Gerhard Laubscher - Fly fishing photographer par excellance
I want to highlight the photography of Gerhard Laubscher, a local lad one of the most creative fly fishing photographers I know. His pictures have a bright crispness about them and he has a gift for composition – and for finding unusual slants to straightforward subjects. His photographs are dotted through this newsletter and there’s a collection of them at the end. He uses a Canon 5D Mk 111, favours Canon’s 70-200 mm and 16 – 35 lenses and only shoots in RAW mode.
Click in images to enlarge them
Gerhard is the CEO of Flycastaway a very successful South African-based fly fishing destination service operating in venues around the world.
All Fishermen are liars
John Gierach’s latest book, All Fishermen Are Liars, lives up to the sort of writing we have come to expect from him; meaning entertaining and interesting, often poetic and contemplative, laced with his own brand of sardonic wit and his masterful use of the surprise one-liner. Let me give you just an example from this book.
When I was asked by an interviewer if I considered myself a fisherman first and a writer second or vice versa, I truthfully answered, ‘Yes’
The first chapter is especially interesting as it amounts to Gierach’s autobiography told in a nutshell and cleverly relayed in the third person. There are interesting glimpses of fishing for trout, salmon, coasters (lake-held brook trout) and steelhead as well as chapters on fly rods, fishing Tenkara and an eclectic mix of visits to interesting venues and rivers. His chapter on fishing new water, in this case a small stream, is a masterpiece. It will touch so many of your own on-stream life experiences so precisely that you will forgive yourself the goose bumps you get reading it.
Here’s a quote from this very chapter:
‘We fishermen constantly overestimate the intelligence of fish so that matching wits with them doesn’t seem too ridiculous,…’
This book is Gierach at his best.
Simon & Schuster New York. Hardcover, 2011 pages, with pen and ink chapter heading sketches.
Copies, including a few signed copies, are available as direct sales or mail order from Craig Thom at 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.
Trout in South Africa
The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) issued a press statement this week regarding the classification of trout as an invasive species to which FOSAF and Trout SA responded expressing many misgivings that I share. FOSAF’s response and that of Trout SA is on the FOSAF website and I encourage you to read them.
Image per Gerhard Laubscher
This is my own response submitted to the DEA on their press release:
I refer to two specific statements in your press release, namely that there is ‘no threat to existing legal trout industries’ and that ‘trout should be exploited fully’. These sentiments clearly contradict the legal implications and consequences of a species labelled ‘invasive’ and serve only to sow the seeds of growing concern among anglers, trout destination and syndicate owners, fly fishing retailers and the aquaculture industry.
I listened to a recent interview given by Dr Guy Preston, Director-General of the DEA, on Cape Talk Radio (20 May 2014) when it became clear that controlling trout as an invasive species is an enormous and almost impossible task and that the DEA has anyway many other pressing needs that require its attention. One only has to look at the overall state of South Africa’s environmental wellbeing to agree with him.
Yet within all this, the capacity and the resolve of fly fishers and riparian owners to safeguard the streams and rivers where trout are found, and the environs that surround them, is increasingly evident. Thus in many ways trout waters are a blessing to this country as they invariably promote sound conservation practises simply because the continued existence of trout is so tenuous and so dependent on pristine conditions. As a consequence, many informal but advantageous self-regulatory systems are already in place in trout habitats, although the formal regulation of trout in South Africa, both as recreational and agricultural assets, has my full support and the support of FOSAF and Trout SA. In fact, it was the deregulation of trout that gave impetus to the formation of FOSAF in 1985 in the first place.
I am not opposed to the principle of regulating alien invasive species, but in a near lifetime of fly fishing for trout in South Africa I have yet to be provided with any convincing scientific evidence that they are invasive. The entire postulation being made by the DEA regarding their invasive listing and their future management is therefore, in my view, subject to serious question. Should any scientifically sound risk assessment of the relative value of trout as opposed to the risks they pose have been done, then the DEA should make this public as it is pivotal to this entire debate.
Image per Gerhard Laubscher. The Bell River near Rhodes
Tom Moran
This week saw the sad but very peaceful passing of one of the world’s top bamboo rod makers, Tom Moran. Ed Herbst commented:
I don’t not what comfort there is, other than to say he will leave the world a better place and he will have an enduring legacy because his name will always be up there with the greats and his standards will be the standards that others will aspire to in future
What price the Itchen?
I was fascinated to read in Simon Cooper’s newsletter – he is a chalk stream expert and runs Fishing Breaks a guiding business in Hampshire – that a beat of the upper Itchen is available to be leased for 25 years.
The beat of the upper Itchen up for grabs. Photo per Fishin Breaks
1175 yards of both banks are on offer and the asking price is £600 000. That’s over 10 million Rand, or if you break it down to a yearly rental, a mere R415 200. Look, the figures are staggering, but it got me thinking that we maybe under-value our trout fishing assets in this country.
I fished the upper Itchen on Roger Harrison’s water not a mile or two from the very place this stretch if offered, twice in the last few years and it is marvellous. As Simon says ‘It rates close to the pinnacle of chalk stream fly fishing.’ I caught heaps lovely brown trout and one or two grayling on a dry fly on each visit. This is where the Itchen runs under Roger and Victoria’s home that dates from the Domesday book.
