The Mission Fly Fishing Magazine #Issue 54

LEADING THROUGH INNOVATION.

For over 80 years, we have been at the forefront of innovation. Sharpened by experience. Pushing the boundaries of material science to make our lines stronger and more durable. Then testing in the most demanding environments with the world’s best anglers. Those who demand the best choose Scientific Anglers.

Optimize Stealth Switch Packs

In fly fishing, everything changes all the time. That’s why we engineer our Stealth Switch Packs to optimize your options. The 3- and 5-liter packs can be worn as a chest, hip or sling pack, clipped to another pack, or attached to your belt. The 9-liter pack is built for left- or right-shoulder wear and easily converts to a hip pack. Features include corrosion-resistant zips, multiple pockets, intuitive organization and Patagonia quality that’s built for years, not seasons.

Your Options

36. OFF THE ROCKS

A “frothy swoffer”, swimming out to rocks along a wild coastline to catch Aussie salmon on fly? Sounds like box office to us. We chat to Jackson Murray (the star), and Gareth Shrubb and Jesse Wallace (the filmmakers), about their new extreme fly fishing film, Grasshopper

46. THE DORADO STOKVEL

To realise their dream of a Bolivian jungle dorado trip, two young finance bros, Stenton McKenzie and Kyle Harrison, decided to bust out their Excel spreadsheets and get organised. Fresh out of the jungle, Stenton sums up how it all went down.

56. BULLSEYE

When local knowledge, like-minded approaches and perfect timing come together, as it did for Peter Coetzee on a special stream in the Spanish countryside, sublime dry fly fishing for barbel ensues.

62. HIGH HOPES

When Smokey the Bear and his compadre Travis Hanratty set off on the equivalent of a buddy cop road trip at the tail end of last summer, they were hopeful about what they’d find in two very different fisheries - Thrift and Vanderkloof Dams. In his inimitable style, Smokey tells the tale of what went down.

AND...BREATHE

Idon’t know about you, but this has been quite a year. Even The Mission as a tiny business far away from the cogs of global commerce has been impacted by the tidal waves of economic uncertainty brought about by the actions of one particular self-serving, rapey, orange fuckwad and his fascist, paedo-protecting friends. Then, throw in what felt like an interminably long, mostly fishless Cape winter, plus a wet market’s worth of bush meat lurgies dragged into the house by our toddlers, and by September I was feeling both physically and mentally burnt out.

Enter the mother-in-law flying in from Australia. Her’s is an annual visit, that this year fell over September/October, when fishing in the Western Cape truly wakes up. The plan was set months in advance - a five-day trek in the semi-desert kloofs approximately four hours from Cape Town. The target? Indigenous Clanwilliam yellowfish with a bycatch of alien smallmouth bass and bluegill. The company? The Mission’s editor-at-large Conrad Botes who knows this area like the back of his hand, and veteran Cypriot-Zimbabwean studmuffin Platon Trakoshis.

A 3am departure from Cape Town, saw an 8am start to a seven and a half hour hike. As we wheezed and wobbled over pathless boulder fields with heavy packs, I was thankful that for the first time in my life I had actually trained for a trip, spending the weeks prior lugging my fat ass plus a 20kg weighted vest up Table Mountain.

None of us caught a Clannie, though Conrad hooked one that ran him through a rocky chasm and popped off. Once,

while casting diagonally upstream and retrieving slowly with the swing, a pod of three 60cm Clannies cruised upstream not even two metres from where I was standing. I stood stock still, save for my left hand which, like one of those lucky Japanese Maneki-neko cats with the waving paw, kept on retrieving line in the hopes their trajectory and the fly’s would meet. No luck.

Conrad has higher expectations or standards than I do, so was somewhat disappointed with the Clannie returns despite a glut of seriously chunky bass and consistently huge side plate-sized bluegill. But it didn’t matter to me. Never before have I needed what I got out of a trip more. I loved that my phone and even my sportswatch were rendered useless. It was blissful to be cut off from the daily servings of depressing shit that seems to dominate news, social media and general discourse these days. I revelled in, for want of a better description, reverting to really basic, primitive human ways of being. Eating for energy. Finding routes through seemingly impenetrable cliffs or bush. Appreciating a cold swim or a superb boskak. Sleeping rough, but well because you’re physically exhausted. I’d wake up often in the night and stare up at the vast narrowness of the night sky flanked by the river’s kloofs, tracking the gibbous moon’s path, coming to know that once it disappeared over the hill on one side of the river we would have proper stars for a few hours before the dawn.

I came home dog-tired, covered in scratches and insect bites, smelling to high heaven of sweat, fish and a general feral funk, but in the best mood I’d been in for months, one that’s lasted. If you’ve been in the same kind of head space and need a circuit breaker, I can highly recommend something like this. It’s like therapy, but with fish.

EDITOR

Tudor Caradoc-Davies

ART DIRECTOR

Brendan Body

EDITOR AT LARGE Conrad Botes

CONTACT THE MISSION

The Mission Fly Fishing Magazine for Soutie Press (Pty) Ltd 25 Firth Road, Rondebosch, 7700, Cape Town, South Africa info@themissionflymag.com www.themissionflymag.com

CONTENT COORDINATOR Matt Kennedy

COPY EDITOR

Gillian Caradoc-Davies

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Ingrid Sinclair

ADVERTISING SALES tudor@themissionflymag.com

CONTRIBUTORS #54

Peter Coetzee, Smokey The Bear, Stenton McKenzie, LeRoy Botha, Matt Defilippi, Gareth Shrubb, Jackson Murray, Jesse Wallace, Kwagga Smith, Fred Davis, Steve Carver, Noah Thompson

PHOTOGRAPHERS #54

Alastair Kilpin, Travis Hanratty, Smokey The Bear, Platon Trakoshis, Álvaro Lorenzo, LeRoy Botha, Matt Defillipi & Alphonse Fishing Co., Gareth Shrubb, Jesse Wallace, Kwagga Smith, John Thoabala, Steve Carver, Stenton McKenzie, Kyle Harrison, Peter Coetzee

Even in a stillwater you feel the flow in your legs before you see a rise or cruising fish. We’ve learned more mid-thigh in water than we ever did on dry land. That’s why we trust the gear that brings us closer to the wild.

Push the boundaries of your fishing experience with the finest brands and expert advice.

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CHUM

A NEW AFRICAN FLY FISHING FEST, INTRODUCING FLY SHOP FRIDAYS, THE CIRCLE JERK, THE FEATHERS AWARD, A ONE FLY WINNER AND THE DE MOND COTTAGE OF OUR DREAMS

INTRODUCING RAUFFFF... ... RAW AND UNFILTERED AFRICAN FLY FISHING FILM FESTIVAL. Set for June/July 2026, “RAUFFFF” (pronounced with a pirate accent as “ROUGH”) is The Mission’s very own fly fishing film fest. Why? Well, while we love almost all fly fishing films, we think there’s not enough African/South African species, personalities and destinations showing up in the fly fishing films we see on an annual basis, so we have decided to do our own thing.

The idea is that fly fishing filmmakers from around the continent can submit films, 10-15 minutes long, about anything to do with the cult of fly fishing. We’re looking for

JOIN...

...THE CIRCLE JERK. Pieter Snyders of Stream and Sea has tried and tested this pattern, which he swears klaps largies like never before. With minimal hardware, diverse materials with different movement, a circle hook and a big profile, this tadpole-esque streamer might just be what your Vaal/Orange river fly box is missing. Learn how to tie the full thing via our step-bystep at themissionflymag.com

some fish porn, of course, but it’s more than that. Original, quality storytelling is what we want more than anything. Humour too.

If making an actual film does not sound like something you can do, stay with us because this festival is not exclusive to 4k quality, 120fps, 32-bit float audio camera jockeys. We are looking for other stuff too. The point of the Raw and Unfiltered African fantastic, fabulous and fucked-up Fly Fishing Film Festival for friends and fornicators (literally... throw in as many “Fs” as you like) is that it is ROUGH. Like Africa. That means if you have a phone, then you’ve got a voice, because aside from the main show reel of sculpted edits, we are also accepting rough and ready clips for the in-between bits too (think MTV shorts). How we work them into the show reel will be revealed in due course, but it could be as a mega-cut of fly fishing’s biggest fails. So, if you have a gem of a clip, that you know you will never turn into a standalone film, send it in. Your dronk mate falling into a dam, a camp-side joke told alongside the bush TV, you name it, we want to see it all. And yes, there will be the usual array of giveaways and prizes, including a destination prize for the best filmmaker.

