Reekielyn re-visited.

Quote: "Trout are never caught in ugly places."

Last Sunday I set off for a spot of trout fishing at one of my favourite fishing spots, the Mooi River on the farm Reekielyn. I knew the water levels would be high due to all the rain we have had, but I was unprepared for just how high. All the normal pools and runs were unfishable, though I did try. 

Click to enlarge.

The Mooi River flowing in from the west, on the left you can see where the Reekielyn stream joins the main stream. A large weighted streamer could have worked here if one was fishing with at least a 5 weight rod.

The Reekielyn stream, this stream was also flowing very strongly.

A Cape cormorant, I hope he had better luck than I had.

The four hours I spent there weren't wasted though as I was able to take a lot of photos. There were acres of these wild flowers, (wild gladiolus ?).

Dew bespangled trap door spiders web.

The Reekielyn falls flowing strongly.

The falls from stream level.

An oxbow lake on the southern bank of the river.

Wild flower, (grass orchid?) on the bank of the oxbow lake. I need to get a book on Natal wild flowers.

Fishing at Grantchester.

 "A fisherman is always hopeful - nearly always more hopeful than he has any good cause to be." Dark on the water. by Roderick L. Haig-Brown.

This was the case with me when I left yesterday morning to go fishing at my favourite still-water fishing spot, Grantchester dam on Defence farm in the Kamberg valley. How come I was fishing on a Monday morning? Well it was a public holiday, Heritage day, here in sunny SA. 

Click to enlarge photos.

Stopped along the way to take a photo of this waterfall. 

This waterfall on the Mooi River, (Afrikaans for "Pretty River") will be no more in a year or two's time. The Department of Water Affairs, is busy building a huge dam more than 10km downstream. Above these falls the Mooi River only has Brown trout, after the dam has been built, bass, yellow fish and carp will invade the upstream waters. Wild Brown trout have been in these waters for more than 120 years, who knows for how much longer. Nothing kills a river quicker than a dam. 

A little further I took several photos (about six) to make this panorama of the Drakensberg. On the far left you have Giants Castle, where the Berg turns west, south west. On the far right the Berg turns in a long curve west north west and then north, forming the famous Amphitheatre of the Berg. The part of the Berg seen in the panorama is known as the central Berg. From Giants Castle on the left (south) is known as the southern Berg. From the Amphitheatre it's known as the northern Berg. 

This is almost the same panorama as my header photo, from more to the south and not quite as zoomed in and includes more towards the north.

A panorama of Grantchester dam on Defence farm. As I have pointed out in a previous post here in the good old R of S. A, (Republic of South Africa) we also call the piece of water behind the dam wall, "the dam". All impoundments in SA are called dams, as some one has said it's one of those South African things. At this point the dam is more than a hundred meters wide. The dam extends way off to the left, (east) but to include it all would take too much space. My fly line can be seen lying on the water, where the fly line ends there is a steep drop-off into deep water.

Since I've started Blogging, (18 months ago) I have caught no trout in this still-water, yet my biggest trout, a hen of almost 24 inches, was caught here, (about 7lbs). Trout grow very fast in these waters as they are very fertile. 

I think I've read too many fancy writing about trout fishing in still-water. Back then as a novice, it was cast and strip back as fast as I could, the startled trout would grab the strange, fast moving insect before they realised it was a fake, now I use all sort's of fancy retrieves, all of which the trout have seen before. (Well I need some excuse).

The fish in this piece of water are basically wild, put in as fingerling's, (3 inches) they grow large by surviving the natural dangers a wild trout would survive. It's definitely not a "put and take", water.

Looking across the water to the Berg in the background. Still some snow to be seen on the Berg. 

The buildings are the milking parlour and some sheds. The parlour doesn't look like much on the outside, but is state of the art inside and milks several hundred dairy cows twice a day. South Africa has extremely strict laws concerning milking parlour hygiene and interior construction, (overkill in my opinion), and it has put many smaller dairy farmers out of business. 

Another view of the Berg across the water, more to the south.

The water was actually quite murky and not quite as blue as the photo suggests, (though it usually is).

Opening day and first day of spring.

Well I booked a stretch of water on the Mooi River at Reekielyn and went fishing yesterday. All I got to show for it is a wrenched left knee and a badly sprained and bruised left foot.

I have a very high tolerance to pain but when my foot twisted under me, (I actually heard something crack or snap), and all the weight was put on to my right knee twisting it inwards I just sat down thinking I would never be able to get up without help. For about 5 minutes I didn't move, then I thought maybe, just maybe it might not be so bad and using my cane wading staff as a crutch I stood up gingerly. The pain was intense but I managed to hobble to the water and dunk my foot wading boot and all into the water letting the cold water ease the pain, while I rubbed my knee. 

