Over the Easter weekend Sharon and I hit the berg, namely Giant’s Castle, with my dad and Cassia. Of the three days we were there, my dad and I spent one day punishing the Bushman’s River.
I must admit in advanced, that I really wasn’t expecting much. Looking back I’m not really sure why I thought this, because the fishing was absolutely fantastic. If I learnt one thing from this trip, its that I’ll be back there in a hurry. I suppose the sad thing is that the rivers get closed from the end of this month. (Everyone go AWWW)
Anyway, on Sunday morning my dad and I took a leisurely strole down to the river. Well, he took a leisurely stroll…just as we got to the river my dad (as parents do) learnt that I hadn’t put cream on. This immediately involved me running back to the chalets…not something I wanted to do. Eventually I arrived back, puffing and wheezing. I’m sure this was all just an evil plan to give him the upper hand on the river. Hmmm?
After the cream saga we started fishing the river from the picnic sight, heading up-stream. My dad was into a nice brown on his second or third cast. This meant two things:
- Firstly, the fishing was hopefully going to be good.
- Secondly, his wheezing cream trick had worked, and the pressure was now on me.
Luckily I was into a fish within the next 5 minutes. All was looking good.
We were both fishing small dry flies, on lightweight tippet. Casting up-stream we’d let the flies drift back to us, watching them carefully to ensure a good drift, and to catch any takes.
This proved to be very successful, so we never resorted to nymphing or fishing deeper in some of the larger pools. Having said this, there weren’t too many big pools anyway, so we definitely did the right thing.
The morning session was fruitful. I landed 7 browns, and my dad ended up with 4. This wasn’t a true reflection of his ability, since he had some equipment failure…(no, not that). He was fishing with old tippet, and lost at least 4 fish due to breakages.
Lesson: Don’t fish with old tippet material.
If I hadn’t been there to lend him some new tippet material this would’ve been highly frustrating.
The afternoon session proved to be even more fruitful. We fished the same section of river, and I ended up with 9 fish, and my dad got 7. It was fantastic being on the river in the afternoon. We even had the pleasure of being in the middle of a mayfly hatch…what an experience.
One thing to look out for in the afternoon, is that once the sun goes behind the mountain, the water gets a strange glow to it. This makes it very difficult to see your fly, and hence ensure a good drift. As a result we ended up fishing larger, whiter dry flies. Luckily this didn’t seem to have an adverse effect on the fishing, and we continued to pick up browns at a good rate.
All in all it was a great days fishing, with just under 30 Brown Trout being landed. I’d certainly recommend this stretch of river to anyone who loves fishing the streams. I certainly can’t wait to get back there…