With Summer fast becoming a thing of the past and the country side turning brown at a rapid pace don't be surprised if you walk out of your front door one morning to be confronted by a brass monkey with his balls in his hands looking for a welding machine. It is fast approaching that time of year when artlure anglers start looking for alternatives to those long hot days of catching many species in shallow clear water. The fodder fish have gone deep taking the predators down with them.
There are quite a few options. Those of us who were on a free pass for summer suddenly realized that nothing in life is free and the chore jar is filled to the brim with chores like painting, replacing and repairing around the house. For them this is going to be a long winter. The bass purest who cannot get away from his prize alien invader now replaces words like weightless flukes, chatterbaits and zara spooks with words like 20 to 30 feet deep, large drop-offs, deep down divers and dropshot fishing. Slow and deep becomes the order of the day.
Those of us who live within half a days drive from Machadodorf and the Eastern highlands now trade their gillie rods and dipping sticks for a 6 weight fly rod and start yakking away about matching the hatch and evening rises. Leadheads and plonsers become walkers killers and wollybuggers.
Now there are a privileged few of us who live in Kwa-Zulu Natal (south Africa) who cannot wait for the first frost and chilly weather because once the rains stop tormenting us there are rivers like the Mooi and Umkomaas which clear up and the Scalie (also known as the Natal Yellowfish) fishing goes into top gear. Catching scalie on an effzette spinner on light tackle or on a fly rivals any freshwater fishing in the province. Pound for pound they are considered the strongest fighting fish by many.
Five artlure explorers and good friends, sensing that if they spent the whole long weekend watching rugby, that sooner than later the chore jar would be thrust into their grubby paws Seized upon the chance to visit an old farmer friend on the Mooi River in Muden and try out some fly fishing for scalies.
The River was a little high and a bit discolored by the recent snow which had chased the brass monkeys into town but as the saying goes a bad days fishing is certainly better than the best day painting.
The most successful rig was tungsten beaded olive damsel fly as a dropper with an orange hotspot as a trailer fly both tied on a no. 16 hook. this was cast across the shallow entries to the deeper pools and drifted on the bottom into the pools. Most takes were on the drift down and some were surprisingly on the retrieve.
In total some 16 fish were caught ranging from 20cm to some nice fish of 40cm, 45cm and the biggest of the day measuring 50cm in length. Judging from the success of this trip it appears that some chore jars are going to stay filled for a long time to come.
With Summer fast becoming a thing of the past and the country side turning brown at a rapid pace don't be surprised if you walk out of your front door one morning to be confronted by a brass monkey with his balls in his hands looking for a welding machine. It is fast approaching that time of year when artlure anglers start looking for alternatives to those long hot days of catching many species in shallow clear water. The fodder fish have gone deep taking the predators down with them.
like the Mooi and Umkomaas which clear up and the Scalie (also known as the Natal Yellowfish) fishing goes into top gear. Catching scalie on an effzette spinner on light tackle or on a fly rivals any freshwater fishing in the province. Pound for pound they are considered the strongest fighting fish by many.
ich had chased the brass monkeys into town but as the saying goes a bad days fishing is certainly better than the best day painting.