each section. Because of their work we have a much better understanding of what needs to happen to improve the bug life which has proved itself with their recent bug report. Salmonflies like water temperatures that don’t fluctuate too much.

So water that doesn’t get too hot or too cold through the year makes the difference. A lot of the best salmonfly rivers are tail waters so the water is controlled by a dam.

What are the best months for the salmonfly hatch? How long does it last?

It all depends on the area you are in. They need the water temperature to reach 54 degrees Fahrenheit which is 12.22 degrees Celsius. In south east Idaho it normally comes middle to late May for the Henry’s Fork and late June to early July on the South fork. They can run anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on how steady the flow of the river is. Big fluctuations will mean the majority get washed away

Which rivers do you fish when the hatch is on? Do they appear in several states? Where should we rush to when it’s on?

I picked Idaho because of the diverse rivers and massive amounts of public access. So, I would also say Idaho. I fish the Henry’s Fork (the north fork of the Snake River) and the south fork for both the hatches because they happen over different dates. I’m spoilt because I can get up to a month of salmonfly fishing, whereas in other states you’ll be restricted to a week on one river system. Salmonflies are found throughout the west but they are very specific about the type of water and temperatures they can survive and thrive in.

“SALMONFLIES LIKE WATER TEMPERATURES THAT DON’T FLUCTUATE TOO MUCH. “ W W W. T H E M I S S I O N F LY M A G . C O M

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And the fish? Are we talking predominantly browns?

What else is smashing them?

It’s a mix of browns, rainbows and cutthroat. They all love salmonflies equally. It depends on the river and structure you’re fishing more than anything. Every fish in the rivers wants in on the action, whether it is nymphs or the adults.

In terms of the fishing, how different is the action to say a BWO (Bluewing Olive) or Green Drake hatch?

Do the fish respond differently? The flies look like hoppers, which trout in SA annihilate. Do salmonfly get the same treatment or a gentle sip?

The fish tend to be tighter to the banks or any structure because salmonflies crawl to the bank and hatch on dry land. The fish will often be willing to chase the fly down if you skate it with some twitching. Some of the tails are super aggressive but some are calm and really slow. The bigger fish seem to eat the fly slowly with confidence while smaller fish tend to cause a massive splash.

What’s the general approach during the hatch? Is it easy fishing? How difficult is it for clients to mess it up?

Get the fly as close as you can to the bank or structure, wiggle the fly a bit and then let it drift. Salmonflies are terrible at flying and spend an awful amount of time running on the water. Make your fly look like that and you’ll get them. The fishing can be easy if the fish haven’t gorged themselves on naturals. If they have, it’s going to be tough. It’s really easy to fuck up. Overhanging willows have claimed more than a few flies during the hatch. Setting too quickly is another issue.

You have to let them eat it before you can set the hook.

Sometimes it’ll take them a few tries to get the giant fly in their mouth. Pay attention to your fly and you catch more fish.

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Are you floating or wading?

Mostly floating. If we find a fish feeding on a bank we will anchor up and try to get it on foot, but the majority of the time you’re on the boat. The water is higher because of snow melt so sometimes wading isn’t an option.

What’s your ideal set-up?

A 9-foot, 6-weight with a floating line and an 8-foot TroutHunter 2x leader. Tie the fly straight to the leader with an Improved Homer Rhode knot and you’ll get your fly back almost every time.

In SA, a #10 is considered a pretty big dry fly. What sort of size are we talking for salmonfly patterns?

Anywhere from a #4 to #8. I’ve caught fish here on flies that guys fish on the Breede River for leeries. Most South Africans don’t even own a Wooly Bugger that is as big as the dries the guys tie here.

Do you fish salmonfly dries and nymphs or is it dry fly all the way?

Yes, I do. The Pat’s Rubber Legs is pretty much the only stonefly nymph I fish. I like a burnt orange or black one in #4 or #6. My favourite salmonfly dry is the G’s Supafly in #6 or a rusty body Water Walker in #6.

Lastly, what do salmonflies taste like? As the Yeti, by now you must have had one fly in your mouth.

They taste like crickets, but a bit more bitter. Not bad though. I’ve eaten worse things in the Seychelles!

When he’s not guiding in Idaho, Craig Richardson is FlyCastaway Head Guide on St Brandons Atoll, a guide at Como Maalifushi, Maldives and a WorldCast Anglers Guide.

Follow him on Instagram - @craigrichardson123

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ITCHING?

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Plaster

MOSKINTO

R

THE INTELLIGENT PATCH

MOSQUITO? TRY MOSKINTO! A clever little patch to soothe the itching and swelling associated with insect bites.

Moskinto is distributed by Olney Marketing and is available at all Transpharm leading pharmacies. For more info, go to transpharm.co.za

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SALAD BAR SAGE - R8 CORE RODS When Sage drops a new flagship rod range, you sit up and pay attention, which is exactly what we did when the presser for their new R-8 Core range landed in our inboxes. The first thing we asked Alex Blouin, Sage’s marketing manager, was how to pronounce it. Specifically, we wanted to know is it, ‘“R” and then “Eight”? Or do you take the Avril Lavigne ‘Sk8er boi’ approach (off her seminal 2002 debut album Let Go) and say, “Rate”?’ We’re pleased to confirm (thereby saving you some Nickelbacklevel blushes when you ask for one in a fly shop) that the answer is “R-EIGHT.” Moving swiftly on to the new tech, Sage say that the advanced, leading-edge material behind the R8 CORE range enables them to “shape a rod with a stiffer, stronger

backbone but a more sensitive tip and more connected feel.” How they do that is twofold. First, they use a proprietary aerospace composite with a greater hoop strength which enables them to dimensionally grow taper diameter more quickly from the tip—while a nano-sintered resin application increases axial resilience and allows them to pack more fibre into the blank. The result? A true twoway connection from hand to fly and back for greater feel, flow and control. That idea of feel translates into all aspects of rod use, from delivering efficient mends to your line, to picking up on subtle takes (or responding to violent strikes) and, when the fight is on, giving you all the control and care you need to bring your fish in. We look forward to trying one out so we can R8 it. Yeah boi. Available in South Africa in 4-9-weights from Frontier Fly Fishing. farbank.com, frontierflyfishing.com