To pitch a film entry, or submit a clip or hit us up to sponsors the festival, email us at info@themissionflymag.com

FOLLOW...

... FLY SHOP FRIDAYS our new video series shot in South African fly shops where you’ll learn to tie tried and tested go-to fly patterns, demonstrated by the experts at Frontier Fly Fishing, Mavungana Flyfishing, Upstream, Stream & Sea, Xplorer and X-Factor. The step-by-steps include a tigerfish Clouser, the lethal Carp Tugger, a high performing trout bugger, a meaty largemouth yellowfish Muishond and more. Week by week, shop by shop, you’ll be adding fly recipes to your repertoire. The best part? Each tutorial will link straight to the materials that can all be found in one place, at that shop - the simplest way to get you tying at your vise ASAP. themissionflymag.com

If it’s on your mind, it’s on ours.

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FISHERY ON OUR MIND - DE MOND NATURE RESERVE AND THE RIVER COTTAGE

We have fished De Mond estuary and the Heuningnes River for years and, as estuaries go, it has a unique charm all of its own. It boasts all the same species as its big sister the Breede - kob, grunter, leervis - but is smaller, prettier and more manageable. Think grunter on JAM flies on sand flats and this is the place that comes to mind. As you round the bend after the bridge, you’ll spy a jetty running back into some ancient milkwoods where an incredibly wellsituated private cottage lies. It’s one of those places that as you bust out thousands of casts for kob, you stare at for years, wondering what your life would be like if you could stay there. Now, that cottage is available for groups to rent on five select long weekends around full moon dates. It’s an upmarket, fully-catered option with management on site should you need them, but for a well-heeled crew of dedicated anglers looking for a unique weekend or two couples looking for that fish and chill combo in one of SA’s most picturesque spots, it will be hard to beat. Email kilpin@boesmansrug.co.za for more details.

“FOR A WELL-HEELED CREW OF DEDICATED ANGLERS LOOKING FOR A UNIQUE WEEKEND.”

ENTER...

...THE FEATHERS AWARD. This is your last chance to claim the mantle of the best fish on fly in Africa this year (as adjudged by The Mission’s brains trust). As the 2025 competition comes to a close, entries are flooding in. So far we have some standout submissions, including a mouse-

SALTY SEYCHELLES VETERAN...

... TAKES THE ONE FLY WIN. Blue Safari/Alphonse Fishing Co. head honcho Keith Rose-Innes is largely synonymous with the saltwater species you find in the Seychelles, which is why his recent win at the prestigious Jackson Hole One Fly fishing tournament on the South Fork of the Snake River is all the more flex-worthy. Competing against anglers from 40 teams of four over two days, RoseInnes fished an olive green jig head streamer tied by former Alphonse Fishing Co. guide, Alec Gerbec (now heading up the Seychelles programme for Yellowdog Fly Fishing). In a competition where losing your fly is fatal, the choice of a jig head streamer was instrumental in keeping him fishing for longer by avoiding snags and ultimately helped get the win and the bragging rights. jacksonholeonefly.org

eating smallscale yellow, a slappin’ 20kg IGFA record sharptooth catfish, and a dragon of a largemouth yellowfish. With the warmer weather here, we expect some marvelous specimens to take the spotlight. If you think your (or your mate’s) catch might be a contender, then send photos and the story to info@themissionflymag.com.

“THE CHOICE OF A JIG-HEAD STREAMER HELPED GET THE WIN.”

BOOZE, BEATS & MUNCHIES

THE MUNCHIES - BONGOLAND BUSH CARPACCIO

The Mission’s editor, Tudor Caradoc-Davies, on the quick-cure charcuterie recipe he picked up when he lived in East Africa.

One of the weirdest things about living in Tanzania (aka Bongoland as per the local vernac) was finding out that stuff that was seen as cheap or normal there was “fancy” back in South Africa, and vice versa. Boring old button mushrooms in SA? Fancy in Tanzania. Exotic oyster mushrooms? Normal. Boring old boney stewing meat? Luxury. Beef fillet? Cheap cheap. When I lived in Dar es Salaam with Ryan and Lise Wienand, who ran hunting camps in the Selous and other wilderness areas, Lise, a chef, had this brilliant

THE BEATS - FESTIVE SEASON SHAKE & BAKE

Whether you are heading out on a road-trip or chillaxing around camp with a cellphone stuck in a tin cup for a speaker, this playlist sports an array of shweet tunes that will make you so relaxed you might fall through your own poephol. From Black Uhuru and J.J. Cale, to Massive Hassle, Desert Sessions, Freckle, The Chemical Brothers and more - find it at themissionflymag.com, queue it up and let rip.

“bush carpaccio” recipe that made use of the abundant and seriously good beef fillet that we could pick up at decent prices. If you are a hunter with meat to spare and experiment with, venison fillet works a treat too. Serve it as a pre-braai appetiser by treating it like restaurants traditionally do their carpaccio, pairing it with things like rocket, avo, shavings of parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Or, smash it between slices of crusty bread with whatever sandwich fillers you like. If you like carpaccio, steak tartare, rare roast beef or wet biltong (coincidentally the latter is our art director Bod’s skateboarding nickname), you will l ove this.

Ingredients

1 x beef fillet or (depending on size, 2 x venison) fillets

2 x cups brown sugar

1 x cup sea salt

3/4 x cup black pepper corns, cracked 1/2 x cup coriander seeds, cracked Couple of sprigs of rosemary, chopped

Method

Mix all ingredients together, pack tightly around the fillet, wrap tightly in foil and leave overnight on a plate in the fridge (the plate is important as it leaks sticky juices). Turn it ( if you can remember). The next day discard everything that is still stuck on the fillet before slicing it very thin. Voila, magic

THE BOOZE - DARLING BREW LIGHT SPEED LAGER

Deep summer means long, hot afternoons spent in the water either fishing or cooling your jets. That means re-hydrating with plenty of beer... but, for both your boep and your brain you probably don’t want to exit the scene too fast. Rather than give all your Randelas to SAB’s Castle Lite and other suspects, we recommend Darling Brew’s Light Speed Lager. It’s low in booze at 2.6% (and carries less than 90 calories), but packs plenty of dry, malty, citrussy thirst-quenching flavour. darlingbrew.co.za

“FOR BOTH YOUR BOEP AND YOUR BRAIN.”

F Y N B O S F I S F Y N B O S F I S

S H R E V I V A L S H R E V I V A L

NOAH THOMPSON

FROM KAMCHATKA TO THE KEYS, OMAN TO BAJA OR THE MALDIVES, WHETHER HE’S GUIDING CLIENTS INTO FISH OR OFF ON A HUNT, NOAH THOMPSON LIVES THE DREAM OF THE GLOBE-TROTTING GUIDE.

5 best things about where you guide?

1. In Kamchatka, the sheer remoteness and isolation. Something happens and we are three hours from care and that’s if the weather is good enough to fly. Not many places are that wild.

2. Whether wintertime snook and redfish or summer/fall permit and tarpon, in Florida there is always something to do, no matter what time of year. Plus the offshore options.

3. In all the places I’ve worked, sure you remember certain fish and certain days, but the people you get to share it with are one of the best parts of the whole gig.

4. The guide teams I have gotten to work with. You sweat together, bleed together, live together - and by the end of a season you are a family. Having a team of strong cohesive guides and a tight crew is huge.

5. In Florida, it is clearwater tarpon fishing. I discriminate against no fish that is willing to eat a fly, but watching a string of tarpon come down the edge from 100m away will change a man. When they are around, I have a hard time targeting anything else.

5 fishing-connected items you don’t leave home without before making a mission?

1. Sig Sauer stabilized 16x42 Zulu binoculars. Worth their weight in gold...

2. Van Staal 7” pliers.

3. A Turtlebox.

4. More nicotine than I think I need…

5. My Smith low light yellows. Unlike a lot of yellow lenses, they don’t feel yellow yellow like you’re looking through a urine sample. Sunny, cloudy, early, midday, they are my 24/7s unless I’m offshore.

