Reekie Lyn 2.

Quote: "It's never too late to have a happy childhood." 

My childhood was very happy, I think I relived part of it today.

I'm tired and every muscle in my body aches, this stretch of river is not for the faint hearted, unfit or lazy. You work for you fish here.

Where's the river?  Where you see the sunlight gleaming in the top of the sign, (below) the river plunges into a deep gorge.

In spite of being tired I'm happy, nothing beats a day at a beautiful river such as this. The solitude, the sound of water rushing over rocks and down rapids, the wind soughing through the trees, and everything looking like the first day of creation. What more can any person want.

Click on photos to enlarge.

Natal Fly Fishers Club sign next to the gate. The gate is locked but the locks are supplied by the club and each member has a key. Mine are attached to my car keys.

Where the Reekie stream enters the Mooi River on the left, looks like a very fish-able small stream, only about 300 metres are available to club members. . The Mooi river, upstream, comes in from the right.

Down stream, about 200 metres further the river plunges over a series of steep rapids, more like a waterfall. Thought I would come back and fish this section, but I was just too tired when I got back, maybe next time I'll start here. Here the river looks like a tame pastoral stream, but further down it's a wild tumbling river.

How to get down to the water, about 30 metres, !00', almost straight down. Worried about keeping my 63 year old neck and limbs connected to the rest of my 63 year old body.

Eventually  found a way down, only a 60 degree slope. Made the mistake of setting up my rod before I started down. Spotted these small yellow flowers among the rocks, the slope all the way down is littered with these loose rocks. Got so engrossed with the flowers that I forgot my rod there, had to climb 20 metres back up the slope to fetch it.

This is where I went down. Spotted a Nile monitor lizard in the horseshoe lake on the left on my way back. After the summer rains this horseshoe lake will be part of the main stream, should be a good place to fish a deep, weighted nymph.

Looking down stream.

The river is only about 2 metres wide here. In the top left hand corner is a big patch of foam, I was casting my fly here but could not get it deep enough. A big hatch of small flies was coming off all the rapids and riffles. My decision to use a three weight rod was wrong, a 5 weight with Czech nymphs would have worked better. The wind was also blowing downstream, making up-stream casting with a 3 weight difficult. I think most of this stretch of river could be fished Czech nymph style.

To quote General MacArthur, "I'll be back". All I need is a corn cob pipe and lots more fluids. Only took one 750ml bottle of juice with me, need about 3 times as much. Only managed to explore about a third of the available water, took me five hours.

Rest of the story and more photo's next post.