XPLORER - CFR 4/5/6-WEIGHT FLY REEL With stillwater troot season upon us, you might be in the market for a reel and spools in the versatile 4/5/6 weight category. Take a gander at Xplorer’s new CFR fly reel, a reliable mid-to-entry level fly reel made from die-cast aluminium with a Large Arbour Spool for maximum line retrieval. It sports a rear mounted drag adjustment with a smooth one-way bearing drag system and can easily be changed from left to right hand retrieve. xplorerflyfishing.co.za

FASNA - F415 You like to get jiggy with it? We do too. The Fasna F-415 Wide Gape Jig fly hook is designed especially for jig flies.

High carbon steel, made in Japan of heavy wire, with a wide gape, an extra-long needle point in a black nickel colour, these barbless beauties will do the job very nicely.

Available from X-Factor Angling in packs of 30 in sizes 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. fasnaflyfishing.com, xfactorangling.co.za

“GET JIGGY WITH IT”

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XPLORER - XPT III PONTOON BOAT Avast ye landlubbers! If you like to cruise the vast expanse of a trophy stillwater yet don’t like sitting in a float tube with your nuts in said water, then perchance the latest iteration of Xplorer’s pontoon boat is the vessel for you.

Featuring a lightweight aluminium painted frame, with two 8’6”ft PVC pontoons, it comes standard with oars, a rear cargo deck and sneaker motor mount. There are two removable cargo pockets that clip onto the pontoons. Best feature? The fold down padded seat is mounted to a swivel making it easy to position yourself in different directions as needed. Foot pump, carry bag and repair kits included. xplorerflyfishing.co.za

VISION - HERO I need a hero I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night He’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight.

Whether Bonnie Tyler was forecasting the invention of Vision’s Hero rods when she wrote Holding Out For A Hero for the 1984 Footloose soundtrack is debatable, but the lyrics definitely suggest she was part of the R&D team.

Fortunately, there’s no holding out for this stunning range of affordable medium-fast action rods available at X-Factor

SIMMS – FREESTONE HALF-FINGER GLOVES Give freezing conditions the half-finger with these lowbulk, high-warmth half-finger fleece gloves from Simms.

Designed to keep the circulation flowing, while freeing up your digits for tying knots and picking through flies, they are made from a durable hard-face fleece and spandex blend with a brushed interior for high-dexterity comfort and feature TPU palm overlays for enhanced durability and grip. Webbing pull loops at the wrist make for easy on/off moves and pairing snaps help you avoid off-season laundry orphans. Eminem rap-battle vibes included. simmsfishing.com, frontierflyfishing.com

“TO CRUISE THE VAST EXPANSE OF A TROPHY STILLWATER” Angling. Fine-tuned for specific types of fishing, there’s a rod for whatever freshwater application you are in to, from nymphing to stillwaters, 3-weight to 7-weight, 9’6, to 9’9, 10 and 10’6 foot. Visually, these rods stand out too with vivid yellow blanks with black markings. Nymph models have small single leg guides with tight spacing to prevent line sagging and the Nymph Hero 3-weight and 4-weight have a down-locking reel seat to balance the long rods.

Expect a half wells handle in lighter models and a full wells handle with a fighting butt in the heavier weights. visionflyfishing.com, xfactorangling.co.za

“GIVE FREEZING CONDITIONS THE HALFFINGER”

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SALAD BAR ORVIS - JACKSON STRETCH QUICK-DRY PANTS There are very specific lunges that crop up when fishing – for example the forward leg lunge to extend the reach of your rod hand while keeping low, or the semi-backward lunge where your rod hand extends up and behind you while your net hand scoops for a fish. To perform either of these you have to have stretch in your pants. If you don’t…and there is tightness or lack of movement in the hip/waist/crotch trifecta, you’re going to feel restricted, like your butt cheeks are two shrink-wrapped puppies and your junk and thighs are momentarily frozen in liquid nitrogen. In short – you’ll be trapped by your own pants.

With their gusseted crotch, elasticized waist and their moisture-wicking, nylon/spandex stretch UPF 50 fabric, Orvis’s Jackson Stretch Quick-Dry Pants are designed for advanced fish lunging (among other things). Throw in two zippered mesh-lined back pockets and one lower leg pocket and you are ready for lunges, the splits or the streamside Spandex Ballet should you wish. orvis.com, flyfishing.co.za

SIMMS - FALL RUN VEST When anglers talk about “shoulder season” we’re talking as much about the transition of fisheries from summer to winter and back again, as we are the invariable nip in the air. In autumn/fall and spring, parts of South Africa dish up baking hot days and blue skies (making packing a rain jacket seem ridiculous), but early mornings and afternoons that are surprisingly cold. That’s where something like the lightweight insulated Simms Fall Run Vest is perfect. As the temp drops in the valley you’re fishing, by layering up with one of these you take the chill off, retain core warmth and keep your arms unrestricted for fishing. Made from Primaloft® Black Eco insulation with 60% recycled materials, this puffy vest is treated for water repellency if things get damp.