Where the Itchen runs under Roger Harrison’s home
As an aside, Roger showed me a fly wallet and flies he discovered by chance in his home. They are framed and belonged to a previous owner of the house. The wallet is dated 1795!
Balloch, bouquets and brides
Ed Herbst writes:
In 1992 Tom Sutcliffe and I journeyed to Barkly East to attend the Barkly Wild Trout Expo. The Barkly Wild Trout Association (http://www.wildtrout.co.za/) had been started the previous year with Dave Walker, (see link below) owner of Walkerbouts Inn in Rhodes as chairman and the secretary was Margy Frost who, with her husband Graham, farmed in a beautiful Balloch valley in the New England area of Barkly East.
http://www.tomsutcliffe.co.za/fly-fishing/friend-s-articles/item/172-profile-on-dave-walker.html
It was an exceptionally serendipitous visit because we were to make friends during that visit that were to affect our lives in a profoundly positive way, friendships that endure to this day.
The start of enduring friendships. Ed Herbst, right in 1992 with BWTA chairman Dave Walker and secretary Margy Frost
It was also to introduce us to streams that are hauntingly beautiful; the upper Bokspruit on Basie and Carien Vosloo’s farm, Gateshead, the Swith Stream on John Jordaan’s farm near the top of the Naude’s Nek Pass and Balloch to name but a few.
Balloch …. Well, what I can I say?
This pastoral valley has impressed humankind since the beginning of time as the San paintings in its caves testify. There is one in which hunters are being pursued by a lion and the strands attaching them to the sky indicate that soon they will be making their transition to the netherworld.
Photo per Margy Frost
We are not quite sure what the original name is of the stream running through the valley. We call it the Willow, but apparently its original name was ‘Vlooikraalspruit’ testament to the pestilent fleas that made life miserable for both humans and the cattle and sheep kept overnight in these stone enclosures while being driven to market a century and a half ago.
Robin Renwick on the Willow in the lower valley on Balloch (Photo Tom Sutcliffe)
Where Balloch farm begins the stream is shady, shrouded by willows and other trees. The upper valley is more open, littered with giant pieces of stone that have broken off the towering cliff faces and tumbled down to litter the valley floor.
Billy de Jong on the upper Willow on Balloch (Photo Tom Sutcliffe)
When we first met Graham and Margy, their three children Paul, Peter and Lindsey ranged in age from six to three and as Paul was already an avid fly fisher and tyer I kitted them out with rods, reels and lines and fly tying vises and tools
Over the years I have watched them grow and in 2011 Paul brought his fiancé to meet me in Cape Town when I was recovering from a neurological illness. By then he was an engineer and Marion Owen was in the final stages of a medical degree. They had met at the University of Cape Town when they were students.
They were married at Balloch this April and I asked Marion to send me some of the wedding photographs taken by her cousin, Mike Rose, a professional photographer. See link below to Mike's website.
http://archive.mikerosephoto.com/
Frosty with a frosty. Paul Frost enjoys his last cast on the Willow Stream as a bachelor
Both Paul and Peter, also an engineer, have returned to the farm and they will be the fourth generation to farm at Balloch. Marion is doing her community service year as a doctor at the hospital in Barkly East
Paul and Marion Frost after getting married in the beautiful Balloch valley in Barkly East
If you are in the area do yourself a favour and fish the Willow. There are rainbows in the lower section and the upper section, separated by a waterfall, has browns.
The newlyweds pose for a truly spectacular wedding photograph
There is a stone cottage on the farm as well as well-equipped camp sites and you can get details on the http://archive.mikerosephoto.com/
Living on Balloch with such an idyllic stream on your doorstep sounds like an ideal life to me – at least in summer – and Paul tells me that one his wedding presents from Marion was the new baby Wychwood fly reel which I reviewed on this site.
I envy them both.
Donald Fergusonoffers books for sale
THE BASIC MANUAL OF FLY-TYING
Fundamentals of imitation. Large format softcover written by Paul N. Fling and Donald L. Puterbaugh, with step-by-step illustrations on tying 24 assorted flies. 192 pages with index. Very good condition. Published by Sterling, 1981. R200.00 and tracked. P&P R30.00.
FLY PATTERNS
An International Guide. Hardcover with dust jacket written by Taff Price, illustrations by George Thompson. 160 pages with index, appendices and hook charts. A multitude of full colour flies! Excellent condition. Reprint by Ward Lock, 1988. R400.00 and tracked. P&P R30.00.
FLY-FISHING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA by Robert Kirby. A brilliant and most collectable book. R400.00 and tracked. P&P R30.00.
Hastings trout fishing syndicate share for sale
A share in Hastings, a fly fishing trout syndicate in the upper Dargle area of KZN, is offered for sale by Rob Coulson who has been a member of the syndicate since it was formed more than 20 years ago. The asking price is R350 000. Rob’s contact details are: 033 3306901 or 072 2508745.
Photographer of the week – Gerhard Laubscher
Tom Sutcliffe