5 bands to listen to while on a road trip?

1. Waylon Jennings.

2. Cypress Hill.

3. Whiskey Myers.

4. Dire Straits.

5. Jompson Brothers.

5 things you are loving right now

1. My soulmate, Wesley Locke.

2. September - my favourite month of the year. While fishing pays most of the bills, I’m at a point where fishing is just another form of hunting, and hunting is what I love. Archery season in the elk woods is my happy place.

3. Nock Performance IG and podcast - advice and coaching on accountability, fitness, taking action, how to be a better partner and a better hunter. Just good clean masculinity - something the world needs more of right now.

4. Pointy rocks. Native American history and artifacts have always been my jam, but in recent years it has become more of a passion. Not a lot of things cooler than finding something man made and knowing that it hasn’t been touched in thousands of years.

5. Theo Von—a national treasure.

5 indispensable flies for saltwater?

1. Crease fly variants.

2. Hollow fleye/ Deceiver variants.

3. Spawning shrimp variants.

4. Strong arm variants.

5. EP baitfish.

5 indispensable flies for freshwater?

1. CDC Sedge-type caddis.

2. Hotspot hare’s ear.

3. Sparkle minnow.

4. Weightless pheasant tail.

5. Squirmy worm.

5 favourite fly fishing destinations globally?

1. The Florida Keys.

2. The Everglades—and I mention these first two separately because although only a short run across Florida Bay from each other, they are entirely different places.

3. Pacific side of Baja.

4. Bahía Solano, Colombia.

5. Kamchatka, Russia.

“IF YOU’RE GONNA BE DUMB YOU GOTTA BE TOUGH.”

5 of the most difficult guiding/teaching experiences so far?

1. One day in Baja, we had just made our morning run to the marlin grounds. After fighting last night’s demons all morning, I pulled up my stabilized binoculars and was immediately sent into a tailspin from hell. Like seasickness but something worse. All equilibrium was lost, as was breakfast, but the dry heaving didn’t stop until we were back on land that evening. Not my finest work. If you’re gonna be dumb, ya gotta be tough.

2. Once in Kamchatka, I had a guy who refused to use his backhand, and as the day went on he got sloppier and sloppier, heaving a large Dolly Llama across my nose. Just when I begged him for the 14th time to please try his backhand, he came through the boat again and clacked it off the back of my skull. It hurt so bad I couldn’t even find words. Before I could say anything, he came through once more, again skulling me with the musket ball. I said, “Dammit Bill, that’s two casts in a row!” Unsatisfied with his previous offering he went into another stroke, and skulled me a third time. Three casts - three concussions. The odds. Finally I snapped, and Bill was swiftly demoted to a friendlier offering.

3. This spring in the upper Keys, I had left a client’s rod with him one evening so he could try his hand at some small tarpon in the basin where they were staying. The next morning when I picked them up, my man was quick to tell me my knots were no good because he had broken off the point section of his leader when he had hung bottom. But not to worry, he had retied a piece of 12lb in the hopes of tangling with his first bonefish - so our first stop that morning was a falling tide bonefish spot. Everything changed when out off the deeper edge of the bank, a very large permit flanked us pushing a head wake through the dusty water. A well placed shot and the fish broke his neck to eat the spawning shrimp. Far too many minutes later, I was a couple of feet away from tailing what would’ve undoubtedly been the largest permit I have ever grabbed by a long shot. What happened next was a devastating lesson. Take the time to re-tie knots if something is in question, and expect the unexpected.

4. June 9th of 2013 myself and two others were clobbered by an undetected storm 25 miles offshore of the Texas coast. There were 8-10-foot breaking waves and wind gusts were north of 70mph. Somehow our 22-foot panga made it through. Without a doubt the scariest day of my life, but one of the best lessons I could have ever learned as a captain. Nature don’t give a shit, and you have to always be prepared for the worst she has to offer.

5. During the middle of my third season in Kamchatka, I slipped one night coming down some steep stairs, and when I went to catch myself only my pinkie and ring finger caught the edge of the stairs above me resulting in a double 90° dislocation at the middle knuckles. I had to row the rest of the season with three fingers on my left. That, combined with a case of giardia, rearranged my life for over a year. Needless to say I was not bummed to wrap that season up.

5 of the best things you have picked up from guiding?

1. Managing expectations. Under promise—overdeliver.

2. Learning to cater specifically to each client or individual. What might make one person’s trip may vary entirely from the next guy. It might be something specific, like catching a fish a certain way or in a certain scenario.

3. Teaching. It is easy to simply go through the motions and put your guys on fish and expect them to do the rest and say, ‘well, I did my job’. Anyone can do that - but sending your guys home better anglers than they were at the beginning of the day is what separates goods and greats.

4. Undaunted optimism. Always stay positive. If you jump somebody for not listening or doing something you’re trying to correct, a lot of anglers can shut down. Positive reinforcement is the

“DO NOT TRY TO KEEP UP WITH RUSSIANS WHEN IT COMES TO VODKA OR SMOKE, YOU WILL LOSE.”

way. 5. Preparation - hope for the best, prepare for the worst, but it is better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

5. Preparation - hope for the best, prepare for the worst, but it is better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

5 of the worst things you have picked up from guiding?

1. Undoubtedly early onset skin cancer. Always need to be better about sun protection.

2. An affliction for places that are not easy to get to.

3. Busted teeth. I bit my mono/fluoro for almost two decades against doctor’s orders. Save teeth - use nippers.

4. Boat problems. This season I had the pleasure of burning through two engines. Always go with the warranty.

5. A weakness for an occasional ciggy. Once I’d ran out of snuff on my first stint in Kamchatka in 2017, the Russians’ habits wore off on me. Rule of thumb, do not try to keep up with Russians when it comes to vodka or smoke, you will lose.

5 things you didn’t expect about your career in fly fishing?

1. That I would find a woman who loves it as much as I do and understands what I do.

2. That I’d one day work for a large scale operation - in about six weeks my fiancée and I are headed to the Maldives for the season with COMO Maalifushi. My good mate Craig Richardson helped them get a fishing op off the ground for a few years pre-Covid. The resort sleeps around 130 guests and has a staff of about 250. Getting excited!

3. That by the time I was 25 I would witness the decline of fisheries I grew up on.

4. I didn’t expect guiding to take me to many of the places I’ve been. I feel very fortunate.

5. I didn’t expect I’d ever get tired of international gigs, but at a certain point it’s kind of a jack-of-all, master-of-none thing. I’m looking forward to slowing down and laying roots. Living in The Keys the better part of the year is a dream come true.

“GOOD CLEAN MASCULINITY - SOMETHING THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OF RIGHT NOW.”

5 hints that your client is a colossal tool?

1. He jumps in the skiff with his shoes on.

2. He insists on what fly we’re throwing.

3. He tells you about spots other guides have taken him.

4. He can’t stop talking about how many permit he’s caught.

5. He exclusively fishes Orvis.

5 funniest situations you’ve experienced while guiding?

1. My very first day in Russia, a shotgun blasted off just up river from us. Much to our comic relief, there was no bear but rather one of the local crew, Sasha, was using his 12ga to chop down a limb in which a fly was hung.

2. On the final day of a week in Baja, Jesse Colten came tight on his first mahi. As the line cleared a wrap found its way around the butt and the fly line snapped in the mid-section. About five minutes later, I noticed a fly line zipping past us. Jesse laid out for it and after a quick handlining got to grab his first green hornet.

3. One evening in Texas my buddy Bo hooked a big Jack Crevalle. Just as the line was almost cleared, a loop wrapped around the ignition, slingshotting the keys 30ft into the air and into 50ft of water. Between that and snapping one off flush in my ignition another time, I always carry a spare.

4. I once was fishing with these two guys who were giving each other hell the whole trip. So one day at lunch, while one was on his phone he received a photo airdrop from his mate. It was a

photo of his buddy’s balls draped over the apple that he was half way through eating. Don’t know if I’ve laughed that hard since.

5. One time I instinctively dived to rescue a brand new 12-weight that was ripped out of the boat by something after it had been set down with the fly still in the water. But when I crawled back in the boat, I realized I had my phone in one pocket, my guy’s phone in the other, and his Sony A7r which had just come out hanging around my neck. We did land the fish though, a very expensive bull red. Wasn’t as funny at the time but now we laugh about it.