Stashed in your sling or pack, you’ll be pleased to have it when the mercury drops. simmsfishing.com, frontierflyfishing.com

“LAYERING UP WITH ONE OF THESE YOU TAKE THE CHILL OFF, RETAIN CORE WARMTH AND KEEP YOUR ARMS UNRESTRICTED FOR FISHING”

PATAGONIA - ’73 SKYLINE TRADITIONAL CAP Nothing to see here…just some sweet head coverage from Patagonia in the shape of a Fair Trade Certified™ sewn, low-crown, unstructured, five-panel hat featuring brims made of NetPlus® 100% recycled fishing nets, an adjustable fabric strap in back for a just-right fit and Patagonia original art made with PVC- and phthalatefree screen-print inks. Available in Tide Pool Blue or Oaks Brown from Xplorer Fly Fishing. patagonia.com, xplorerflyfishing.co.za

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Remote Richtersveld Drift - Namibia

exclusive trout waters - DuLlSTROom

tigerfish experience - Pongola Mavungana Flyfishing Center

Main Road, Dullstroom, 013 254 0270

Mavungana Flyfishing JHB, Shop 3B

Illovo Square Shopping Center, 011 268 5850 travel@flyfishing.co.za

www.flyfishing.co.za

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SALAD BAR

GUIDELINE - ELEVATION SINGLE HAND RODS We’ve been hearing good things (especially from the competitive crowd) about Swedish tackle brand Guideline’s Elevation Rod series, namely that the combo of quality (light feel and an action that suits anglers at all levels) and price of these top modern rods are of a ridiculously high level. What you can expect are matte, lightly buffed dark grey blanks with no added coloration. For the grip, you get a new, improved full wells grips of 3A cork without rubber cork reinforcements. Even the lighter rods have a small cork butt, and from 9´ 7-weight and up there are full size fighting butts on all Elevation rods. Rods are mounted with light wire single leg guides and KW style stripper guides.

They sport a sensitive and protective tip that is very stable and crisp, with a smooth progressive curve further down the blank with a powerful butt section. The action is easy

to cast, forgiving and produces accurate casts at high line speed.

Bonus - throughout the manufacturing of these rods, Guideline has looked for the most sustainable/least toxic approach. For example, the metal parts of reel seats are “clear anodized” which is the least toxic process possible when using aluminium reel seats; no chrome (lead) or paint is used in the anodizing bath; a bio-based low-toxic epoxy is used for the coatings on the blank and guides; the rod bag and rod tube cover are made of recycled REPREVE™ polyester and the tubes are made of recyclable Polypropylene (PP). Lastly, any possible, excessive carbon waste particles are collected in a separate tank before water is passed on to community cleaning facility. guidelineflyfish.com, xfactorangling.co.za

FISHPOND – SAGEBRUSH PRO MESH VEST We imagine the crew at Fishpond HQ have a line of crustylooking guides popping into their R&D department every week with requests, suggestions and tweaks to products.

That’s because it’s clear how much practical, on-thewater thought goes into so many of their products like the Sagebrush Pro Mesh Vest. The highly breathable, lightweight mesh design keeps your back and torso cool, while padded, weight-distributing shoulder straps offer all-day comfort. It features 17 interior and exterior pockets, a large, easy-access back pouch for extra layers or water, Hypalon® tool attachments for retractors, tippet and floatant holders, and forceps, Fishpond’s signature zip-down fly bench with replaceable fly mat and an integrated net slot on the back panel. Best of all, if you have a bigger day planned and need to lug more gear, it’s compatible with many of Fishpond’s other packs like the Thunderhead Submersible Backpack - Eco, Wind River Roll-Top Backpack - Eco, Ridgeline Backpack and Firehole Backpack. fishpondusa.com, frontierflyfishing.com

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PATAGONIA - GREAT DIVIDER In the market for an extremely durable, well-structured, water-resistant boat bag? The 26-liter volume Great Divider from Patagonia deserves your attention. Even if you’re fishing amid squalls, this Fair Trade Certified™ sewn bag’s watertight lid-closure zipper and magnetic automatic snap front closure will keep water out, while the sturdy 100% recycled nylon fabric and webbing will ensure years of service. The adjustable internal dividing system lets you organize the bag as you see fit, while the clear plastic internal lid pocket keeps licenses, tippets or other quick-access items visible and within easy reach.

For quick fly changes when it’s ON, Velcro® patches on the lid provide easy access to go-to flies. patagonia.com, xplorerflyfishing.co.za

ORVIS – FLOW HEMO It’s weird to get attached to something like this, but we did (until the editor dropped his in a lake which is a reflection solely on him and not this fantastic product). From the lever-action carabiner on the handle, which requires just a single upward or downward motion to clip/unclip from any attachment point, to the oversized grippy finger holes, the leverage extension for extra oomph when advanced crimping, plus the mitten clamp and the scissor blades down the business end of the jaws for trimming tippet or tweaking flies on the water – this is the gold standard hemo. orvis.com, flyfishing.co.za

“THIS IS THE GOLD STANDARD HEMO”

RIO - SLICKCAST SINKING LINES The latest in Rio’s range of fly lines to get the durable, SlickCast coating, both the Premier Fathom and Premier Clean Sweep are now available from Xplorer Fly Fishing just in time for stillwater trout season. The Fathom series is designed specifically for lake anglers with a short, quick-loading head for minimizing the number of false casts, and for quick, easy distance, and a colour contrast between the head and the running line to easily show the line’s loading point. In addition, each line is built with a Hang Marker that shows anglers when to stop stripping, and when to fish the hang. The CleanSweep series of sinking lines also feature the Hang Marker and are built with a clear intermediate front end, seamlessly attached to a faster sinking body section and then to a slower sinking running line. This blend of sink rates results in a deadly fly path through the water, with the line sweeping the depths during a retrieve—from the surface, to deep, and back to the surface again—covering a multitude of depths with each cast. farbank.com, xplorerflyfishing.co.za

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SALAD BAR NAYAT - NA-WHAT? We know what you’re thinking – what the hell is a Nayat?

