On Sunday, 18
March 2012, I headed back to Vaal Streams with a friend to try get a better
result than the previous weekend. I rigged up two rods, one with a Czech nymph
rig and the other one with a hopper pattern. My game plan was to wade and nymph
downstream to the slower part of the river to target the fish on dry fly. On my
way there I had one bump on the Czech nymph rig, however I was too late to set
the hook.
When I arrived at
the slower section I got onto some higher ground, and immediately saw some
fish rising. My first choice of fly was a light brown Chaos Hopper and after a
few casts I had a take, I was too fast on the pick-up and the hook popped out.
I was quite frustrated with myself after missing out on the first fish, after
another few drifts I switched to an olive Chaos Hopper and got a very powerful
take as the hopper hit the water. The fish jumped a few times after the
take and after a valiant fight it was safely in the net.
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| First Fish! |
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| Olive Chaos Hopper! |
I got another two
fish on the olive chaos hopper where after it went quiet. I decided to Czech
nymph back to the car, my friend managed a small yellow on the way back and I
only got a bump from a yellow in the shallows on the olive hopper.
After lunch we
headed straight back to the slower section, I stood on the bank and my friend
waded to a sand bank close to the opposite bank. He almost immediately got a
knock on a foam beetle, however he missed it the strike. This happened another
three times where after things went quiet on his side. Meanwhile I was changing
flies on a regular basis with no luck, I switched to a Puterbaugh Caddis and made
an upstream cast from three rising fish. One of them spotted the fly and didn’t
hesitate to take it, the fish was another averaged size smallmouth. This fly
proved to be quite effective and I got another few fish on it, missing out on
many more. My friend also managed to hook a few on hopper and beetle patterns
during this period. This ended up being my most productive day with dry fly for
yellows thus far!
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| PB Caddis - Fish Nr. 1 |
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| PB Caddis - Fish Nr. 2 |
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| PB Caddis - Fish Nr. 3 |
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