Rock and Roll fly fishing –What happens to traditional salmon flies in Africa?

 Gordon Van der Spuy

A while back I decided to start tying traditional Atlantic salmon flies. I scoured the net, read a couple of blogs, phoned some guys and started tying these things. Well, six months later, I haven’t really even started. Mostly I’m just doing finger exercises. Like a kid who plays scales for hours on end before tackling the big piano concerto.

Tying traditional Atlantic salmon flies is a bit like watching a rugby world cup final between the Boks and the Kiwis . Its nerve wracking, touch and go stuff, and yes, a loss can be included in the ‘worst day of your life’ category. But a victory is sweet. Basking in the glory after a minor success with a salmon fly can last for weeks. Until you tackle the next one and realize you’d got lucky and still don’t know too much.

So why do it you ask? Same reason we chase fish with flies and not with hand grenades. Here’s poetry combined with a touch of madness.

When I first thought of tying traditional salmon flies a few months ago I phoned Murray Peddar. Murray is a genius and humble.

'Come in, I’ll get you started’, he said. Well I pulled in to his shop at 9 in the morning and left 5 that afternoon. A minor crash course in salmon fly tying you could call it. We spoke about tying with floss, correcting crests, the concept of rights and lefts, marrying feather slips, tying in under wings and just general salmon fly stuff. It didn’t sound too complicated and with a few small paper bags of tying material Murray kindly sponsored me, I was set to tie the king of salmon flies, the Jock Scott.

Jock Scott tied and photographed by Luca Montenari of Rome

The next day I woke up with a spring in my step. Today was the day. I felt like a beggar who had just got a million bucks from a passing motorist. Over the moon!

 But the euphoria was short lived because three hours into the fly I started losing momentum. The floss kept fraying. I think I tied and retied the body 20 times before I got it right.

 Lesson 1- when your brain starts frying, take a break, drink tea, stretch the legs.

After that it went pretty much downhill, but after nine hours I had a rather sorry looking Jock Scott which my friend Hans van Zyl keeps away from me so that I don’t cut it up to reuse the hook. History he calls it. Murray agrees with him, 'No, you don’t cut up your first salmon fly ,no matter how bad it looks. It’s your first one; lock it away in a cupboard and then in two years when you feel a bit more confident, see how far you’ve come'.

Lesson 2- your materials are 99,9% of the game. Almost nothing you need is available locally and needs to be brought in. Catastrophic if you’re an actor. Start up cost is equivalent to about 3 months salary. The solution is to offer to tie these things for free, provided the guys you do it for provide the needed materials. Tom Sutcliffe helped me and placed a little ad in his newsletter. The result was manna from heaven. After that the materials issue was semi sorted out. Some really generous people had come to my rescue.

 Thank you all. Amongst these was Mark Krige who sent me a few matching peacock primaries. Those are the big wing feathers. You need one from each wing to get both right and left slips to work with. I subsequently tied him a salmon fly as thanks. It was what one could call a freestyle salmon fly, tied in the classic style, but not according to a set pattern. The availability of materials in this case determined what the fly looked like.

 When I phoned Mark to see if the fly had arrived, he said, ‘Yes, it looks lovely, but I still don’t understand why you’re actually doing this. Salmon flies are beautiful, but I fish the flies I tie. In fact I’m in the mood to go give this fly a throw later on, maybe I can get a barbel on it’.

 'No !’, I found myself replying out loud. ‘Look, give the fly a throw by all means, but come on guy, let’s not waste it on a barbell. What else do you think you could use it on?’

 ‘Well , I’m on my way to the Zambezi soon,’ he said. ‘Come to think of it the colour scheme is perfect, It would imitate the natural baitfish nicely. Reckon I could take a tiger on it’.

And that is exactly what Mark did. In fact, he took three tigers on the fly, all babies. On his return he dropped me a mail and made a chirp about its lack of durability, but I guess I can live with that. One doesn’t in the final analysis, tie these flies with tigerfish in mind.

When I told Gijsbert Hoogendoorn the story he just hung his head, ‘What a shame. It’s a bit like Rock and Roll fly fishing; like when van Halen trashed his hotel room because the guys forgot to put his special sweets in his room”.

 Gijsbert Hoogendoorn

I guess Gijsbert has a point. But then again maybe that’s just how we roll in Africa.

 Lesson 3- Keep all salmon flies away from Mark Krige.

Mark Krige, one of the best and most versatile fly tyers in South Africa