Author: Warren Prior

[caption id="attachment_306" align="alignright" width="225"] Ali G?[/caption] Nick and I headed for the Berg on Sunday to get in a last fishing trip before we both headed to opposite ends of South Africa for the Easter holidays. The venue was once again Granchester and the weather was once again ominous. That said things looked good when we arrived - there was a nice cloud cover, a good chill in the air, the water was cold and there was the slightest of ripples on the surface. We fished our way towards the inlet each missing a fish on route. Nick then got into a nice Rainbow which he fought feverishly mocking me all the way. Then an amazing thing happened. While photographing the fish on his stripping net the fish jumped off…

[caption id="attachment_303" align="aligncenter" width="900"] A Misty Granchester[/caption] After a couple of blank still water sessions I was far less confident than normal as Nick and I drove the 130kms to Granchester. It was the third time we'd fished the water and success had been greatly varied. On our first attempt we'd punished the water and landed 8 decent Rainbow Trout. The next attempt however was somewhat disappointing with both of us blanking. We were a little disappointed when we pulled into the parking only to discover another fisherman already on the water. What? We'd book the water early and he definitely shouldn't have been there. After a few attempts to phone the booking line to find out what was going we gave up and kicked out onto the water. It…

[caption id="attachment_300" align="alignright" width="300"] The Parking at Uitzicht[/caption] With Nick having purchased a new float tube on Saturday (the Xplorer Journey) we decided to break it in and headed for one of the NFFC club waters. Being the adventurous type we opted for a dam called Prairie which we had not fished before. Everything about this water looked fantastic right up until we actually got down and started to fish it. From the bank we could see there were a fair number of weedy patches in the water. At first we took this as a good sign since there appeared to be ample fishable water. However once we paddled out we quickly realised that 80% of the dam had thick weed less than a meter below the surface (there's nothing…

[caption id="attachment_284" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Granchester Panorama[/caption] After a superb trip to Granchester in January we decided that it was time we hit it again. Expectations were high after landing 8 fish on the previous outing and not even the dropping pressure could lower our spirits. After all, I'd fished a falling barometer before and I'd usually caught. This had, perhaps incorrectly, lead me to believe that this was generally a myth even if there was a small amount of scientific evidence to back it up. So at 5am on Sunday I was in the car and on my way to fetch Nick. Our only real concern was whether the X-Trail would make it the 130kms to Granchester without over-heating. It did. [caption id="attachment_285" align="alignright" width="300"] Pressure Drop[/caption] Having all but…

[caption id="attachment_274" align="alignright" width="300"] Fish Eye View Of A Trout[/caption] Sunday was a day of fishing and Nick and I headed to Granchester at 5:30am. The Proteas loss soon became a distant memory as we pumped the tubes and kicked our way out onto the water. Having not fished the water before we both made our way to what we considered the good spots. I fished the weed beds while Nick fished the deeper water. Within 30 minutes I was into my first fish, a nice 1kg Rainbow picked up off a bank. Shortly after this Nick picked up a similar sized fish near the inlet. I paddled over to him to take a photo or two and left my fly dead drifting in the water a meter or so…