Well, we fell down an internet rabbit hole trying to find out. The description from Bigstreamers (now stocked in South Africa by X-Factor) is that nayat originates from a, “fairly uncommon breed of farm animal that is domestically bred.” So far so vague, so we kept digging. Some of the fly tying forums speculate that it’s a sheep or a goat of some sort. Again, Bigstreamers dispel that by saying, “The hair is slightly stiffer and more translucent than Icelandic Pony, or Arctic Runner, and does not mat in the water like Icelandic Sheep or Llama.”

Convinced we were dealing with the ballhairs off Bigfoot, we got in touch with former Proteas captain MC Coetzer, one of the country’s best fly tyers, who revealed that the Nayat mystery literally is the Yeti of fly tying materials.

“Absolutely nobody will share that info,” he said. “All I can tell you is that it’s an animal the size of a large sheep with long natural white hair. It’s definitely also not Icelandic Sheep - their hair is very fine with no guard hairs. In Canada Nayat is called Snow Runner. It is a very special material and everybody is looking for the source. As far as I can tell, there is only one supplier, but a few shops have tracked down the source in the last few months. You see more and more of it online. If I knew where to get it myself I’d have a skin in my tying room.”

There you have it, from MC “Jeffrey Dahmer” Coetzer himself. As for its application, Nayat’s stiff, translucent, nonmatting properties make it brilliant for XL wing material in big predator flies. xfactorangling.co.za

“CONVINCED WE WERE DEALING WITH THE BALLHAIRS OFF BIGFOOT, WE GOT IN TOUCH WITH FORMER PROTEAS CAPTAIN MC COETZER”

PERDIGONMANIA – STRIPS If you have fallen down a Euro-nymphing rabbit hole and find yourself dreaming of fast-sinking Perdigon nymphs plummeting to lunker trout levels, perhaps instead of going cold turkey on your addiction you should embrace the habit. You know…go full Mother Superior. A good way to scratch that itch is with Perdigonmania’s Strips specifically designed for tying Perdigons. These fine strips change colour as the light hits them greatly increasing the effectiveness of any style Perdigon. Just apply your favourite UV Resin and you’re good to go. Available in packs of 15 strips, 1mm x 10cm. perdigonmania.pt, xfactorangling.co.za

“THESE FINE STRIPS CHANGE COLOUR AS THE LIGHT HITS THEM GREATLY INCREASING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ANY STYLE PERDIGON.”

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GUIDE/HOSTED TRIPS

CLINICS

T R O U T FA R M

From luxury Orange River drifts to trophy trout camps, plus annual trips to Bolivia, the Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Guyana and the Zambezi - we have the trip for you.

Forget the days of muddy water, crowded venues and long drives! We have a 5-hectare, spring-fed, fly fishing oasis in the heart of Johannesburg.

Become a better angler by joining a clinic led by our team of Protea and provincial fly anglers.

SHOP: A WIDE RANGE OF TACKLE OPTIONS FOCUSED ON A MODERN APPROACH TO FLY FISHING.

Sterkfontein Dam selection

Laxa Waders

Farlo Anthracite reel

Chest Pack Overlook 500 Zs2 Kit

CF Design Waterproof Fly box

Blane Chockletts Game Changer

Sex Dungeons

Vision Rods

www.xfactorangling.co.za xfactorangling@gmail.com | www.xfactorangling@gmail.com | qw Shop number: 0734110544 | qw Trout farm number: 0737090405

DEEP WANTS

PAY DAY A PHONE GADGET FOR 50/50 FISH SHOTS AND (JUST TO BALANCE THINGS OUT) A BOOK TO GET YOU OFF YOUR BLOODY PHONE

AQUATECH - AXISGO IPHONE 13 KIT Who doesn’t love an underwater fish shot? Those perky fins, that agape mouth, your chunky calves in the background – nothing beats it. If you’re an iPhone-owning fly angler looking to get yourself some of that photo goodness, look no further than Aquatech who have just brought out the AxisGO Over Under Kit housing that fits the iPhone

13 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13. Depth rated to 10m/33ft, the kit includes the AxisGO dome, Bluetooth pistol, Novus acrylic polish, dome cover and protective case. All you need to do is catch the fish. Now if only they would do Android phones too… aquatech.net

STOLEN FOCUS - JOHANN HARI Ever sat down at the vice with great plans to bash out 50 perfect flies and yet after two minutes you see the digital equivalent of a squirrel in a tree and find yourself magically transported deep into your emails again? Perhaps, as you read this (while watching Netflix and second-screening Instagram), you’re already aware that it’s harder to focus than ever before. As journalist Johann Hari points out in his brilliant new book, Stolen Focus – Why You Can’t Pay Attention, it’s not actually (all) your fault. While it’s easy to point fingers at ourselves

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as individuals, the issues are systemic. We’re drowning in information. We’re being surveilled and manipulated by our digital worlds. We’re also up against tech companies that employ many of the world’s smartest people to make their products as addictive as possible. Add to that that our stress levels are through the roof, we are not getting enough sleep, our diets are terrible, we don’t read enough (proper reading), our education systems are suspect, and we simply don’t take enough time to switch off and navel-gaze (an essential skill according to Hari, which is a relief to us). The solutions both for society and the individual that Hari proposes are not easy, but if we don’t take steps and start paying attention we might never tie a fly again. We cannot recommend this book highly enough. stolenfocusbook.com

