Introduction to South African Fly-fishing

Seychelles for GT's, The Zambezi for Tigers, Russia for Salmon, the Amazon for Peacock Bass and New Zealand for river trout.

These locations are all a fly-fisherman's dream, exotic as they may be, the price tag often associated with trips like these are beyond what most of South Africa's fly-fishermen can afford.

The good news is that we have some world class fishing in our very own slice of Africa. Through the recent economy bust, with times being harder then ever for most of us, stresses of daily life can become a strain, crime rates, power failures and road-work construction is evident in our busy city lives.

Thus, the joy of fly-fishing comes into the equation, balancing our work-lives full of stress with a weekend on some of the best trout, yellowfish and bass waters available. Non-fly fishermen, or, drifters, as i shall from now on refer to them, often ask us what drives us to invade the aquatic homes of our piscatorial quarry, why we spend days wading a river, striving for that perfect, drag-free drift over the ghostly shadow that is a 20-inch brownie, or why we 'waste' our energy and time on a float tube in the middle of a dam, battling the wind while being used as a perch for hatching mayflies, in search of that 10lb+ trout of a lifetime.

What these drifters do not take into account is the essence of fishing, it is not simply the quest to catch as much fish as possible (Other than competitive fly-fishing, which ill cover a little later on), but rather the journey involved before that heart-stopping adrenaline rush that comes from seeing a bass engulfing your surface popper, or your line being wrenched taut as a trophy trout grabs your Wooly Bugger, it is the careful preparation of your fly boxes, the lovingly tied flies in the vice. Days, weeks or months before the time, the scenic drive through some of the most stunning places in Southern Africa, and the soft bubbling of the stream, as the sun sets behind the Drakensberg, the perfect, tight cast under the overhanging branches and the flash of silver as a wild stream trout inhales the little nymph suspended under your carefully tied DDD.

Local anglers often dream about faraway places, take a better look at fly fishing in South Africa, and you will see that grass is often greener on the banks of the Mooi river. Following this article, i will post a series of my personal viewpoints and tips about South African Fly-fishing, note that i do not acclaim to be an expert in any field, but will use personal knowledge and that taught to me by some of the passionate anglers and vast amounts of literature on the subject to share what i believe is world-class fishing.