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Dear [fname]

After arranging a weekends camping on the Holsloot, I left booking a beat too late and ended up with nothing. Thus I had to get creative about where I was going to fish. Saturday morning saw me on a very smooth patch of water. Not a ripple was on the glassy surface, a slight breeze blew upstream and ahead of me a decent fish was busy with some noisy splashes. The perfect opportunity to try out my new 12ft tapered leader and test some new flies. After a while the ratio was 3 misses for every fish hooked and it was getting worse. Fish would rise up out of nowhere, take the fly confidently and go down with it. As soon as I tightened up the line, the fly would come out of the fishes mouth. It had me baffled, but I soon found out why.....

Continues below in this months tip

Best regards, Craig Thom

Stream X
Fly fishing extremes, from freshwater streams to extreme salt water.

News

Fly Tying Classes

This Thursday will cover hackles and feathers. Just bring along your basic tools as usual.
Note: On Thursday the 18th March Korrie Broos will be showing us how to tie some nymphs. Bring your tools, thin thread, as well as a black marker & dubbing if you have.

Maldives Couples Trip

Is your wife or girlfriend envious of your frequent trips to pristine and exotic environments?
Here is a chance to give her a treat that will make her very happy!

OK, this is a serious little 32m tub, with en suite bathrooms, aircon, internet, bar, sun deck & lounge. Attached are two other boats for excursions. Trip departs OR Tambo on 28 November & returns 6 December. Seven couples, will sail for seven nights from one island to the next in some of the most beautiful settings imaginable.
You can fly fish, snorkel, explore islands, visit a fishing village, and have a romantic dinner on a remote uninhabited island.
TAt a mere $1930.00 per person sharing, you get all ground transfers in the Maldives, seven nights with full board on the cruise vessel Gaaviya and all snorkelling and flyfishing activities. It excludes bar and gratuities and all international travel. (See note below).
For international travel ex Johannesburg OR Tambo International airport, we have secured a very reasonable group rate from Air Emirates of R7320.00 per person, airport taxes included.

Contact us for details 021 551 4248 sales@streamx.co.za

This Months Tip

As mentioned earlier, I had a problem. Confident takes were not converting to solid hook ups, and it had me baffled. The fly and tippet setup must have been right (btw the 12ft leader was performing like a dream) otherwise the fish would have not taken so confidently. A single fish would take the same fly three times before ignoring it. I had hooked up in a tree sometime during this baffling stage, and I knew that the fly actually had a hook point, so that wasn't it. Then I did what I should have done after every take, examine the fly and leader! It turns out that the tippet wrapped around the bend of the hook in a neat knot, just after the straight shank. In essence, what I had was the perfect hook removing setup, catch and release in its ultimate form. Any pressure on the line would pull the hook straight out!
Lesson: Regularly check your terminal setup, especially after a take or catching a fish.
You may be missing half your hook, have a great knot like mine, have a knot in your tippet or leader, or may find a frayed bit of line that needs replacing.

If you are prepared to bear with me, I also encountered an odd phenomenon.

Small black mayflies are hatching as they regularly do in the Holsloot environs through most of the late summer, and the fish are keyed onto these, with splashy rises. Now when there are splashy rises going on, we as fisherman tend to key onto them as well.
However, having thrown a largish selection of my best mayfly imitations at these splashy fish, the conversion rate I was expecting, just wasn't coming through. Thus a momentary pause with a bunch of thinking was in order.
While watching the bulbuls, robins and flycatchers flit across the water to claim their share of the mayflies, and watching the cripples float by, my eye caught the faint movement of a fish just under the surface, coming up and creating a barely perceptible ripple.
The Aha moment!
Changing to a small black bodied Klinkhamer, with a sparse starling feathered soft hackle below, I threw my lot ahead of me.
Ignored..... Ignored...... Sloop, the klinky disappeared and I tightened up into a fish on the soft hackle..
OK, I had the combo, but after a few more goes the fish started taking the klinky, but were rejecting it immediately.
Mmm, I think the dropper fly is putting them off, so it gets removed.
NOTHING, nada, not a sausage. The fly is ignored completely and utterly, I cannot raise a fish!
Mmmm again. Perhaps the dropper was acting as some kind of attractor, so it gets put back on, and.. you guessed it, the klinky becomes a target again. Sadly, like the first time it gets rejected at the last second.
By now I finished the long smooth section, and there is broken water ahead and time to change tactics.
Despite the rejections, I did foul hook one fish with the dropper, so perhaps even that is a reason for having it on :-)
But I am not sure about the dropper attractor thought (can't call it a theory), as there may be other reasons, it turned the fish on.
Could be that it affected the drift of the klinky in such a way that made it more attractive, or anything else you could imagine...

