FLY FISHING WITH A GEOGRAPHER – A PHOTO ESSAY

13 November 2010

Gijsbert Hoogendoorn is a geographer working on his PhD in Johannesburg. He has fished widely but never on a Cape stream, meaning that this trip was a first for him.

Unhappily it was a day when the water was high after heavy showers of unseasonably late rain, but the trout were fun if the wading wasn’t.

Using a small size 14 DDD, Gijsbert took a rainbow on his first cast. That’s not common. Later when we’d used up his supply we went on to the CdC Midge, RABs, even a rough copy of the Wolf Spider. They all took trout but the point is Gijsbert never once had to open his nymph box.

The day began cloudy and windless, but gradually the clouds opened to show patches of blue sky that to start with we thought we had no chance of seeing.

In high water spotting fish in Cape streams was tricky but we did sight the occasional trout, though mostly only when they were conveniently lying over pale stones and moving to nymphs and closed off that lovely loop – sight, present, strike, land and release!

I think for a first trip to a Cape stream Gijsbert did really well. Sure he missed fish, but he landed a heap. Besides I never met an angler who doesn’t miscue a few down here. They can be very quick, and in high water, seem even quicker.

Gijsbert was taken with the prettiness of the rainbows and remarked on the deep yellowness of their pectoral fins.

Later that afternoon as we climbed out of the stream the clouds had all but lifted. The fynbos was brightly decked and the stroll back to the truck was like a walk through some extravagant city garden.