| September 09 |
| Written by Pieter Naudé |
|
SCFF News August 2009 This edition of SCFF News was originally saved on my computer as the July edition. I just did not have the motivation to sit down and complete the newsletter as very little happened in the last few months, and it was not fair on our readers to dish up some warmed-up old stories. I have received some reports from Andre Jonck, Paul van Reenen and Dewald Kirsten of Fly South Adventures, but there seems to be very little happening in our area. The very dry conditions and low water levels in most of the estuaries have turned many of them into ponds of stagnant water and floating alge. I am afraid that little will change until our prayers are answered and we receive enough rain to flush out these contaminated water bodies. The Touw River estuary, my local pleasure pond, is in a sad state and in desperate need of a mega-flush. What the Garden Route needs is a week long soft drizzle or “perske reën” to soak the earth, flush the rivers and restore the estuaries to an anglers paradise.??? Winter Woes or Winter Cheer Flyfishing in the Garden Route comes to a virtual standstill in the winter months, unless you prepared to try your luck for winter yellows in the Gouritz River or some “stockies” (trout) at Outeniqua Trout Lodge or Bo-Vlakte farm near Barrydale. Some of our members ventured further afield to test their skills against the trout of Thrift Dam in the Eastern Cape. Paul van Reenen and Andre Jonck could no longer sit at home and wait for summer and headed off to Thrift Dam with Pauls boat in tow. I received a few photos and very little feedback, other than, “is was a wonderful trip”. I asked Andre to tell me a little more so that he can inform and educate us. I translated his e-mail, written in shorthand Afrikaans for your benefit. “We used all tipes of flies, big ones imitating tadpoles, Paul’s spinner type flies, dark blue and black flies and one of my own transparent nymphs tied with wings. The black, white and blue flies were tied clouser style and most fish were caught with an intermediate line, sink leader and 5,5kg tippet. The line was allowed to sink first, before retrieving the fly slowly. Paul’s spinner type fly was retrieved faster to get the spinner behaviour/movement. Our tactics depended on the situation at the time and varied from prospecting the deep, middle and top water sections of the dam. I think the secret was to change our tactics on a regular basis. The fish we caught did not seem to be fussy and as long as you could locate them, they succumbed to any fly in their vicinity. The other secret was to have your line in the water all the time. I re-learned a few old lessons – one of them was to tie my knots carefully and to test them before casting. The other was to wear clothes that will protect you against the cold winter weather of the Eastern Cape. I would have preferred to have a Gillie to man the anchor so that my hands would not get wet, and freeze-up, when constantly raising and dropping the anchor.” Based on the above shorthand report I have to conclude that the fish that was caught must have been fresh “stockies” that will chase down anything that moves. Maybe I am being unfair and don’t give them enough credit for their trout skills and dogged determination. What did intrigued me was Paul’s spinner fly. Was it a fly with a vibrating/spinning attachment or a cleverly tied fly that moves through the water with spinner characteristics. I phoned Paul and asked him to send me a photo of this mystery fly, but I am still waiting.? ?????????????? Humidity – Relative and Absolute Some of us are still unclear on the concept of relative humidity (RH). Just as we perspire and cry? "it is hot as Hell in here!" do not indicate the actual temperature in the room, relative humidity does not indicate the actual amount of water vapor in the air. Instead, RH tells us how close the air is to being saturated and is expressed as a percentage (%). This (%) indicates the amount of water vapor actually in the air compared to the amount of water vapor required for saturation at that particular pressure and temperature. Absolute humidity, on the other hand, is a measure of the actual water vapor density in a fixed volume of air. On a warm, muggy day we are often heard to sigh, "I don't mind the heat. I just can't take this darn humidity." This explains the difference, in human terms, between relative and absolute humidity. When we are hot, we perspire. The moisture evaporates into the air and cools the skin. If the RH is low, this evaporation happens very quickly and we perceive a lower air temperature. But when the RH is high and the air is approaching saturation, evaporation slows or halts and we sense higher air temperatures. With our very effective perspiration system, we would be more comfortable sitting in the shade of a cactus on an even warmer day in the desert! Relative humidity changes during the course of a day, but not because the amount of water vapor in the air changes much. It is the changing of air temperature that changes RH. As the air cools, RH increases. As it warms, RH decreases. So when we set the thermostat to “cool”, we effectively lower the RH! When the air conditioner cools the air, it increases its RH up to the point of saturation. The water vapor then condenses into liquid and drains out of the system. The cooled and dried air is then pumped into the house. In the winter, your heating system also dehumidifies the air. The cold air outside has little water vapor. When this air is pulled into the house and heated, the vapor capacity of the air rises dramatically, and so the RH plummets. You end up with desert-dry conditions inside the house. Any perspiration evaporates very quickly, leading to the famous winter dry skin, scratchy throat, and dry mucus membranes. Saltwater Flyfishing - Retrieving the Fly The whole essence of fly fishing, when compared to bait angling, is to offer the fish an imitation of his natural food instead of real and edible food. The challenge flyanglers face is that unless the fly is properly tied and realistically retrieved, fish will ignore it. There are only two responses that induce a fish to take a fly into its mouth; these are the need to feed and aggression. In most cases we would like to imitate something which will trigger a feeding response. This implies that the fly should imitate the prey or food item the fish is likely to feed on, and secondly the retrieve should imitate the natural movement of the prey. There are two basic ways to retrieve the fly. The first is to hold the rod in your casting hand with the tip just above the surface of the water, while using your “stripping” or none casting