Out of the mouths of babes or fish: The past few decades have been a remarkable time for fly angling in my youth fly fishing meant one of only a few things. The gentry would swing wildly ornate patterns through costly waters in pursuit of Salmon. The well-heeled to the south might cast dry flies […]

I have recently been reading “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins a fascinating look at the way genes control us and every other living thing for that matter. But one portion of the book fascinated me in particular a discussion on Cuckoo’s and their foster parents. As no doubt we all know Cuckoo’s lay their […]

Floating tippets. Ed Herbst recently forwarded me some information on floating or sinking tippets and frequently when Ed takes the trouble to do something like that it is worth reading. Ed is a newsman perhaps more accurately now an ex-newsman but he still has the drive to seek out a story   these days related more […]

cape town hot spots

One of my favourite writers is Bill Bryson he has that ability to make complex things simple enough for the average person to grasp. Who can have read “A Short History of Nearly Everything” without walking away with a better grasp and greater appreciation of the world and the people who have shaped our understanding […]

Smart Fishing Charters would like to invite you on our Cape Point Charter. Abundance of yellow tail and Snoek. For more info please visit our website: www.smartfish.co.za or join our Facebook page listed under Smart Fishing Charters.

“Once more to the breach dear friends once more or close the walls up with our English dead for in peacetime nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility but when the blast of war blows in our ears we must imitate the actions of a tiger”. I learned that amongst a good […]

Fair weather and foul. What’s that thing from the US Postal Service? That motto about “rain or snow?”. Well apparently it isn’t an official motto but inscribed on The James Farley Post office in New York City are the words: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the […]

Is photography taking over from the barbed hook? With the advent of the digital age it seems almost incumbent on us as anglers to have photographs of our fish. The ol’ “grip and grin image” is near mandatory and doubly so should one claim capture of a trophy specimen. Now people head to the river […]

Fly fishing is filled with metaphors of life at least it seems like that to me but perhaps that is just a fly angler’s passion showing through. Maybe golfers or climbers say the same thing you know like “missing a putt is like life really” or “you can’t climb if you are afraid to fall”. […]

Henry had enjoyed a good day fishing midge patterns to spooky fish in clear water the fish had been difficult enough to make it interesting and active enough to make it worthwhile and as he walked back to his car he whistled quietly to himself a sign of a level of contentment that rarely came […]

Variations on a theme: I often think that fly tying books and even instructors do the neophyte tyer and perhaps some of the old hands a great disservice. There are “new” patterns being invented all the time and there are those so besotted with the concept of having the “right fly” that they spend all [...]

Fishermen I suspect see the calendar a little differently than most; it is Autumn here well banging towards winter to be honest. The temperatures have dropped and I was up early which means that my feet are chill inside my slippers and it has taken an age for the skies to brighten. I was contemplating [...]

The Great East Cape … The Wild Trout Association Festival in Rhodes. High up in the far North Eastern corner of the Cape Province on the edge of the mountain kingdom of Lesotho sits the tiny village or Rhodes nestled in the hills of the Southern Drakensberg range. It’s an isolated spot serviced by dirt [...]

I wish I had had a better maths teacher at school it would have helped with my nymph fishing. A recent conversation with Ian Cox at the WTA trout festival got me to thinking more about something I have been considering in simple terms for some time. We were discussing weighting of flies and [...]

On the Twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: Twelve hatches hatching Eleven rainbows rising Ten trout a-leaping Nine mayflies dancing Eight Spinners falling Seven nymphs a-swimming Six caddis laying Five dimpling rings Four black bass Three large fish Two careful casts And a Brown Trout on a dry fly. I [...]

The stuff of dreams or nightmares. When you close your eyes at night do you dream of a fish? I mean a particular fish which haunts your slumbers thoughts of which perhaps awake you with a furrowed and sweated brow. A fish which occasionally glints in the sunlight of your subconscious mind and fades into [...]

The more things change the more they stay the same. Or how to call a spade a shovel. Odd how things happen a few days ago I was on the water with a beginner fly angler; at least I knew he was a novice and more to the point so did he. We had done [...]

There are a couple of near all-encompassing activities for the fly angler outside of the simple fiddling at the fly tying vice or casting over a river somewhere. They equate to things like “painting the Forth Bridge” “Home maintenance” or “Mowing the Lawn”. Endless pursuits absorbers of time and effort offering temporary reward and [...]

An interesting little hypothesis: It is an annoyingly common complaint I suppose you set about doing something that you love for a living and then find that you don’t actually get to do too much of it as a result. Fly fishing guiding is no doubt one of those enterprises which on the surface provides [...]