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DARTH TREVOR

WA N D S

EPIC FLY RODS SITH LIGHTSABER IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE HAVE DONE A ROD COLLAB GIVE-AWAY WITH NEW ZEALAND ROD GURUS, EPIC BUT, EVERY TIME WE DO, IT RESULTS IN SOMETHING REALLY SPECIAL. THERE WAS THE RASTA-INSPIRED ‘DA RIDDIM STICK’ WHICH, LAST WE HEARD, WAS DOING DUTY SOMEWHERE ON SOUTH ISLAND; THE MOTIVATIONAL CARROT, WHICH LANDED UP GOING ON A CROSSCOUNTRY NATIVE TROUT TOUR OF THE USA AND THEN THERE WAS THE BLACK MAMBA, WHICH IS NOW OWNED BY KRUGER PARK LEGEND DANIE PIENAAR, ONE OF FEW PEOPLE TO SURVIVE AN ADULT BLACK MAMBA BITE. THAT ROD PROVED SO POPULAR, EPIC ADDED IT TO THEIR RANGE. MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL BLACKS SUPPORTERS BUT, FOR THIS ROD, THE EPIC TEAM TURNED TO THE DARK SIDE AND DEVELOPED THE INCREDIBLE EPIC SITH LIGHTSABER. WE SPOKE TO TREVOR BOURNE, EPIC’S ROD BUILDER EXTRAORDINAIRE, ABOUT THE ROD, THE FORCE AND EVIL IN GENERAL. 76

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The Mission (TM): On a level of Padawan to Sith Lord – how much of a Stars Wars fan are you?

Trevor Bourne (TB): Yoda I would be, a deep love for Star Wars I have.

TM: How did the idea for this rod come about? Were you and Carl McNeil, (founder/director of Epic) playing your usual 11am game of ‘lightsaber, lightsaber’ with Fastglass blanks around the Epic offices when inspiration struck?

TB: Close... Actually, we were in the warehouse playing Ghostbusters. I had a vacuum cleaner strapped to my back with a green Epic 686 gaffer taped to the end of the hose, while Carl went with a backpack weed sprayer and an Epic Bandit. We had wrapped Molly the shop dog in a green trash bag and were attempting to guide her over the tissue box I had slid across the floor.

I told Carl not to cross the streams... ‘Cos you know what happens when you cross the streams? Total Protonic reversal...

We are all big Star Wars Fans at Epic and Carl had always talked about doing a lightsaber rod. So we took off our grey overalls and put the vacuum cleaner back in the cupboard and started on the plans for our next tea break... in a warehouse, far, far away...

TM: Tell us about the challenges involved in making this unique rod?

TB: As a creative type, I thrive on making stuff with what I have available to me. My wife says I’m on the cusp of being a hoarder. I like having a stock of potentially useful items.

There’s almost always something that can be repurposed.

“It’s not ‘junk’ Karla, it’s my stuff!”

I wanted it to feel real. I didn’t want to use plastic or carve wood. Rummaging through my workshop I found the spark, the first piece of the puzzle. An old torch...

I love it (and this happens quite a lot), when I find random parts or materials that just happen to be just the perfect size for the job, like they were meant to be together. Over a couple of weeks it slowly came into being. The most challenging part was learning to write in Sith runes.

TM: Form vs Force vs Function – does the former impact the latter much? Is the structural integrity of the blank impacted by the line running through it as opposed to through guides?

TB: Function was not my primary objective on this project.

I mostly just wanted to make it look badass. As it turns out, it casts a fine loop! If you use a little Force and make swooshing light sabre noises with your mouth, it shoots line quite nicely. The glass blanks are pretty tough.

Even with a substantial line-in hole on the prototype, I couldn’t break it. On the final Lightsaber I fitted it with a handcrafted brass guide at the in and out points. We went guideless because light sabres don’t have guides.

TM: How does it feel to cast (or fight a fish) with a rod without guides? Does one just... feel the Force?

TB: One must of course use the Force.

That really should go without saying. It is reassuringly weighty, in the same way a Rolex Submariner is weighty, but even so it still feels great in the hand.

TM: On that note, what weight is the rod and (other than prodding Ewoks on Endor or catching Spetan channelfish on Ahch-To) what sort of application do you see it having on Earth?

TB: It’s based on our Salsa Epic 888 for its larger internal diameter. A 6-weight line fits nicely through the rod. The 888 being made from our Zentron glass means it’s quite happy throwing a lighter line. Here on earth I would love to see it used for evil being red this is a Sith weapon after all. Maybe casting a worm fly at a New Zealand brown trout, bread flies for carp or possibly something diabolical like egg flies under a bobber float... Mwahahaaa.

Any last words for Skywalker lovin’ haters / purists?

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate... and we all know where that path leads… Yup, to the Dark Side!

WIN THIS ONE-OF-A-KIND ROD AND A REGUL AR EPIC ROD… FOLLOW @THEMISSIONFLYMAG AND @EPICFLYRODS ON INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK AND WATCH OUT FOR OUR POSTS.

FLUFF

SHUT UP ABOUT THE FLY FRESHLY RETURNED FROM A TRIP TO LESOTHO, FLY-TYING INSTRUCTOR AND AUTHOR GORDON VAN DER SPUY WOULD LIKE US ALL TO KNOW THAT WHAT’S ON THE END OF THE LINE IS ONLY 10% OF THE EQUATION. Photos. Owen Bruce

“Just seen your Facebook post about the fly from Lesotho.

Thanks for letting us know about it when we were there.”

I was heading back home from the Bokong River in Lesotho from what had undoubtedly been the best ten days fishing of my life, when I received this sarcastic WhatsApp message from one of the guys who had been in camp with us. My pal, fly-fishing guide Tim Rolston, was driving at the time.

“Can you believe this?” I said to Tim, “This guy actually thinks he fished poorly because he didn’t apparently know about a fly I was fishing on the trip.”

“You talking about that Spunwing Dun? “ Tim asked.

“That’s the one,” I replied.

“But you couldn’t shut up about that fly, it’s all you spoke about the entire time”.

“My point exactly! He claims I didn’t tell them about it.

Fuck, I even offered him one the second evening. Clearly he wasn’t paying attention at all.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you know you kind of dug your own grave with this one”, Tim said unsympathetically.