5 flies to pack (in the smuggler kit under your driver’s seat) to cover most species?

1. Clouser, naturally.

2. White deceiver.

3. Weightless pheasant tail.

4. Sparkle minnow on a Wapsi jig hook.

5. Rapala x rap.

5 people you would like to guide or fish with?

1. Larry Dahlberg (ed. of Dahlberg Diver fame).

2. Dean Butler (ed. IGFA hall of famer).

3. George Straight (ed. country singer).

4. Jim Carrey.

5. Theo Von.

5 fish on your species hit list?

1. Sea-run Siberian taimen on Hokkaido or Sakhalin Island.

2. Napoleon Wrasse.

3. 300lb+ black marlin on 20lb.

4. 180lb+ poon on 12lb.

5. Swordfish on a fly.

5 of the most underrated species in your book?

1. Omani Brim.

2. Cobia.

3. Triple tail.

4. California Yellowtail (kingies).

5. Triggers.

5 destinations on your bucket list?

1. Slovenia.

2. Mongolia.

3. Port Gentil, Gabon.

4. Cameroon.

5. Andaman Islands.

5 things you would take up if you weren’t always fishing?

1. Long range shooting and ballistics.

2. Kiteboarding.

3. Flight school - pilot’s license.

4. I’d learn to pick some guitar strings.

5. I’d have a lot of dogs.

5 flies that to look at make no sense but that catch fish all the time?

1. Walt’s Worm.

2. Purple Haze.

3. Spam and Eggs.

4. Dragon Tails.

5. RABs.

5 common mistakes that most clients make?

1. Picking up the rod once or twice a year and expecting to get better. Consistency is key.

2. Not listening to their guide or making the assumption that they know better than their guide who does it every day. Trust your guide. You might want it, but not as bad as he wants it for you.

3. Being unprepared. Do your research and find credible sources to point you the right way. Nothing less fortunate than traveling to the ends of the earth only to realize you don’t have what you really need.

4. Not bringing a backup pair of glasses. They break or go overboard. They’re not something you want to be caught without.

5. Investing in proper foul weather gear. When you need it, it quickly becomes the most important gear you have. Don’t jeopardize a trip because you cheaped out.

Your last five casts were to….

1. Carnivorous Russian rainbow trout.

2. Teasing for cubera and roosterfish on the Northern Pacific coast of Panama.

3. Striped bass in Boston Harbour.

4. Late season tarpon in the Florida Keys.

5. Redfish on the Texas coast.

Follow Noah on Instagram at @noah_rthompson

UNDERCURRENTS

THE DEAD OF NIGHT

BLAME CIVILISATION OR EVOLUTION BUT AS ANIMALS WE ARE, MOSTLY, DISCONNECTED FROM THE NATURAL WORLD. HOWEVER, AS LEROY BOTHA EXPERIENCED, THERE ARE OCCASIONS WHEN EVEN HUMANS CAN’T DENY THE SIGNS THAT SOMETHING IS AFOOT. WHEN IT HAPPENS (AND YOU WILL KNOW IT WHEN IT DOES), YOU WOULD DO WELL TO GO FISHING.

I was troubled.

Many years ago, I abandoned the pursuit of happiness. I don’t know who taught me this anymore, or if anyone did, but I’ve known that instead, I should mine the rare moments that make life bearable. But how difficult it was to see my place in this world. How exceptionally rare and fleeting those moments had become; so long and heavy the time in between. Hope, in its falseness, was a drug that never came on, but the comedown was hard and guaranteed. The absence of evidence of its existence should have made it easy for me to make my mind up a long time ago. Why hadn’t I? I’d visited the edge so many times. Everything was wrong.

By no means was my failure to connect with a big fish the catalyst for the fog I was under, but I’d convinced myself that one good fish would help me clear it. One good bite could resurrect hope. And if I achieved my goal – one kob over one metre long, on the fly – well, wouldn’t that change everything? Wouldn’t life, as an endeavour, seem less absurd? Wouldn’t Time, as a thing to suffer, as a very word, regain its meaning? Would I not forget her? Oh. Shit. I digress. I knew where they were. I swear I knew what it took. But it’s been six years since the obsession began, and after another six weeks of full-sending every hour I could steal on the water, I couldn’t buy a bite to save my life. I knew it wasn’t helping. I was worse. I gave up.

So, late one night at the end of October, I, as a perfect example of a broken bastard, sat in a dimly lit and dusty garage, with a rope in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and a mind just about made up. I hadn’t thought about fishing for days. I was just staring at the rafters. Oh, garage. My workshop, my laboratory. My fort, my prison. My mausoleum. Between rusty guitar strings and that dusty anchor rope, my hands had mastered every murky art I needed to know. The only thing that could stop me, right then, was a ghost in the machine.

A lone chorister robin started singing outside, as though it were daybreak. As its song pierced the silence of the night, moths and other insects began mobbing the buzzing fluorescents and desk lamp. Two geckos crawled onto the garage window and started chasing little creatures crashing into their advanced hunting force field. The cats, both lazy old sods, came crashing through in a rare display of boisterous play fighting. One paused to squint at me before resuming the shenanigans. My dog, always calm and by my side, shot up like she was on some strong shit, and ran outside to urgently dig, apparently, a tunnel to the other side of the world. She never digs. I followed her outside, where a near-imperceptible breeze began replacing the chill in the air with a thick but pleasant warmth. Serotine bats were dive-bombing moths around the lamp post like a squad of nano-dragons flying on pure badness. More birds joined the chorus. Another chorister robin, then an olive thrush, and a shrieking mousebird, a hadeda, of course, and a turtle dove and an owl. The night was bright with a few small, low clouds that morphed faster than the air seemed to be moving – it had rained softly until an hour before. What makes a bird sing his heart out in the middle of the night? What is this feeling in my soul? Are we connected? It became impossible to ignore the surging urge to get out there. It can’t be. What if I take the bait and it’s bullshit? What the hell then?

That would be it. That’s what the hell then.

I went back inside, switched the kettle on and checked on my aquarium. The school of tetras were clearly agitated. I ran a key-ring laser light along the glass to see how they’d react. They practically knocked each other out to catch the running red dot. It’s an old trick that rarely lies, and I suppose that was all the convincing I needed. I fed the fish well, and checked the tides.

As I scanned the chart, I inadvertently started humming a verse I wrote six years before:

One last chance at the perfect tide. One last pre-dawn mission. When again I see that firefly, you better know I’m going fishing. There’s a rumble in the River Gorge, and who knows how long it lasts? I cannot sleep, I have no choice. I’ll be there till it’s past.

Don’t give an inch this time, I know, unless I long to taste defeat. I hear them grazing, find my feet. River Kings! It’s time to feast!

It was the peak of the spring tide. It would push until 3am, the dream time, and exactly then, the full moon would be directly overhead. The air was gently flowing from the southwest, and the glass steadily climbing. Even without the weather and tide charts, I recognised what was going on. Everything was right.

Fuck it. One last chance at the perfect tide.

And so it was that at 1am that October night, on my way to the river, I felt the peace of a man who knew the war was

over. Whatever happened next, would be exactly how it should be. As a rule, I rush when I head to the water. But that night, with no need for the usual angst and expectation, I took it slow and enjoyed the drive. I tried to imagine the memories I cherish. I paged through Newman’s Birds of Southern Africa. I saw my past trips down this road to the river. I saw many things.

I savoured a cup of coffee as I readied my gear. I switched my head lamp off, and as my eyes adjusted I took in what was going on in the gorge. Far upstream, I could hear a band of chirping frogs practising their favourite songs, and in the forest across the river, another robin was singing along. I was struck by how absolutely alive the water surface looked. I could see everything. I had never seen the gorge so intensely lit at this time of the night before. It was as bright as possible.

If the water near me looked this good, it would be twice so at the rocky slab I’d be fishing from. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to find out if the kob were there, too, or not. But I was there, so I grabbed my gear and started the walk to the slab.

Along the way, I realised a thing. That usual ghostly feeling that you’re being watched, so native to night-time in this place, was missing. Never before, here, or anywhere else, have I felt such a complete absence of the death-stare of humanity. In this valley on this night, there were only the nocturnal animals that vie for the right to call this place “home”.