Tip 2

When your wife or partner sends you out to go and catch a fish for supper, and you come home via the fish shop...
don't leave your cell phone in the fish shop, you will get bust. As did "x" this week.

New Products

The new light weight, very large arbour Shilton CK3 Reel is now in stock Buy online

Fly Tying Station R299.00 No more bits and pieces lying all over!

Rod Tube Rack with 9 tube capacity (tubes excluded of course) R249.00
Display your collection of rods and keep them away from kids and pets

Jim Teeny sink tip lines are also now available.

Fly Fishing & Fly Tying Magazine January to March issues will be available first week of March

MORE FLIES - We have expanded our range of flies for those of you who prefer to do something else rather than slave behind a vice.

Specials

Please remember that we will match any price on Xplorer or Stealth stock

Find our specials list here

PEAK Vices and accessories at below Cost price!
Buy online

Email us or call 021 551 4248 to order.

Fine print: Specials valid while stocks last

Fly of the Month

This months fly is the Xstarossa Damsel. A hybrid of Tom Sutcliffe's red-eyed damsel and a very simple damsel that he showed me. The two have been combined to make a simple fly that has the same nice red trigger point as the RE damsel.

Very simple to tie and very effective in the water it needs to be fished dead slow, especially around weed or rushes on the edge of a still water.

If there are daphnia in the water then I use an orange headed version. It is a good idea to have different shades of marabou available so that you can match the naturals in the water you are fishing. Normally these are un-weighted and I use a light hook. For more 'sink' I use a heavier hook, but feel free to put some weight around the shank or use a red bead.
In my mind, this is one of those great flies that are effective, easy to tie and have that X factor.

Step by step tying instructions are here

Book of the Month

New Scientific Angling: Trout and Ultraviolet Vision by Reed F Curry
Softcover, 150pgs, 277x213mm 2009
R399.00
Trout see a world invisible to man -- the world of ultraviolet light. You can now meet them in that world. Through abundant photographs and clear text the author illuminates the remarkable distinctions between the vision of man and the broader vision of trout, revealing for the first time flies, fly tying materials, and insects in both visible light and reflected ultraviolet light.
In this groundbreaking work, the author presents new scientific discoveries in the understanding of trout vision and illustrates how these discoveries benefit the discerning scientific angler. Buy Online

Fly Tying Tip of the Month

Here is something I picked up our of "Fly Fishing & Fly Tying" magazine.

An easy way to change the colour of your beads.

Stick any beads on some waxed toothpicks then stick them into a toilet roll to hold them.
(This can also be done with the bead on the hook, but watch out you don't close up the eye of the hook)
Put a liberal amount of superglue onto each bead and as soon as you finished, spray them on all sides with a mist spray of water.
In the original article the man spits licks his fingers liberally and then touches the bead.

Leave it overnight to dry and it will have a nice frosted appearance.
This will then take any permanent marker, and the colour will stay.

After colouring. The green bead on the left has been done in two greens, and the red bead below has been counter shaded like a natural bug would be.

Visit www.netbooks.co.za for a large range of Fly Fishing Titles

For the latest book releases go here