“How so? I asked puzzled.

“Well, you spoke so passionately about that fly the whole time that I don’t blame him for thinking that you had the silver bullet.”

“But we all know that the fly is probably the last part of the puzzle in terms of one’s success rate,” I said. “There are a hundred things to consider before ever thinking about the fly.”

Tim continued, “You and I know that, but most people think that the fly is the deciding factor in their eventual success. That’s why it’s easy to pin their lack of success on

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the fly they were using, because it allows them to ignore the fact that maybe their biggest hurdle in terms of catching fish, is their lack of understanding of what makes a fish eat a fly in the first place. Most ‘experts’ on social media are promoting the next best fly as opposed to explaining the detail behind the process of catching fish. You can’t blame inexperienced anglers for thinking that there are proverbial ‘silver bullets’. That’s the message being sent out all the time.”

I’d never thought of it like that. Rolston had a good point, which he spent the next 10 hours in the car unpacking in extreme detail. Essentially what we discussed came down to the fact that fish eat good or optimal presentations.

By making the fly itself your prime factor for success you choose to ignore the many other reasons why fish actually

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eat or reject a fly. I’d say the fly is probably the last piece in the puzzle. Obviously there are times when a tiny detail on a fly will make all the difference. For example a pink tag might catch more fish than a chartreuse tag on a nymph.

That said, the pattern won’t matter if you can’t present it properly.

tail racing for cover spooking a hundred fish in the process.

The guys back at the lodge gave you “the perfect fly” for this situation. They know midges come off in the evenings, but you’ve missed the opportunity of experiencing the best fishing of your life because you don’t understand the very real truth that presentation is 90% of the game.

Imagine the following: as the sun is setting, you’re fishing the tail of a pool on the Bokong River. It’s stacked with some hefty yellowfish and they’re all in the mood to co-operate, softly sipping down midges with the regularity of your grade two piano teacher’s metronome. You make the cast but slap the fly into the water with the subtleness of a grenade. Your casting is probably suspect and you’re fishing the fly on an 8-foot leader ending in 4X tippet that barely goes through the eye of the fly you’re fishing. You send every fish in that

This sort of thing happens all the time. How many people do you know who actually practise their casting? I’m not talking about picking a rod up and sending the fly into the stratosphere to prove you’ve taken advantage of that Virgin Active membership. I’m simply talking about picking a target close by and accurately putting the fly on it and practising this again and again. Speak to any guide and what they wish for most from their clients is that they would cast better.

“FOR EVERY FISH CAUGHT ANOTHER 100 HAVE PROBABLY SEEN AND REJECTED YOUR FLY”

In fact, I once heard of a famous New Zealand guide who actually “auditions” his clients before agreeing to take them out fishing. They have to come to his house and show him that they can cast on his lawn. If they’re shit he simply doesn’t take them out. It makes sense. If the client doesn’t catch fish he’ll invariably pin it on the guide, irrespective of how poor his casting is. This guide knows this and has put measures in place to avoid abuse by ineffective clients.

What about people who actually spend time building and refining their own leader set ups? How many of you do that? A lot of people freak out when you make mention of long leaders. They have a mental block about them because they’re used to seeing leaders of 9 -12 ft in fly shops. Learn to fish 20 ft plus leaders effectively and you will see your catch rate climb. Long limp leaders ending in long, fine tippets are the business when dealing with temperamental fish in thin tail-outs. They give the fly freedom in the drift and support drag free drifts as they have just enough slack in the setup. Obviously, if the wind comes up, one needs to shorten them accordingly.

On the Bokong River we catch large numbers of fish – it’s not uncommon to catch north of 50 fish in a day when things are good. Still, while the fish population might resemble the aquatic version of the wildebeest migration on the Serengeti, if you consider that for every fish caught another 100 have probably seen and rejected your fly, then the penny drops that it’s actually not easy fishing. If I look at the trip I’ve just been on then I can safely tell you that the guys fishing longer leader setups caught the majority of the fish. Tim Rolston had been on 8X for the most part and out-fished us all. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

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Another thing I noticed was that every time I’d lengthen my tippet when I felt it was getting a bit short, almost without fail I’d get a take. That little bit of extra tippet definitely helped me get better drifts and many more opportunities at fish.

The cool thing about presenting flies to hundreds of fish in a single day is that you get to see how they react to them.

You can play around, make adjustments and literally see what works because you have plenty of test subjects to practise on. It’s great in terms of one’s personal research and development.

Sinking the first few inches of tippet directly behind the fly definitely made a difference. Fish would often reject flies when the tippet was floating. I’d simply rub a mixture of Fuller’s Earth and dishwashing liquid onto the tippet.

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This had to be done frequently. Some guys use tippet rings and who knows what else to sink tippets, but I personally think that this can cause micro drag.

A subtle, silent, considered and hidden approach will often bring you more success than boldly advertising your presence by wading like a wounded hippo and ripping line off the water with the sound of a tearing sheet. I know kneeling isn’t comfortable, but it is effective. If you need to buy a hardcore pair of padded neoprene knee guards, do it. One’s positioning in the river also determines your best line of attack in terms of drag free drifts and how the fly behaves in the drift.

We live in a world of instant gratification. The idea that the fly is everything appeals to your average fisherman because it’s simple. By blaming the fly for your lack of

success you take the attention away from the fact that maybe, just maybe, it isn’t only the fly that is the problem.

Sure, purpose-driven flies that are tied to present optimally are important but they are not the only thing to consider.

Learning to present a fly properly takes practice, dedication and solid work. There are no shortcuts. You need to understand the mechanics behind optimal presentations, because when you do and you experience how fish in most instances prefer optimal presentations, you will become a thinking angler as opposed to a slavish disciple of fly patterns. Try it!