As I stripped line off the reel to prepare for a cast, two shooting stars appeared to collide and violently vaporise across the night sky, in a way I would dare you to describe. “When again I see that firefly…”

With the moon climbing higher and the tide rolling in, the last thing I had to do before sending the fly, was light a smoke. As I drew the little red coal to maximum brightness, the trees lining the bank lit up, too, one by one, like microvillages in a sci-fi world. I had always thought of fireflies as more than just bugs full of Lucifer juice, or whatever it’s called. To be sure, I’d read somewhere about Japanese traditions in which fireflies are considered companions to the souls of the newly dead, as they pass from this world to the next. Lit by a billion stars, some meteor vapour, a giant moon, a thousand fireflies and a little red coal, the gorge was bursting with life like I’d never seen it. Only two things could explain all the fireflies, and one of them was mullet souls.

The mullets were everywhere. Anxious. I sent the fly.

I started my retrieve as soon as it hit the water. I could lie to you and tell you that a kob double-tapped it only a few strips into the retrieve, but I won’t. Because that’s what actually happened. He wasn’t particularly big, but he was my first kob in six years. Ice, be shattered. Heart, be warmed. Hands, be stank of that brassy kob stink!

“EVER HEARD THE SOUND OF A BIG KOB MURDERING MULLET IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT? THOSE WHO HAVE, ARE HAUNTED BY IT.”

By 3:30am, in the company of fireflies and a robin who sounded like he was looking for his dog, I had taken four. Breaking records? No. But would I remember this? For as long as I lived.

I took a moment to light another smoke and rest my back against a large fallen tree to the left of the slab. I watched as the mullets grew more agitated, bunching up in scattered schools betrayed by patches of nervous water flickering in the moonlight.

And then a bomb went off. It was so loud that I half expected to be shredded by shrapnel.

Oh, Shotgun Slurp, Oh, Mighty Boof! Darkness, my old friend. How many a mullet will now meet his maker! BOOF! Another one, close enough to see the explosion in the moonlight. Close enough to feel it in my chest. A chill ran down my spine, and I begged myself to focus. I clenched my jaw. My eyes dilated. Time geared down to a crawl. A half-timed heartbeat throbbed in my ears. Everything was beautiful.

Ever heard the sound of a big kob murdering mullet in the dead of night? Those who have, are haunted by it.

BOOF! Dead ahead.

“Now!” I cast, ecstatic. Slow strip. Double-tap. I drove the hook home as hard as I could, and then twice more. Rather break it off right there than lose it later, once you’ve gotten attached, if you know what I mean. But it held. We’re connected. You and I.

As the backing knot rattled through the rod’s guides, I knew, “This changes everything.”

Back at the car, I poured a cup, packed my gear, and smiled: bombs were going off all across the river as the kob took control of the battlefield, and one bankside tree after another came alive with fireflies.

I am kept and mesmerised by these moments, these karmic collisions that reveal our fates. How strange and merciful it was, to have been there, right then.

OFF THE ROCKS

OK, WE’LL SAY IT: MANY OF THE FILMS ON THE INTERNATIONAL TOUR CIRCUITS ARE INCREDIBLY SAME-SAME. THE SAME KINDS OF PEOPLE DOING THE SAME KINDS OF FLY FISHING, SHOT IN THE SAME KINDS OF WAYS. THAT’S WHY GRASSHOPPER , A NEW FILM SET TO BE RELEASED AT THE 2026 F3T, SEEMS LIKE SUCH A BREATH OF FRESH AIR. A “FROTHY SWOFFER”, SWIMMING OUT TO ROCKS ALONG A WILD COASTLINE TO CATCH AUSSIE SALMON ON FLY? NOW THAT SOUNDS LIKE BOX OFFICE TO US. WE SAT DOWN WITH THE SUBJECT OF THE FILM, JACKSON MURRAY , AND FILMMAKERS GARETH SHRUBB AND JESSE WALLACE TO FIND OUT WHAT THEY GOT UP TO.

Interview. Tudor Caradoc-Davies

Photos. Jackson Murray, Gareth Schrubb, Jesse Wallace

As sports go, fly fishing is but a niche in the general fishing landscape. Even then, within fly fishing, we separate and subdivide like antisocial amoeba into smaller tribes and even more specific niches. Some of us are into multiple branches of fly fishing, while others hyper-specialise. As for people who swim out and fly fish off remote rocks along wild coastlines for pelagic fish, it’s a very small club. Jackson Murray (aka Muzz), an Australian angler with Seffrican roots, belongs to it. Gareth Shrubb (aka Gazza) and Jesse Wallace (possibly aka Jizza) teamed up with Jackson to make a film.

How do you guys know each other? What’s the glue on this project?

Jackson: So, I originally went to the F3T Film Festival last year at The Fly Fisher, the local fly shop that hosted it here in Melbourne. I went into the store the next day and Andrew Fuller, the owner, was like, “Why don’t you make a film?” I thought about it overnight and decided if I’m going to do it, I want it to be done properly and I want to work with people who will capture it the right way. I did a bit of research online and spent some time figuring out who would be the right fit. I came across Gazza’s page and I saw that he and Jesse had done stuff together and shot him a message. He phoned me the same day and it sort of just kicked off from there.

Gareth: Jesse and I are both ex-military. So that’s where we first came to meet each other. I got out of the service in 2019 and Jesse got out in 2022. I got back into filming full time and when Jesse, who lives not too far from me, exited, I saw him putting up some outdoor photos. Over the last two years, we have worked on a lot of outdoor content together.

Jackson, what do you do? I assume fly fishing off the rocks doesn’t pay the bills.

Jackson: No, unfortunately not. I wish it would. I run a small social media agency. A brand will come to me and say we don’t know what to do on socials. I’ll build a strategy, create the content and post it for them. A lot of it is video work for socials. The long-form documentary style is well out of my league.

“WHEN IT COMES TO THESE LAND-BASED FISHING LOCATIONS, THERE ARE A LOT OF DIFFERENT

CUES AND DIFFERENT FACTORS THAT NEED TO LINE UP TO MAKE THEM FLY FISHABLE.”

For Grasshopper how much planning went into the shooting?

Jackson: The whole process started about nine months ago when we put together a deck that outlined the concept for the film and what we wanted to showcase. Then we reached out to brands that we thought would want to partner with the project. We then picked Victoria and almost the whole southern coastline for the first shoot in April last year, which is the best time to fish for the salmon. Then we did another trip this year based in New South Wales (NSW) at around the same time.

I know you get Aussie salmon all along the Australian coast, but is Victoria as well known for salmon as say Western Australia?

Jackson: No, definitely not. Victoria is probably the least fishy state in Australia. There’s not much here. That said, in the last five years I’ve been fishing for them, I’ve sort of worked out the Aussie salmon patterns here in Vic. We get both Western Australian salmon and Eastern Australian salmon. They’re two separate sub-species. The Western Australian ones are typically bigger. They get up to around the 20lb-plus mark and they will spawn offshore and come inshore around February until the end of May in WA (Western Australia). That’s when you see these monsters getting caught in that salmon run. Occasionally a fair few travel down past South Australia into Victoria, which is what I’ll sometimes hook up to. Then you have the Eastern Australian salmon which get up to around the 12-15lb mark. They are really prominent in NSW where we just finished fishing and they also make their way down to Victoria to breed in the inlets and estuaries. Fortunately, in Victoria, we get both species. They sort of meet here, spawn and then go their separate ways.

Can you easily tell them apart?

Jackson: Not really. Typically, if you hook a monster, it’s from WA. They are substantially bigger. The Eastern Australian ones are typically a little bit smaller. The bigger Eastern Australian salmon will stay in eastern Australia while the smaller ones come down the coast to spawn in the estuaries. However, in NSW there were some absolute monsters that we saw over the last few days that made my jaw hit the floor. It was wicked fun.

Jesse: The thing that makes these salmon unique is that no one really fishes for them. They’re not like a big targeted species because they taste like shit. It’s something unique to go after, especially on the fly and to have someone like

Jackson, who’s a full frother for it. Most people prefer to target kingfish or other pelagics.

