I think fly fishing has the potential to be much more an appetite of the mind than a just a physical pursuit...

On Small streams, bamboo and the meaning of life.

By

Ian Cox

I recently attended the Rhodes Wild Trout Festival. It is something I try to fit into my annual fly fishing calendar and by and large I have been successful. It is an event I look forward to all year. It provides an opportunity to meet up with old friends and make new ones while enjoying some the most abundant, if not the best, river fishing in the country. This year turned out to be extra special but for all the wrong reasons. You see I was given a Stephen Boshoff 2wt rod last year and with that gift, joined the small community of fly fisherman who use bamboo fly rods. And so it was that on the last day of the festival I found myself walking up a beautiful little valley to fish what I was told was virgin water in the company of two fisherman whose skills and experience vastly exceeded mine.

And that is the first lesson in life. It’s horribly unfair, I know, but one of the sad facts of the life we live is that you can buy your way in.  I can tell you that in the small stream world a decent bamboo rod is in the platinum class of gate passes. I know this because there is no way in hell my fishing skills were good enough to do justice to that stream or the company I was fishing in.

So onto the second lesson which is once you are in you have to play the game. What a lesson that turned out to be. I am a big picture kind of guy. I look for simple truths in almost everything I do. Keep it simple, cut the crap and that sort of thing have become the mantras on which my fishing – and it has to be said my daily life – have been built. And yes small stream fishing is about those things, but there is a catch. You see simplicity in fishing really small streams is to be found in the detail and getting that right that is not easy.

(Click in images to enlarge them)

The Glen Nesbit

Small water is generally thin water. Though oxygen is abundant, food is not. Those fish that survive grow up slow and wary. Spooky is what keeps them alive and if they have not seen a fisherman before, then everything you do will put that fish to flight, so immense care is required. One cannot be seen, one cannot line the fish, one must get the fly in the right place first time and finally one must avoid drag.  Much easier said than done when you are trying to get a fly into a fast flowing pool not much larger than a Jacuzzi and a good deal shallower.

The author with a Boshoff 2 weight

It is dawning on me as I get older that the meaning of life, if there is one, is to be found in doing little things well. I think the Japanese are onto something in the pursuit of the perfect cup of tea. You see as the day progressed I realised that fishing a small stream is very much the same as making that perfect cup of tea. It is not about catching a fish. The joy is in the successful execution of the process. You can’t just walk up to a small stream, make a good caste and catch a fish. Well you can and you will catch fish, as I did, but it is not what this is about.

Russell Dixon with his E F Payne bamboo

It is about taking care. You can’t just look. You also have to see. Having done that you must decide on your approach, which in turn requires one to identify your objective. Your plan must be properly executed, preferably flawlessly and the first time. This all requires a measure of contemplation and concentration, not to mention an honest appraisal of your ability or lack thereof.

Tony Kietzman and a Dugmore 000

But put it all together, and I managed this only once and one begins to realise why it is that so much is written about this so called sport of ours. You see I think fly fishing has the potential to be much more an appetite of the mind than a just a physical pursuit. Such things must of course have balance lest one succumb to the madness that lurks in the pursuit of any obsession. But that said, far too many people have experienced a heightened sense of self, a profound sense of inner joy, or what the ancient Greeks called Ekstasis with a fly rod in hand for there not to be something in it. Or at least that’s how I felt when a second cast perfectly presented into 3 inches of water produced a 30cm fish.  And it’s still how I feel writing this almost exactly a week later.

Tony Kietzman – Glen Nesbit

So where is this magical water? It’s a tributary of the Bokspruit. Its called Glen Nesbit and thanks to the generosity of its owners, Ronnie and Tienie Small, it has just become part of the Wild Trout Association’s water. You’ll find it in the 2013 Epsom Wild Trout guide. Get a copy of the guide from Dave Walker //This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it./">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Or better still, make a trip to Rhodes. You won’t be sorry you did.