For a moment after I collapsed from the pain I thought to myself, "This is where I turn to "biltong", (jerky) under the African sun. No one knows where I am and I might not be able to walk out of here". Fortunately I did manage to hobble out.

In spite of my pain I decided to continue fishing, hard to concentrate with a throbbing foot and aching knee. I was wet wading so the cold water on my foot did help, but even with a wading staff hobbling over loose boulders did not help. After about two hours I decided to pack up, apart from one strike when I let my half drowned dry fly drift under a overhang, I saw neither hide nor hair of a trout, not even one trout rising in one of the pools. I did some photos though.

Click to enlarge.

When I walked out at 6am to pack the car the moon was just setting as yellow as butter behind the railing along the N3 highway.

Due to the late winter snow of last month the water level was quite good. This pool in the foreground good be a good place for trying a streamer,or old fashioned wet-fly, fished down and across. 

In summer most of these rocks are under water. The broad pool in the background is wide and quite deep, with a flat sandstone bottom. Almost impossible to wade though, as it is pitted with potholes which are difficult to see. 

Nice little cascade.

A beautiful cascade with nice pools above and below.

The waterfall at Reekielyn, below the fall there is a beautiful pool and with the low water it was quite accessible,  but with my bust foot there was no way I was going to get there.

After I painfully hobbled out of the gorge, I saw why no trout showed themselves.  A very visible cold front was approaching from the south accompanied by a freezing wind. Down in the gorge I was protected from the wind, but the trout knew. The photo above shows the Kamberg, (Comb mountain) and advance clouds of the cold front starting to cover it. Drove home through a heavy cold rain, it might have been the first day of spring but winter hasn't given up yet.

Will have to go and see my Dr tomorrow, see if he can patch me up. If it was my head all he would need is vinegar and brown paper. Through continuing to fish I don't think I did my foot and knee any favours.

Sunrise.

No, I haven't stopped blogging just been busy with all sorts of other things. Among others tying some flies to use on the last few days of river and stream trout fishing in our part of the world. Trout streams close on the 1st of May and stay close until the 1st of September to allow trout to spawn undisturbed. Fortunately this coming weekend is  a long weekend so there is enough time to get some stream fishing done. For the next four months it will be still water fishing and I'm looking forward to bobbing around on a large still water in my float tube.


In the meantime I thought I would post these photos of sunrise I took on my last trip to Lotheni.


Click on photos to enlarge.

Sunrise across the Kamberg valley.

Drakensberg foothills touched by the first rays of the sun.

Shadows and light.

Rock overhang gets a soft, warm glow from the early morning light.

Stern of the "Titanic" lit by the first rays.

Early morning light through an avenue of trees.
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Reekielyn 4.

Click on pictures to en large.

The stretch of river below shows three pools, which almost looks as if they have weirs built across them, these are natural stone, (dolorite I think?) dykes. The bottom of the three has a bottom of solid rock, I tried to wade it but notice that what appeared at a distance to be smooth flat rock, sloping to the top of the pool, was actually full of pot holes, cracks and fissures, some of them quite deep. An easy place to break a leg by suddenly stepping into a hole, but lots of holding place for fish.

I was in such a hurry to get to Reekielyn and the water that I left half my stuff behind, fly vest, wading staff, (walking stick of my grandfathers, with cord attached to loop arround my body), knife, sciscors, and half a dozen other things. Spent the previous week tying brassies, weighted PTN's, GRHE's and other nymphs. The previous Saturday I saw no surface activity so I thought deep nymphing is the way to go.

A long deep run just below the first pool.

Decided to use my three weight again, TFO, Finese Series, with 3 weight floating line, 4 x leader and 5 x tippet. The reel is a South African brand "Xplorer" STX 2/3 weight, wide arbour, nice and light, with a smooth drag.

Part of the run shown in the second photo. Deep undercuts under this rocky ledge, but very swift current.

Miniature waterfall, with rod for scale.

Top end of the run, with water tumbling down a small set of rapids.

I cast a nymph just over the lip of this outflow, a few metres of line, leader and tippet, just to the right of that furtherst clump of grass growing over the water. Managed to get a nice dead drift with the line coming back straight to me. I was actually "high sticking", with only a short piece of the fly line on the water. My second cast was just as good, with a nice dead drift, when suddenly my line started heading upstream at speed. That's when I discovered that I had two left arms, two left feet and ten thumbs. I was concentrating so on my presentation, that I forgot all about the possibility of a fish taking my fly. Needles to say I lost him.