Doing what you do, is it just something where you saw an opportunity where no one else was fishing for these fish and realised that, with a bit of effort, you could access them? Or was it more a case of trying to do something different just to try and push the envelope?

Jackson: I grew up in Queensland fishing for big GTs and casting for Spanish mackerel off the rocks. So, I’ve been a land-based fisho most of my life. I moved down to Victoria when I was 15 and was a little bit lost. There weren’t any GT here in Port Philip Bay. There wasn’t much to do. My old man had fly fished before he had me and he sort of put the fly rod in my hands and said, “There’s trout down here. I don’t have the time to take you fishing but I know someone that does.” A good friend of his, Woodsy, taught me all the basics of fly fishing and trout in particular. I fell in love with this new type of fishing. I found it was that level up that I’d been looking for.

About three years ago, I went fishing like on any other day for salmon off the rocks, just spinning conventionally. I found myself throughout the session looking forward to going fly fishing in the afternoon for trout because fly fishing was what I loved the most. Then I just thought to myself, “I wonder if I could fly fish off the rocks and catch Aussie salmon?” So I borrowed my mentor Woodsy’s banged-up 20-year-old 8-weight setup. On my fifth cast I caught a salmon. I told myself, “Remember this moment, this is pretty special.” That was where it clicked for me that it is possible to fly fish off the rocks.

There was a big learning curve in terms of line management, which is virtually impossible, and casting, but actually catching this fish on fly is not that much different to conventional. However, when it comes to these landbased fishing locations, there are a lot of different cues and different factors that need to line up to make them fly fishable.

With fly fishing, you need enough room for a back cast. You need deep water as well. You need to be able to land fish by hand. You can’t drag them up the rocks, so you need to be looking around for places that you can do that. There was a lot of searching involved in finding places that I could fly fish off the rocks. There are a couple spots at my local that are fly fishable, but it does require going to those extra lengths.

Are you a former junior Olympian swimmer?

Jackson: When it comes to swimming out to spots, well, that’s what gets me quite excited. I like my heart to be racing while I’m fishing, knowing that there’s a lot going on. That’s what I go out there for. I get goosebumps as I’m swimming. This one particular spot that I fish at has this huge rip that starts to channel through at high tide. It’s like swimming across a river. You have to swim quite fast out to the rock if you are trying to get out there to that hole. In Victoria, the best time of year for these fish is coming into winter and that means that it’s bloody freezing. Quite often, I’ll be swimming out there when it’s 2 to 5°C on average in the morning. It’s not a relaxing saltwater trip. You’re freezing your ass off casting with numb hands. It’s these extreme factors that I love.

OK. So that leads me to Gareth and Jesse. You guys were obviously up for the adventure of filming Jackson, but did you have to jump in and swim across rips too?

Gareth: Yeah, we both did. Logistically it was very difficult to film the swimming. I grew up on the coast here, used to be a lifeguard and competed in surf lifesaving so I was pretty comfortable. When I first made my entry into filming, it was through big wave surfing so that’s sort of an element that I’m familiar with but, when you’re filming big wave surfing, I think it’s pretty easy because normally you go out on a jet ski and the camera lives in the housing. But where we were trying to film the fishing it added that extra level of complexity, being able to get gear over there with the gear in housings and Pelican cases and swimming it back. We captured a mixture of footage from land and then drone footage. Then Jesse and I both hopped in the water with housings, which was good. We tried to capture all the elements, but a lot of stuff got wet and sandy.

We had a small weather window. We got down there and conditions were probably bigger than forecast but, while it wasn’t calm, crystal-clear waters, that sort of chaos and a bit of swell and excitement probably added to the visuals. The conditions did the narrative justice in terms of where Jackson talks about it being hectic and how some days he’s getting washed off the rocks. Jackson literally got washed off the rocks a few times and Jesse and I filmed that. It was about as far as you’d want to push. We captured all that footage and got a handful of fish. Earlier this week we had pretty similar conditions, but we had the luxury of estuary fishing and sight-casting fish. So there was a good balance of chaos off the rocks and then some more traditional stuff, looking for schools of fish, and sight casting in clearer water.

On top of the fishing, the other benefit for Jesse and me was the wildlife everywhere. Seals, sharks, birds, eagles, there was a lot going on. That salmon spawning run attracts a lot of other wildlife. That worked in our favour. It was the next level.

I know you get serious shark activity all along the Australian coast. How much of a factor is that for you guys when considering where to swim? Or do you just assume you know your odds are good and you go for it?

Gareth: I think it just comes down to the state of things on the day. Jesse’s a spearo and I know, having grown up surfing and diving in South Australia, that it’s just about picking your conditions. Where we were swimming in the inlet, I had the drone up and I could see everything from a mile away. That said, you wouldn’t catch me freely swimming around a seal colony or in dirty water at the front of the inlet where the sharks were busting up. But we weren’t in open dirty water. I’m not worried by sharks, but you need to respect them, look at the conditions and be cautious about it.

Obviously, you’re scouting quite a bit, trying to find appropriate waters. Do you just start off on the shore and then start to identify rocky outcrops to swim to? Or have you done a lot of the homework beforehand on Google Maps or by flying a drone over those areas? Jackson A lot of it is research beforehand. Typically, you start on a wider scale. Where we were fishing in NSW, you look at that shelf coming quite close to the mainland, looking at headlands that stretch out into deep water, where fish swim past quite often. There’s a lot of current pushing past the headlands which acts as a highway for fish. When you’re land-based fishing, you know you want to give yourself the best chance at hooking up. It’s one of those things where the fish come to you, you don’t go to the fish. That means looking for signs of these fish highways where they will be coming in close within casting distance.

Typically, when I go on a trip, I’ll mark five different headlands that I want to fish. It’s good to have backup options, because quite often after doing research on

Google Earth and Navionics on depth charts, you get to these locations and they’re not fly fishable, which is what I found on this trip. At all five spots I spent a full day walking around the headlands and bush bashing trying to find where I could fish, but some were not fly fishable purely because the swell was bigger than I thought. A lot of what I do is just spending the time going to these spots once you’ve identified them. On Google Earth, you can’t really see how big the drops off these ledges are. One of them was perfect with water so deep that there wasn’t any swell, but there was a huge surge that was happening at the front of the ledge, which meant that landing fish would be virtually impossible on your own.

Gareth: That’s where the drone works. It’s not just for Aussie salmon fishing. I’ve used it a lot in trout fishing lately to find water. It’s a bit of technological assistance, but if you don’t use it, you only cheat yourself.

I’m sure you also find places, that may be unfishable that day or that week. But, in certain conditions, on another week, they could be perfect.

Jackson: Swell and wind are what you look out for. You want an offshore wind to help with your casting because fly fishing is at a disadvantage already compared to spin fishing. You want to be casting a length of 60 to 80 feet if possible, so a tail wind and an offshore breeze is what you want as well as swell. Up in QLD, you’ve got the reef protecting you so all you’re looking out for is the wind, whereas down here across WA, SA, Victoria and NSW we have swell, which is your number one risk factor. A big swell means you’re getting washed off.

What’s the narrative approach for the film?

Gareth: Basically, we’ve conducted a lot of the interviews down in Victoria. Obviously we’ve done an interview with Muzz that was quite lengthy, but I think where a lot of the nuggets of gold for this film have come from are the supporting characters. There was Andrew at The Flyfisher who spoke on his first interactions with Jackson down in Victoria, helping him out and watching his journey. Then Jackson’s mentor, Woodsy, who has a bit of experience with saltwater fishing and who taught him how to fly fish. There’s also Jackson’s dad talking about Jackson growing up in far north Queensland and moving down. Those interviews paid off time and time again. Although this film’s got visuals that are right up our alley, Jesse and I were always chasing the story. I think these interviews add a lot of weight rather than just have Muzz talk about himself. It’s also a bit of a piece on the Australian salmon to educate and maybe inspire people to get out and have a crack at this fishing.

What were the best blooper moments?

Gareth: The best blooper moment for me was when I was out on the rock with Muzz getting some detail. He was casting his massive sardine fly and I copped the fly to the back of the head. The hook went all the way through. I think Jesse caught one to the hamstring as well. Jesse: Yeah, bit of friendly fire.

