Fishing Sterkfontein

[henried]

We have spent the last three December holidays at Drakensville ATKV, focusing most of our fishing on the duck pond next to our accommodation. This year however, we booked a day trip to Sterkfontein…

I decided to make use of Andre, from Present a Fly, after recommendation from fly fishing forum members. I can recommend him and we had a very successful day on the water. We were three fishermen in the group with varying fly fishing experience. Andre made sure that we all got fish.

When I woke up the morning of our trip, the wind was blowing hard and we were not sure whether we would be able to fish. We met Andre at the slipway, boat already in the water…

It has been some time since I last fished so tactical…

Our first stop was “Eskol”.

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The wind was still blowing and we did not see any fish. The wind did not make it easy for us and we tried for about 40 min with no success. We moved to Boschkloof.  I decided to get out of the boat and fish from the side, while the others anchored in the bay and fished from the boat. I moved up as high as possible. I found this spot with shoaling fish all around.

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I got my first take on my second cast, but was not ready for it and the fight lasted less than 3 seconds before the fish came loose. I tried for another hour with a grasshopper and beetle, with hotspot suspended below, but with no success.

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I decided to get rid of the dry fly and only fish the hotspot. I casted into a channel where the fish was moving up and down. In less than 5 min I was into a nice size fish. I landed one more fish in the same manner. The rest of the group had takes, but all broke the X4 tip, as we all struggled to get used to the take of the Sterkies yellows…

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We spend most of the day there, but decided to move to Nuwejaarsvlei in the afternoon. A storm was building and we were preparing to stop and take cover. The wind was still blowing and Andre instructed us to fish the weed beds with a hopper or beetle.

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Fish were rising everywhere and it took some time for us to master the tactics of letting the beetle move with the wind. We got smashed numerous times and must have lost as many fish as we caught, but eventually we got the hang of it and caught some nice fish.

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[img width=560 height=373]http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr5/ ... cc7bdc.jpg[/img]

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“What an experience!”

[Gerhard]

Wow...

Baie nice

[theedge]

nice baie mooi