Above, natures own arrangement. A clump of grass growing in some moss which has established itself on this rock. A symbiotic situation if ever there was one. This rock will often be submerged during the summer months, but the moss clings to the rock and the grass has its roots deep in the moss.

Trick photo, guess what? No, actually bird droppings consisting  entirely of crushed crab shell, legs and pincers. Natal rivers swarm with crabs and trout enjoy eating them to.

At this pool above is where I really missed my fly vest. In it were all my fly boxes and dry flies. Trout were milling about in plain sight and making very splashy rises, taking something off the surface. All the flies I had with my were weighted nymphs or brassies.

The main current in this pool runs against the opposite bank. In the photo you can see a shallower stretch about a metre from that bank, the trout were rising in the fast water flowing over this shallow stretch and in the slacker water on this side of the shallows. The stretch between this side bank and the shallows opposite is deep, about 2 metres, with a counter current.

I was within easy casting distance of the rising fish, nice fish, looked about a lb plus. All my cast were right on the fish, but they weren't interested in something that sank like a stone. After casting I retrieved the fly slowly across the pool and several times, as I was lifting the fly slowly from the depths I had several  pulls, one was on long enough to put a happy bend in my 3 weight for a moment or two.
  

What the trout might have been taking is some thing known as a Mooi moth, although I think a small elk hair caddis might have done the trick. Above is a very old South African fly used to imitate the Mooi moth. Blue dun hackle tail, stripped peacock hearl body, slips from the wing feathers of a mallard duck for the wing, blue dun hackle wound around the hook shank three or four times. Size 14 to 16 or even smaller. So guess what I'll be tying this week? I bought 200 size 16 dry fly hooks last week.

Picture:  SAflytalk.co.za

The pool, below the falls, that I mentioned in my last post, and thought might be very fish-able, is unreachable from this side. The opposite bank is very "verboten" to club members, also has large unfriendly signs up, "Private property, trespassers with be prosecuted".  The bit in front here doesn't look bad, but you have a cliff going down right into water that's more than a metre deep, and very fast.

Clarity of the water.

My learning curve for river fly fish is going to be very steep and very long. Just two outings and Iv'e learnt that Iv'e got a lot to learn.

Next week Friday school breaks up for a short 10 day holiday, so you know where I'll be spending most of this time. 

Winter Solstice

June 21st is the winter solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere. Tonight will be the longest night of the year, with tomorrow the shortest day. But here in SA shortest day will still mean about 9 hours of sunshine. Then the days start getting longer, but this does not mean that winter is over, our coldest weather still lies ahead.

Day break on the morning of the winter solstice.

About 10 minutes later.

By the end of August the dogs and I can start taking our evening walks to one of the two farm ponds and do some serious bass fishing. Trout fishing in the various still waters will be viable until November, after that it becomes too hot, streams are still an option though as the season for trout fishing in streams opens again in September.

Drakensberg fauna & flora

The flora of the Berg is a HUGE subject and I know very little about it. This is a subject that one could spend a lifetime studying and still only scratch the surface.


South Africa has perhaps the richest flora of any country in the world. England has about 1500 flower species, South Africa has 16000 flower species. There are about 200 natural plant orders in the world and South Africa has 150 of them, 120 of these are found in the Berg. A survey done in the Cathedral Peak area of the Berg and found no less than 1000 flower species in that area alone! In Pearse's book "Barrier of spears" more than 80 types of wild flowers are mentioned with tongue twisting Latin names, 15 types of trees are mentioned. There are at least five types of protea, one of which is the bottle brush. I have one of these growing in the veldt just outside my yard. Bright red flowers, so loved by the Sun-birds for their nectar. These plants are very hardy and are able to survive the harshest's of climates.


Bird life in the Berg is prolific. Birds mentioned in Pearse's book are, in alphabetical order, the Black Eagle, Cape Robin, Cape Rock Thrush, Chorister Robin, Crowned Eagle, Golden Bishop, Hadedah, Jackal Buzzard, Lammergeyer, Lanner Falcon, Malachite Sun-bird, Martial Eagle, Red-winged Starling, Secretary Bird, Yellow-billed Kite and Yellow Fly-catcher. This list does not cover even a small portion of the birds which occur in the Berg.


The most famous of these birds is the Lammergeyer, also known as the Bearded Vulture and Bone Breaker. This large, ferocious looking bird, with a wingspan of 3 meters, is extremely rare, very few of them remain. The African Lammerger, Gyptaepus barbus meridionalis, occurred over large parts of Africa, from the Atlas Mountains in the North to the Southern tip of Africa. Today most of those that remain are found in very remote places of the Drakensberg.