Gareth: I also filmed Muzz getting washed off. Jesse had to don the fins once to go get Muzz when he was swimming in. There was a bit of a rip there and it required a bit of a rescue. Other funny moments were when we were down at Bermagui, where there were a few resident seals who were trying to keep everyone out of their salmon grounds. I filmed Jesse getting the shit scared out of him by a seal. He was in the water with the housing. The seals kept darting behind him, toying with him.

Jesse: It was like they didn’t want anyone leaving for some reason. You could get in, but they didn’t want you to leave.

“IT ALL

GETS

PRETTY DEEP AND RIPPY BY THE END OF IT.”

What about the toughest challenges filming Grasshopper? What did you struggle with?

Jesse: The biggest challenge for me was probably the original spots for the island because you go out there on low tide and you’re fishing the incoming tide. So, it all gets pretty deep and rippy by the end of it. We found that if we left gear on the beach and the tide was coming up really high, that the gear almost got washed away a few times. I think that was the biggest drama.

Are other people starting to do this kind of fishing now?

Gareth: Where we went, saltwater fly fishing is nothing new. What’s different is probably just some of the areas that Jackson puts himself in. A lot of people die off the

rocks doing that kind of stuff here, so while people might enjoy watching on the big screen, I don’t think too many are going be racing out to go put themselves in the same position. Through the supporting interviews, Jesse and I got to see that Muzz is a bit of an outlier.

Jackson: I would say from my experience that doing this is extremely dangerous. The fly fishing aspect means you get quite distracted. So, if you are going to do it, put in the time first, do your research and know the risks. I’ve been washed off the rocks plenty of times and I know what to do when it goes wrong and I know not to panic. If anyone out there is thinking about giving it a go, know the risks and have a plan. Don’t just go out there without an idea.

SHOP THE MISSION

Hardcore hardware for a marine maniac

Jackson: The number one thing that I’m thinking about when I’m fly fishing off the rocks is safety. That’s why I wear a wet suit. I’ve got my rod in my hand and that’s it. If I get washed off, I’m not floating on the surface or getting dragged down by wearing too much gear. I want to be able to swim out to sea, catch my breath and then decide how I’m going to make my way in. I don’t want to be getting bashed around in the waves or trying to scramble up the rocks because then you get hit on the head and you drown. I’ll also take out a waterproof backpack with all my gear in it, which I’ll leave on the rocks a couple of metres behind me. That will have pliers, flies and all the rest of it. I try to keep it light and simple, I don’t want to be going out there looking like a walking Christmas tree.

Gear list:

Rods: 8-weight Primal Mega CCC 908/4 and 8-weight Sage Salt R8

A lightweight, durable and powerful rod is key, enabling you to cast for hours on end and bring in fish with ease. I used the sponsored Primal for the film which handled the job, no problem. The Sage is my personal rod. As a kid, all I ever wanted was a Sage. My old man had one and so did Woodsy. You invest in the things you spend the most time on, so that’s what I’ve done here. I’ve used this rod for the past two years. I’ve landed fish well above its weight class and continue to bend fish like nothing else while still enabling me to cast for days on end on big trips. It’s one of those “forever rods”.

Reels: 8-weight Lamson LiteSpeed Marine 8 and Hatch Iconic 7+

I rely on reels that will handle the abuse I put them through in harsh saltwater environments. Having a sealed drag gives me the peace of mind that I can put them through the paces for years to come. Looks are equally important too. I used the Lamson for the film, while my personal reel is the Hatch. Both have everything I need: drag, ergonomics, saltwater proof, lightweight and bloody good looking. Highly recommend.

Lines: 8-weight AirFlo Superflo Ridge Tech 2.0 Streamer Max and 8-weight Scientific Anglers Triple Density Sonar Titan 3/5/7

Your line is definitely the most important gear choice by far. It needs to have an aggressive taper to punch out regular casts of 80ft-plus with two to three false casts while having a fast-sinking head to get the fly sub-surface the second you start hauling it back at 100mph. Both the sponsored Airflo and my Scientific Anglers regular line do this.

Wetsuit: O’Riginals Long John

I opt to run a wetsuit for a multitude of reasons. Whether I’m swimming out to ledges in 5 degrees, copping waves while fishing or, most importantly, having to swim with ease if I get washed off. Wearing some type of clothing that keeps you warm and safe while being easy to rinse off when you get home is vital when it comes to this type of fishing.

Shoes: Simms Pursuit Shoe and Tropical Feel or Vans

You don’t need fancy shoes but you do need footwear that’s grippy, lightweight and not afraid to get wet and beat up. I tend to use skating shoes like Vans and I’ve recently discovered a brand called Tropical Feel that are sick – purpose-built to wear in the water, lightest shoes on the planet and easy to rinse afterwards. The Simms Pursuit Shoe is also a great choice.

“IF I GET WASHED OFF, I’M NOT GETTING DRAGGED DOWN BY WEARING TOO MUCH GEAR.”

Sunnies: Mako GT

I’m constantly looking at the water, keeping an eye on my fly as it swims through the water, sight-casting to fish or monitoring the presence of bait pressed up against the rocks. Using a pair of polarised sunnies is key. I’ve been using Makos for a while and can’t fault them.

Backpack: Simms Dry Creek Z

I’ve used this backpack for years and love it. It’s got everything I need from durability, comfort, being able to hang gear off it and, most importantly, keeping what’s inside dry. Highly recommend it.

WANT MORE FROM THE EXTREMES OF SALTWATER FLY FISHING?

Soldiers with Hammers Leonard Flemming’s blog about catching amberjack, santer, hammerheads and elf off the bricks. themissionflymag.com/ soldiers-with-hammers

Cellos at Dawn Conrad Botes’s in-shore float tubing tactics for silver kob as featured in Issue 27. themissionflymag.com/ cellos-at-dawn

Cliff Hangers Jimmy Eagleton’s rock climbing approach to access hard to reach saltwater species as featured in Issue 40. themissionflymag.com/ cliff-hangers

The Window Jazz Kuschke’s breakthrough in catching bonito off the rocks as featured in Issue 33. themissionflymag. com/the-window-bonitoon-fly

Shark Bait Monte Burke’s story (originally published in Forbes) about skishing (open-water swimming and fishing) off Long Island, New York. Available in his latest book, Rivers Always Reach the Sea, a collection of his best writing. pegasusbooks.us

Place this formula in any cell in row 1, for Excel version 2021 onwards, or Google Sheets =LET( Mates, 2,Years_Saving, 4,Rod_Swings, 2000,Catch_Rate, 188,Catch, ROUNDDOWN((Mates * Years_Saving * Rod_Swings) / Catch_Rate, 0),POTA, ISNUMBER(SEARCH(“editor”, TEXTJOIN(“ “, TRUE, A2:Z54))),IF(POTA, Catch & “ �� golden dorado + 1x grumpy boludo”, Catch&“ �� golden dorado”))

“Wisdom is wasted on the old, and youth is wasted on the young.” George Bernard Shaw

Take a look on social media at the people enjoying stellar fishing at some of the world’s best destinations and you will see that, on average (and excluding the trustafarians), they’re either middle-aged or older. That’s because top shelf bucket list trips often require a lot of money. It’s the cruel joke of both life and fly fishing that older anglers have the money to get to these destinations, but less time and energy to enjoy them to the absolute max, while younger anglers have the time and energy to get the most out of a destination, but lack the money to get there. If you’re young and in the infancy of your career, a big money trip simply seems like a non-starter.

To get around this, in early 2022 a good varsity mate of mine, Kyle Harrison, and I decided to set up a “stokvel” account. If you haven’t heard of a “stokvel” before, it comes from the Afrikaans for ‘stock fair’ and essentially, it’s a joint savings account which takes equal contributions from all parties on a monthly basis (and the occasional ad hoc top up when possible). The goals for people who use stokvels are varied, from saving for funerals, wedding and birthday fund to, in our case, collectively saving towards a big tour or travel trip.

At just over 30 years old, we had always had our eyes set on experiencing that once in a lifetime destination fishing trip before the pressures of life like home loans, marriage and kids etc. became a reality. After spending many months browsing various social media platforms and fishing mags, we finally made our call. We were going to save to go to Tsimane Lodge (pronounced “Chi-ma-nee”) located deep in the Bolivian jungle to catch golden dorado.

