From: 09/01/2015
To: 10/04/2015
Type of Water: Freshwater
Species: Brown trout
September started out cool, as far as I can remember. I know I fished on the 6th on a club stillwater, and it was one of those pretty afternoons in which sharp warm sunlight cuts across shaded folds in the hills in the late afternoon in the face of a pleasantly cool breeze. PD and I were sitting on the dam wall, sipping a cold beer or two, taking in the view, and generally letting the stresses of work wash away. We were rudely awakened from our ‘half-slumber’ by a fish that rolled over PD’s DDD. There was a lot of scrambling, some spilt beer and a strike delivered so late that it was laughable.
We hadn’t done the river, since there hadn’t been any good rain since the seasons opening on 1st September, and I prefer to leave the rivers until they have been flushed out a bit. Ho View more...September started out cool, as far as I can remember. I know I fished on the 6th on a club stillwater, and it was one of those pretty afternoons in which sharp warm sunlight cuts across shaded folds in the hills in the late afternoon in the face of a pleasantly cool breeze. PD and I were sitting on the dam wall, sipping a cold beer or two, taking in the view, and generally letting the stresses of work wash away. We were rudely awakened from our ‘half-slumber’ by a fish that rolled over PD’s DDD. There was a lot of scrambling, some spilt beer and a strike delivered so late that it was laughable.
We hadn’t done the river, since there hadn’t been any good rain since the seasons opening on 1st September, and I prefer to leave the rivers until they have been flushed out a bit. However, with water levels low, and hence easy access to and across the river for work purposes, the NFFC had its work party on the Umgeni on 12th September. Apologies, this is not fishing news, but since it concerns stream restoration for Trout, it is perhaps relevant. I was with a few guys on the sort of “forward team” that went upriver, skipping big trees, but tackling small ones. At the day’s end we returned to where our colleagues had worked on a shorter stretch of river, and had aimed at a complete clean-up of wattle trees. As we crested the hill, I heard Roy Ward gasp in amazement beside me. It really did look good. Kind of like Delville wood after the battle. Complete annihilation! Very satisfying. I will be back there on their next day, which is on 17th October.
A week later, and with Umgeni enthusiasm coursing through our veins, Graeme Steart and I tackled a lower club stretch of particularly deep slow water. It was cold miserable weather. Really miserable. I had commented to Graeme that Browns like it this way. Thankfully he proved me right. The man couldn’t go wrong. He was using a little black CDC nymph thing, about #12, with a positively byzantine metallic blue bead up front. Graeme clobbered 7 fish, with some particularly good ones amongst them. We named the fly the “XR6” spoken with an accent of a particular ethnicity that seemed to suit it.
Last week I was back on the Umgeni, but just for a river clearing recce. The flow was quite thin. News from facebook and other sources suggest that the upper Bushmans and Mooi were similarly thin, but that many guys enjoyed catching their first Browns of the season despite the conditions. However, in the last 2 weeks we have had some rather severe heat, and only token rainfall. By that I mean temperatures of 29 and 30 degrees C, water at 19 and 20 degrees C, and drizzle yielding just a few millimetres where it counts in the catchments. As Jan Korrubel has highlighted, even the 5 or 6 mm in Nottingham Road is of little significance when people much higher up the valley report 1 mm followed by hot windy weather.
I just got a call from two friends who fished a stillwater in the Kamberg this morning. They were alarmed at how low the levels of the dams are. Farmers are having to use their dams for the purpose for which they were built: Irrigation. And I am afraid that Trout are playing second fiddle. Despite this lack of rain, I heard of a few guys lucky enough to have access to some waters NOT used for irrigation, which are still overflowing, and by sticking to early morning and late afternoon, they have had some superb fishing.
So my advice: Do a rain dance; check on water conditions before you head out; go higher and cooler; go early or late, and return fish which you are lucky enough to catch, very quickly.
And for the long term: Support initiatives to remove water sucking, fly catching, erosion inducing, wattle trees from catchments. That will see the effects of hot dry springs being a little less severe in future. End of punt.
And now I must run: I am fishing the evening rise on a stretch of river just up the road this evening.
Tight lines.
Andrew Fowler