Keep an eye out for Owen Bruce’s short film on Gordon van der Spuy, shot on location on the Bokong River in Lesotho. Follow @the_craft_flyfishing on Instagram for more.

“ON THE BOKONG RIVER WE CATCH LARGE NUMBERS OF FISH – IT’S NOT UNCOMMON TO CATCH NORTH OF 50 FISH IN A DAY WHEN THINGS ARE GOOD.”

SAVING SAN C O N S E R V I N G S O U T H A F R I C A’ S M O S

WEB SERIES

SPONSOR A

NDFISH

T THREATENED MIGRATORY FRESHWATER FISH

A SANDFISH

Photo: Jeremy Shelton Co-founder Fishwater Films

LEARN MORE

LIFER

THE CORNISHMAN A N E L I T E F LY - C A S T I N G I N S T R U C T O R , V E T E R A N G U I D E , A U T H O R , E N V I R O N M E N TA L A C T I V I S T A N D A M A N W H O H A S G I V E N A VA S T A M O U N T T O S O U T H A F R I C A N F LY F I S H I N G , T I M R O L S T O N I S A N I N S T I T U T I O N , E S P E C I A L LY I N T H E W E S T E R N C A P E . I F Y O U S P E N D T I M E O N T H E C A P E S T R E A M S O R AT T H E C A P E P I S C AT O R I A L S O C I E T Y, K E E P A N E A R O P E N F O R T H AT U N I Q U E C O R N I S H A C C E N T A N D I F Y O U M E E T H I M , “ G I V E T H AT M A N A B E L L S .” * Photos. Tim Rolston

I am pretty sure the first fish I ever caught was an eel.

As kids growing up in the UK, we caught a lot of eels back then because they are easy to catch and we weren’t very good anglers.

Oddly, I have lived in three or four streets named after Queen Victoria. The woman certainly got her name about. I grew up in Bude in North Cornwall; moved to Exeter to study medical technology and worked in the hospital there. Then I moved to Johannesburg and lived in the Mimosa Hotel in Hillbrow and worked at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. Interestingly, Baragwanath is named after a Cornishman, John Albert Baragwanath. A year later I moved to Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha (one of the Queen Victoria Streets), and worked in the hospital there. When I wasn’t working, I was playing rugby for Crusaders or surfing J-Bay. Sadly, I never found out about the great estuary fishing there until after I’d left and moved to Cape Town, where I have lived since 1987.

The jobs I have had make up a long and rather diverse list: medical technologist, photocopier sales rep, sales trainer, insurance consultant, office secretary, newspaper columnist, independent publisher, fly fishing guide and handyman.

Right now, my typical day looks like chaos. I am moving, having just sold my house and still running my businesses, so there are boxes and stuff everywhere: clients pushing for things to be done, appointments with plumbers, electricians, beetle inspectors, gas fitters and more.

Presently, and for the past thirty odd years I suppose, my “home waters” are the rivers of the Limietberg in the Western Cape. They offer exceptionally good fishing for someone like me who really likes dry fly fishing above all other forms of the sport. That said my real “home” waters, closest to me in the Cape, used to be a filthy ditch

running between the municipal dump and a sewage farm just down the road. My friends and I honed our skills at what would now be called “Euronymphing,” catching massive carp averaging about 17lbs. Sadly the fishing there is no longer good nor safe.

In terms of fishing, I would say that the best advice I have ever been given is, “Fish the water as it needs to be fished.” In life terms, perhaps the best advice has been, “Never go back”. Don’t go back to places, relationships, jobs etc. It rarely works out.

Things I am very proud of include having represented South Africa at several World Fly Fishing Championships and being the only certified FFI (Fly Fishers International) Master Casting Instructor on the African continent. I am also pretty proud of the books I have written or even the storage bed I have just made for a customer.

The best party trick I have ever seen was back in my home town in Cornwall, during an annual bicycle pub crawl. The idea is that one has to drink a pint in each pub and make your way to the next pub on your bike.

There was a total of ten pubs on the route. One of the participants, who had previously been a part of the White Helmets military motorcycle display team, rode the three miles between pubs four and five, sitting on the handlebars facing and peddling backwards. This was all done in a state of at least semi-inebriation, without falling off!

I am not sure that anything truly comes easily in life.

Certainly, very little of true value does. I think that working at things that you like doing is easier than struggling with things that you don’t. So, at one level, for me fishing has been “easy,” but then I have also put in a lot of work at it. Perhaps the hardest thing for me, is to simply accept that one has to follow your own path, not necessarily what family, society or whatever deem “normal.”

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The most satisfying fish I ever caught would have to be a large female smallmouth yellowfish on the Bokong River in Lesotho. It was sight fished and taken on 8X tippet and a diminutive floating ant pattern. It’s not simply because of the fish, but the scenery is out of this world. It is isolated, quiet, beautiful and you have to put in some hard yards to get there.

Currently my go to drink is Milk Stout or Whisky, perhaps rather too often, both.

One place, never again…I would never go back into insurance sales. I absolutely hated it, and walked out in a near suicidal state with no job to go to, simply because I couldn’t stand it any longer. It was probably the lowest point of my life.

One place I have to return to, if ever possible, is Lesotho, a truly amazing place, with great fishing, super people, spectacular scenery and more.

The handiest survival skill I have is that I am pretty good at simply fixing things, which is also part of what I do for a living. I can usually make a plan to get something functioning. In my past I have rebuilt a car from scratch and, on a daily basis, I make and mend all manner of things. It is something that I enjoy very much.

In the past the most useful skill I mastered was to learn to touch type.

I am severely myopic and have a blind spot in my left eye. At the time I was worried I would go blind and decided to learn to touch type in case that ever happened. That has been one of the most amazing skills to have and each day I still get great pleasure out of being able to do it. For my money, it should be compulsory in schools for kids to learn to type.

