Monday 27 February 2012

Injasuthi River exploration 1.

After following the faint trail for about 200 meters I came to a natural sort of dyke covered with thick shrub and grass, struggling to the top this is what I saw. 

Click on pictures to enlarge.





Looking upstream there is a nice long riffle leading out of a long deep pool. The zoom lens makes the pool look smaller than it is. Along the far end of the bank there is a thick fringe of reeds, almost looks like there could be a small spring tributary entering there. Then to the right there is a vertical bank of sandstone.




Above, looking downstream, a lovely run ending in some fast water. Not easy to get down to the water from this position, but I think if I could work my way downstream from here along the bank it might just be possible.




Photo above, detail of the pool in the first photo. The water almost has a glacial colour, one could imagine the rainbow trout of a lifetime lurking in it's depths.



Closer detail of the pool, zooming in on the far bank.




Then upstream of the pool, lovely pocket water. A nice big bouyant dry fly should do well here. Then again maybe a soft hackle, with short casts covering all the possible holding areas. Considering all the overhanging vegetation, terrestials such as hoppers and foam beetles could also work well here. 


One would have to get into the water and wade as the bank is quite high and covered with dense growth. Wading will have to be done very carefully as the bottom of the stream is covered in loose boulders, from fist size to the size of a football. A wading staff will be essential.




A bit further upstream the fishing possibilities become even easier. Here the growth along the banks is not so dense so one could fish off the bank.


The stream stretches back all the way to the Drakensberg, with small tributaries joining it every couple of hundred metres. Some of these small tributaries really look as if they could hold fish. Here is enough fishable water, with enough challenges, to last one a life time.
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1 comment:

Mark Kautz said...

You find fish in the smallest of streams. Mighty fishy looking water.

Mark