Lammergeyers had an undeserved bad reputation with farmers who said that they killed live stock and were shot and poisoned where ever they were found. This reputation was unfounded, Lammergeyers are purely carrion eaters and do not hunt, their talons are too weak to kill or carry large animals. As farming became more and more prevalent ,there was less and less carrion for these birds to feed on, especially bones so necessary in their diet. Farmers don't leave dead live-stock lying around. Lammergeyers break the bones by dropping them onto rocks, the marrow is then eaten. Bone splinters provide calcium for strong eggshells  and skeletal development in the chicks. 


Conservation authorities and conservation minded farmers have stepped in and provided vulture restaurants where carcasses of dead animals are left for vultures to feed on. A famous vulture restaurant is situated at Giants Castle nature reserve where visitors can watch vultures feeding from a hide.


Lammergeyers have amazing flying abilities, with gliding speeds of 130km an hour. "Few birds surpass the Lammergeyer in powers of flight, and their great powers as soarers is probably unrivalled. The bird has been observed floating over Mount Everest, the greatest recorded height for any bird". Meinertzhagen quoted in "Barrier of Spears" p195. The bird mentioned here was the European species Gypaetus barbus uareus. 


Next blog I'll say something about the four footed animals, especially the Elland.

Geology

Had to attend a church AGM last night so I could not keep my promise re the Drakensberg geology, but here it is.

 In Pearse's book "Barrier of Spears I found a diagramatic cross cut of the Drakensberg. Starts of with a layer called the Upper Beaufort beds, which reaches up 1250 meters. This layers is said to be 190 million years old. The next layer is called the Molteno Beds, from 1250 meters to 1500meters. This layer is said to be 180 million years old. Then follow the Red Beds, from 1500 meters to to about 1600 meters and is said to be 170 million years old. Following this up to 1750 meters Cave Sandstone, and 160 million years old. These layers are sedimentary rock.

About 150 million years ago a period of intense volcanic activity took place. This volcanic activity threw up immense amounts of basaltic lavas which reach up to about 3300 meters.In its molten state the basalt was full of gas bubbles. As the basalt cooled it left cavities in the basalt. These cavities filled up with minerals over time which then crystallised. A lump of basalt resembles a piece of fruit cake filled with agates, rose-pink amethysts, calcite, chalcedony, quarts and other crystals.

Basalt is soft and crumbly, but fortunately a  at the time of the the volcanic activity successive intrusive flows of hard dolerite was forced between the layers of basaltic lavas. These layers of dolerite form a supportive skeleton. Without them the Berg might have eroded away long before we got to see it. Forces of nature, rain, wind, frost, etc. sculpted the Berg over millions of years to the dramatic mountain we see today.

The Drakensberg is the source of most of South Africa major rivers rivers, both those flowing east or west. Basalt acts like a giant sponge soaking up the more than 2000mm of rain that fall on the Berg in summer, and snow in winter.  

Mont-uax-sources (source of spring) is the source of three major rivers. The Orange River which flows westward to the Atlantic Ocean, a tributary of the Vaal River which flows throw South Africa's industrial heartland land and eventually joins up with the Orange. Then there is the Tugela river which flows eatwards to the Indian Ocean in a much shorter journey of several hundred kilometers.  The Tugela River starts its journey with a dramatic plunge of 800m, 600m of which is a sheer drop. The mouths of the Tugela and the Orange are separated by more than 1500km.

The Drakensberg stretches southward from the Sentinel in the north to its southern most point Xalanga (place of vultures) a towering mass of cliffs in the north eastern part of the Eastern Cape Province. (this are is home to hundreds of kilometers of wild trout streams). From the Sentinel, northwards the Drakensberg  stretches for another 600km. This part is not so dramatic as the southern part, but there are parts in The Mpumalanga Province which is quite as spectacular. (Mpumalanga, Zulu for place where the sun rises. Mpuma rises, Langa the sun).

Hundreds of streams tumble down the face of the Berg, flowing eastward, cold, clear and clean providing a home for both brow and rainbow trout. Because the gradient is so steep, the parts habitable by trout is short, because they soon reach an altitude where they become to warm. But short or not there is more than enough trout water to keep the most avid fly fisher happy for a life time. These streams are all freestone streams.

Sources: Southern Africa: land of beauty and splendour. (1978) by T. V. Bulpin
          
             : Barrier of spears. Drama of the Drakensberg. (1973) by R. O. Pearse




Next blog I'll say something about rock art, Bushmen, fauna and flora.