The biggest adventure I’ve ever been on was a surf trip we did years ago in my grandad’s minivan, from Cornwall in the deep south of the UK to Thurso, on the northernmost tip of Scotland. For one thing, the surf there is exceptional and, for another, the trip is about as far as you can drive in the UK in one direction. Plus, I had to replace the brushes of the alternator on the car on the side of the motorway on the way home… all quite memorable.

If I could change one thing in fly fishing, I would to get rid of unconditional fly rod guarantees. They have forced the situation of new models every year, always claiming to be better, which they often aren’t. They have deprived fly shops of business in that where previously they would have sold another rod, they now just have to deal with the admin of a replacement. This has meant that you can’t buy the rod that you liked because it is not in

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production by the time you can afford it. It was an idea for a short-term market advantage which has now led to a major shift in the way rods are manufactured, marketed and sold. To my mind that hasn’t really been a good shift.

I think that it is pretty much common knowledge that the only way forward is to do what you are afraid of. I have, in my past, done some pretty serious rock climbing, surfed some quite large waves and moved to countries I had never visited before. All of those things are scary when you start out.

Something I really would like to do before I die is to build my own house. I am not sure that is even reasonable but second best would be to renovate one entirely. I find something very satisfying about building things, particularly if you are going to use them yourself.

I think that I get as much pleasure out of fly fishing as I ever did, quite possibly more, but things are less rushed now. I don’t fuss about numbers. I am more focused on how I catch fish, rather than how many I catch. I take a bit more time to look at the scenery, watch the world and simply ponder the flow of the stream.

I take more notice of the insects and the flowers and I quit when I have had enough, rather than pressing on into the dark.

Looking back on my life, I think that the time I spent trying to be a corporate guy was quite possibly wasted. I didn’t like it, it isn’t me and I am much happier doing my own thing and running my own business. But, of course, you can never be sure that there aren’t things one learns even if you are unaware of them. I find that most things turn out to be of benefit in the end and that few experiences, even ones that appear bad at the time, are not entirely without some positive spin off.

Something I have changed my mind about is war. I think that as kids we all tend to imagine that war is glorious, brave, noble and we watch movies which promote that idea. At this point in my life, I see war as entirely pointless, wasteful, damaging and horrendous. Essentially, it’s entirely without benefit and hurts those who have no say in them the most.

The last fish I caught was a rainbow trout at the confluence of the Kraalstroom and Elandspad Rivers on a dry fly in the midst of a very large termite hatch. * In the now iconic Bells Whisky “Give that man a Bells” advert ,where villagers locked out of their local pub before the big game enlist the help of a fly fisherman to hook the keys, the guy doing the actual fly casting is Tim Rolston.

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POP QUIZ S E R G E B L A N K - O U O R E L O N ’ S M U S K ? Y I P P E E - K I -YAY O R I X N AY O N T H E H O M B R E ? TA K E O U R Q U I C K Q U I Z T O S E E I F YO U P I C K E D U P ANYTHING FROM THIS ISSUE.

“Greg! Possible wife at ten o’clock. Could be a buff. Increase Tinder radius to 20km.”

1. Which FlyCastAway guide is impersonating the landscape at Sterkfontein Dam on our cover (page 32)?

A. Justin Rollingstone B. Crag Richardson C. Nic Isaboulder D. Tim Babushcka E. Mielieboi Dongariro

4. After catching bonito off the rocks in the Southern Cape, Jazz Kuschke’s victory tune is (page 50)?

A. Queen – Princes of the Universe.

B. William Onyeabor – Fantastic Man. C. Tribe Called Quest – Can I Kick It? D. Grinderman – Get It On. E. AC/DC – Thunderstruck.

2. What inspired our High Fives guide Greg Ghaui and his colleague Andrew Danckwerts to strip off and pose with a buffalo skull and a stuffed tigerfish on a sandbank in the middle of a Tanzanian river (page 22)?

A. Fame… and Fortune Magazine.

B. East African Tinder pickings.

C. A centrefold in notorious smut rag, Dun Magazine.

D. An exposé in Horse & Hound magazine.

E. A new editorial perspective at Field & Stream.

5. The fly tying material, Nayat, comes from… (page 88)?

A. Bigfoot’s ballhairs.

B. The mane of an Icelandic Pony.

C. The ears of an Arctic Runner.

D. The dungeon of MC Coetzer.

E. Bigstreamers who ain’t telling.

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Answers: 1. D, 2. C, 3. D, 4. E, 5. D&E, 6. D

3. Which animal moaned amorously at David Reverdito’s casting in Sterkies for Noobs (page 32)?

A. Peter Whittaker.

B. A puffadder.

C. A smallmouth yellowfish.

D. A wildebeest.

E. The Bush Pig.

6. Outside of his on-stream skills, our Lifer Tim Rolston is also known for his TV work as… (page 104)?

A. Top Gear’s fearless driver The Stig.

B. Ross Kemp from EastEnders and Gangs.

C. DJ Hi-Tek from Die Antwoord.

D. The talent behind the rod in the Bells Whisky advert ‘Give that man a Bells’.

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TO THE MISSION! Don’t panic. The Mission Fly Fishing Magazine will always be free • You can pick up the latest issue at one of our stockists.

• Or read the digital version online, forever.

However… if neither of those options work for you (perhaps there’s no stockist near you; you live outside of South Africa; or you just really want to support us), you can now subscribe and have the print magazine sent directly to you.

The Mission annual subscription Receive 6 issues of The Mission Fly Mag in print • South Africa: R380 incl. VAT per year • Outside of South Africa: R2 200 per year Sign up now and receive a The Mission-branded neoprene sunglass strap,* so you can have us on your mind at all times.

VISIT THEMISSIONFLYMAG.COM TO SIGN UP. *Sunglasses and model (our Art Director Boderick) not included.

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