First fish of summer.

Bass fishing in South Africa usually takes in the summer, that is all the month's that have and "r" in them.

Took a #6 fly rod down to one of the farm ponds and tried my luck, well first cast and I caught a nice small-mouthed bass. These bass are real fighters and give you a good run for your money.

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+/- 2 lbs.

Same fish, photo by Enrico Bucceri, a.k.a., the Italian Leprechaun. The following photos were all taken by Enrico.

I look a bit startled here, but this photo gives a nice idea of the size of the fish.

Tombi watching me cast. I think I have mentioned it before, Tombi means young girl in Zulu. Not so young any more +/- 14 years old now.

 Strike!

Second bass, small but gave a good account of itself.

Third fish, slightly bigger than the second. I caught four fish and missed several, think the hook was a bit blunt. 

My fly was a large "woolly bugger".

Focus.

The focused Fly Fisherman.

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All photos by Enrico Bucceri, aka the Italian Leprechaun.

Fly fisher man.

Power stroke. Enlarge this photo.

Focused fly fisher.

The result. Four inches of small mouth bass. There were one or two others plus several long distance releases. 

Small mouth bass.

I haven't done much fishing this summer, the trout streams are all raging torrents, even the very small streams, and I would not try to wade any of them, most of our streams have be waded for any hope of success. Even my bass fishing in farm ponds has been very erratic, as I spend most of my time taking photos. Yesterday afternoon late though looked like a bass fishing evening, temperature, wind, light, every thing just right. Rigged up my 4/5 weight, too light as it turned out, and headed for the pond here on the farm.

All photos by the Italian leprechaun. (I can assure the ladies that Italian stallion he ain't).

Click to enlarge.

A partial view of the pond from the dam wall, a float tube might be a good option here due to the heavy weeds near the shore.

A very happy fly fisher.

A nice small mouth bass, one of six a hooked. These fish give you a good run for your money and my light rod did not help much. The last one I hooked just kept going, when I tried to stop it snapped my 3 x tippet like cotton.

Trying to save my woolly bugger without getting so deep that the water flows over the top of my boots.

Walking home the Italian leprechaun said that the two of us live like landed gentry, with none of the negatives that go with owning and managing a very large farm.

First catch, no photo.

Yesterday afternoon late, after 5 pm, I walked down to the farm dam with a fly rod and some flies and tried my luck. The rod I took was a 9 foot, very fast action and stiff 3 weight, loaded with 4 weight line, casts like a dream. This might sound a bit light for bass, but  you can cast all day with it. The rod was a gift from my brother in law Grant who built it from MHX, carbon fibre blanks from Mudhole in the USA.

It was a warm summers evening with a thunderstorm approaching and the water was like glass. Bass were very active in the shallows among the reeds jumping and chasing insects. After about 40 minutes of fishing I got my first take, but lost it when the fish jumped. (Have to sharpen my hooks) Ten minutes later in almost the same spot a bass grabbed my size 14 muddlers minnow and dived, I gave it a second or two and set the hook. Well and truly hooked there was no escape. For a moment it felt like I'd hooked a trout, not the normal large mouth way of heading for some obstruction or water weeds, but a determined run for open water, and fighting right to the end.

After a minute or two I lifted a 2lb plus small mouth bass from the water, a sleek well conditioned fish. First small mouth I've caught in about 30 years. The rod did not have quite enough backbone to lift the fish so I had to grab the leader and pull it out. And guess what? the cameras memory card was lying at home instead of being in the camera, so no evidence. Not the first time I've forgotten it.

An African river.

Well this time, as far as fishing goes, I think I've fallen with my bum in the butter!

The dogs and I took our usual evening walk and walked right to the Little Bushman's river that runs through the farm. All in all I recon we covered between 6 and 7 km, down hill most of the way there, and up hill most of the way back. The river lies in a "kloof", (gorge) with typical African bush along it's banks, also very typical snake country, especially puff adders, Cape cobra's and rock pythons. So on hot days I will have to step very carefully.

We left home at 4:30 pm and only got back after seven.

Click to enlarge.

A section of the river looking up stream, with a nice long, deep pool on the right. This river is a tributary of the Bushman's river, which flows through Estcourt, it joins the Bushman's river just below the town. 

Downstream view of the pool, lovely water for small mouth bass, sharp tooth cat fish, (barbel) and maybe carp.

A short stretch of rapids below the pool.

Looking downstream from the rapids. Chances are good that the fast water with have Natal yellow fish, also known as scaleys. Yellow fish are indomitable fighters and give you a good run for your money.

So Lord willing, I know where the dogs and I will be Saturday. And with a bit of luck I might even post some photos of the fish I've caught.