hand to retrieve the line in long or short “strips”. This technique is best suited to medium and erratic retrieves. The other (used for ultra fast retrieves), is done by tucking the rod butt under your casting arm, arm pit, which allows the use of both hands to bring line in. This takes some practice to perfect but has the advantage of setting the hook without needing to lift your rod tip. For quick retrieves, the latter is the most economical and least tiring. Salt water fly fishing is all about economy of motion, both in casting and stripping the line in. The easier you do it for extended periods of time, the better your chances of success. When targeting bottom feeders or when using slower retrieves (when representing wounded fish or swimming squid or prawns), the former retrieve is better. Retrieve speeds can vary from very fast, for leerfish, to almost dead drift, for grunter. Varying the retrieve speed during the day is a very good idea and will result in more takes. There is however one golden rule when fly fishing for game fish - never strike until you feel the fish is pulling on the line! Leerfish will often hit your fly two or even three times before really latching on and if you strike to soon, the fish will stop chasing. Just keep stripping until you feel that the fish is on before doing a strip strike. Then make sure that the loose line does not tangle as the fish heads off. Next time try something different and use flies tied on circle hooks for leerfish - the results should be great as they hook themselves on a circle hook and you will loose very few if any! Here are some suggested retrieve speeds for various species ???? Leerfish - medium to very fast or medium erratic retrieve. ???? Elf - medium. ?Kob - slow to medium and always on the bottom. ???? Mullet - dead drift to medium (sometimes fast). ???? Spotted grunter - dead drift to slow medium. ???? White steenbras - dead drift to medium. ???? White stumpnose - dead drift to medium. ?Skipjack - dead drift to very fast ???? Cape Moonies - dead drift to medium A general salt water rule is that the fish targeted on fly will mostly be predators that hunt smaller fish. Smaller fish are fast and thus the larger fish need to be faster. Most takes are on the chase and thus you will be left in no doubt that something has eaten your fly for lunch! Grunter and smaller species in lagoons feed mostly on shrimp and crabs. Takes here are subtler and striking on sight can make the difference between a good day and bad one. Holding the rod at right angles to the fly line can assist in detecting takes. In this way the line pulls directly on the rod and a take is registered, easily seen when the tip of the rod moves or twitches. Making finger contact with the line at all times also assists in feeling the take. With a fly rod, it is best to keep the rod low to the water so that there is less of a bow in the line that extends from the tip of the rod to where the line enters the water. The higher the rod is held, the greater the bow and the less likely chance of detecting a take. The Carp of Buffelsdrift dam in Oudtshoorn. It seems to me that Andre Jonck should receive the well deserved title of “Vasbyt Vlieg Hengelaar” or “Never Give Up Fly Angler” of 2009. Not only does he not know the difference between seasons of toil and seasons of rest – he is a driven man who has a fly-tying bench next to his desk in his office. He has, according to himself, one of the most understanding and supportive families - something we can only envy him. Maybe we should ask Maryna to give our wives and girlfriends an inspired and inspirational talk on how to “Stand by your man” and let him go fishing. ? Back to the carp in the picture. For the uninitiated, this is a mirror carp, not a sick specimen shedding its scales. News from Dewald Kirsten of FlySouth Adventures We spent the past long weekend in the Garden Route where we went out to target some Garrick in one of the closed estuaries. With the mouth being closed they can not venture out to sea and they have to stay in the system. Its now that they feast on mullet and herring and fatten up for when they can leave at the next opening of the mouth. But due to the fantastic weather we had, it meant that every Tom, Dick and Harry was on the water with the family. This caused the fish to go off the bite and we did not see any Garrick for the day. They are there for sure as some where caught the week before. We did however see some good grunter feeding in the channels but as usual they where not interested in our flies. Well it was still worth it have been out on the water for the time and we will be back with vengeance as soon as the fish are eating again. Must have flies for the saltwater season: Clouser minnow ? ? This fly was developed by Bob Clouser in the states and till today it has accounted for countless numbers of fish. It was originally invented for Smallmouth Bass but every fly fisherman has made space fro them in some fly box or another, be it for freshwater or saltwater. With its Jigging action its absolutely deadly for all game fish. This pattern is very effective on most of the saltwater species we target in the Garden Route. From Garrick, Shad, Cob and Skipjack has fallen for this pattern. Flipper / Gurgler ?? This is most probably the best top water fly you can have. It does not make a huge noise that might put fish of the bite and it has a nice spitting action that seems to drive fish like Garrick crazy. You can strip it fast with double hand retrieve or slow with single hand strips and some fish have even taken it static. All in all. An awesome fly that will leave you breathless and your knees wobbling when the fish are feeding on top. www.flysouthadventures.co.za Trout and About in the Garden Route I received this e-mail from Ingo Vennemann of Outeniqua Trout Lodge in which he mentions other trout venues in our area. Check out these sites and see for yourself. Hello there Pieter, ? By the way, we supply and stock trout for flyfishing for two other Tourism operators in the immediate vicinity: Keurbooms River Game Trails (www.gametrails.co.za, speak to Hennie Homann) and? Williamsburg Farm (www.williamsburgfarm.co.za, speak to Nigel) they are both active members of our conservancy. In the not-so-distant past we used to have your organization and some other Flyfishing clubs listed as Institutional members at our farm, offering attractive deals to your members on a yearly basis. This, we think, would be a better way to address your ideas, as well as serve your clubs/associations interests by extending your own list of interesting "home" venues.??? ? Best Regards, Ingo www.outeniquatrout.co.za? Check out our new website www.scff.co.za |
