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 away from me. The next minute, while I was holding his camera, my reel started to scream and then my rod leapt forward off my tube. I lunged my hand forward and caught it just before it vanished into the deep water. Sadly I grabbed it so abruptly that the tippet snapped and I lost whatever bus was on the end of the line. Sigh!
We then fished our way back to the car and in the process I picked up one more fish and Nick got two. It was at this point that we discovered that his net was missing and is now conveniently located somewhere on the bottom of Granchester dam.
The morning’s session was followed by a quick snack on the bank before heading out again for a late morning session. This is never the most productive time to be fishing but I suppose it beats sitting on the bank lazily. We fished for another two hours and managed to pick up another fish each. It was also in this session that Nick missed his bus. Something picked him up and ran so hard that his 2 weight bent in the cork grip. Sadly one of his knots gave leaving him sulking on his tube.
By this stage it was one o’ clock and we were sweltering on the water. We slowly kicked our way back to the shore where enjoyed Sharon’s fantastic fillet and mushroom sauce rolls. Still stinking hot under the tree we even stripped down and went for a swim in the refreshing water. And what swim would be complete without trying to mimic a crocodile and take out a cow…? I was not successful.
Things were quiet in the afternoon session which produced just one fish between the two of us. While we were bobbing around fishing the owner and two other guys came down to swim and fish. Clearly Granchester is somewhat more relaxed that some of the other club waters which is awesome.
Other than the fishing there was also a lot of birdlife including Malachite Kingfishers, Pied Kingfishers and Golden Bishops. All in all it was great day out with eight fish caught, four each, and sadly a lost bus each. We’ll certainly be back there to take on those monster Trout again. The fish were all a good size and all fought hard with one nearly taking me into backing.