Given that we both have careers in finance, we were quick to put together the classic Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all variables. We ran the numbers, agreed on our monthly contributions (and top-up amounts) and worked out that, if we stuck to it, - we could get ourselves to Tsimane in about four years’ time.

Fast forward to today and we are freshly returned from the jungle. While we had high hopes before the trip and for every one of the 1500-odd days we spent saving for it, neither of us knew what a truly spectacular trip we were in for.

Tsimane Lodge

While it took a quick four years to make the trip happen, getting to Tsimane Lodge on its own felt like quite a feat. A ten and a half hour flight from Johannesburg to Sao Paulo, Brazil; a two and a half hour flight from Sao Paulo to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and a one and a half hour flight from Santa Cruz into the middle of the Amazon Jungle on a Cessna Caravan. Then, just to top it all, a ten minute hop

on another 4-seater Cessna 172 because the first Caravan was too big to land on the final runway which was only 300 metres long. Both of us are nervous fliers and we ran through several scenarios, particularly relating to our odds of survival in the case of an emergency crash landing deep in the Bolivian jungle. They were low, and luckily none of those odds played out.

Having made it safely out of the Cessna 172, sweaty as hell but relieved, we were wished farewell by our local pilot (who couldn’t have been a day over 21 years old) and linked up on the grass runway with Fernando the friendly lodge manager and some of the fishing guides. They grabbed our bags and organised us and the other five guests onto local hand-crafted wooden boats. We headed upriver for around five minutes until we arrived at our final destination, Sécure Lodge. Agua Negra and Pluma are the other two options that Untamed Angling, the guys behind Tsimane, offer. Even on the short boat ride we were immediately blown away with the water clarity, bird life, and fish activity. We couldn’t wait to get our gear set up to hurl hand-sized flies into the river in search of dorado.

That first night, frothing with excitement, we set up our 9-weight rods, reels, 8-foot 40lb leaders and 1-foot 40lb knottable wire traces. Aside from some of the local magic Tsimane flies (which we were able to get our hands on through the fly shop at the lodge), we pretty much sorted out all our gear back in South Africa. Big shout out to the guys at both Mavungana Flyfishing and Frontier Fly Fishing for kitting us out with the essentials before we left.

The fishing experience was off the charts. That doesn’t mean it was easy. In fact, it was damn hard and required a lot of effort and proper discipline in certain scenarios. We fished for six full days which our memories have blurred into one. In total, Kyle and I caught 85 dorado, ranging from 2 – 12lbs in size. We had pristine fishing conditions due to heavy rainfall just before we arrived at the lodge which contributed significantly towards our fishing success. We followed the same program each day. Breakfast at 07h30, left the lodge by 08h30 and returned around 17h30. Each day, Kyle and I were accompanied by one English speaking guide and two indigenous guides (so there’s a total of five of you together each day). We covered anything from 15 – 34kms per day, most of which were spent on the long propellor wooden boats that glide up and down the river system through various rapids, deep pools and long calm sections where you have a chance to crack open a Pacena beer and take it all in. I would describe each day as long (but in a good way), physically challenging and a real test to an angler’s fishing ability. Wading through a powerful river system, along with the heat and humidity, chows through your energy and makes concentrating “when it’s on” just that much more challenging.

Heading out, you feel like you don’t even really know where to start. But that’s where the guides come in. They spend four months of the year on the river and as a result, they know the system like the backs of their hands. They have great relationships with the indigenous guys who will also contribute significantly to your fishing experience and success. Overall, they are world class professional guides who will find you the right spots, teach you the proper fishing technique if you’re struggling and will get you into the fish if you are patient and listen to them. As a warning, they are unbelievably fit and keeping up with them at times is tough! Working on your fitness before the trip will go a long way.

It’s worth noting that Kyle and I have grown up fly fishing and have spent many years in Dullstroom and the KwaZuluNatal Midlands targeting rainbow and brown trout. We’ve also done a fair amount of fishing in Lesotho for yellowfish. So, we’re pretty comfortable and can do quite well fishing with a 4-weight rod and reel, a basic tapered leader and a classic selection of flies. Targeting the world-famous Salminus brasiliensis, aka the Golden Dorado, deep in the dense and unforgiving Bolivian Jungle, however, was quite a contrast. Large, predatory characiform freshwater fish found in central and east-central South America, dorado are an aggressive, ambush species found right at the very

top of the food chain in their river systems and put any other fish we have caught on fly to absolute shame.

In the beginning of our trip, we both recall being unusually frustrated, holding back a few sense of humour failures as we got to grips with casting big flies on much bigger setups than we were used to. Most frustratingly, we initially missed a ton of fish given our natural urge to lift and tighten up on a fish (aka, “trout strike”) as opposed to the aggressive strip set required to properly lodge your hook in a dorado’s mouth. A couple of, “No, my friend” reminders from the guides was all part of the learning process. Dorado are hyper aware, and it took some discipline and a few reminders from the guides, who repeatedly told us that these fish can see and hear us from 15 metres away, to learn how to approach the water properly.

Once we got more comfortable with the big setups and “stalking” our fish, it became second nature. Then it was more about spotting the fish, choosing your landing zone, putting your fly in the right spot and getting onto the line to strip-retrieve in a mad panic and set the hook as quickly as we could. We found that the first cast in a new spot was often the most important. Even though these fish are apex predators in this system, they tend to spook very easily and if you aren’t quiet and cautious enough with your footing when approaching a new spot, you might as well keep walking. Bottom line, don’t go stumbling around all day. Take your time and be cautious with your footing. It’s even worth giving your mate a few “shhhhh’s” along the way.

We found that upstream and downstream from the lodge offered up different terrain and fishing experiences. The upstream section of the river is made up of multiple, crystal-clear, fast-moving rapids and deep, big boulder pools where sight casting is the name of the game. You spend a lot of time on foot here, wading across various rapids and walking up and down the river trying to keep up with your guide as he gets you into the next zone. It’s incredibly exciting fishing. We found that there was lots of activity in the fast-moving rapids, but the bigger fish tended to come out towards the bottom of each rapid, just at the start of the big deep pools.

Downriver, the river has sediment flowing into it from a nearby creek that turns the water into a murky brown colour. Here you spend a lot of time on the boat, trying to keep your balance standing up while blind casting at structures made up of a variety of dead trees and stumps etc. You also do a lot of wet wading, literally standing up to your belly button in the river blind casting. We found that a cast as close as possible to the structure delivered the best results with a bite coming usually on the first or second strip if there was a fish nearby. Generally, the fish were smaller downriver but the numbers in a day tended to be higher.

Overall, the mornings tended to be a little bit quieter than the afternoons. But often that didn’t really matter. It gave us plenty of time to take in our environment. Whether it was a kaleidoscope of colourful butterflies fluttering nearby, the macaw parrots screeching at you as they fly overhead, the natural sounds and beauty of the jungle, the big boulders and flat rock sections or the colossal green trees as tall as some of the buildings back home, I found myself repeatedly saying, “Kyle, this place is unbelievable hey?” We came to realise just how lucky we were to be there, especially given the limited number of anglers that are allowed to fish this strip of river in a year.

The weird thing about fishing for golden dorado is that one moment it’s dead and, within an instant, it’s on. During our trip, we spent hours hauling our flies into the river with little to no action, jokingly asking each other, “Are you in that dark place again?” Without a fish so much as looking at your fly, plus a tight back, sore hands and a stiff right shoulder, desperation starts to set in. Then... bang! All of sudden and out of nowhere, you’re into a nice fish. The guides told us on a few occasions that you don’t know that you have properly set your hook until you see the dorado launching itself out of the water in an absolute frenzy. We found that, even when we were dead sure that the fish had taken a fly and that we’d properly set the hook, that one or two more vigorous strips always did the final trick.

Fighting a dorado is unique. They tend to launch themselves in a rage, straight out of the water as they try to dislodge your fly from their mouths in an incredible acrobatic display. Once you’re tight, they often use the fast-moving water nearby to peel line from your hands or reel. It’s then about trying to turn the head, to get them

out of the fast-moving water or deep pools where they sometimes go deep and sit. Given the size, strength and shape of these fish, it’s often very hard just to move them even on a 9-weight set up.

Once you’ve finally landed your fish, it’s cameras out, a quick examination as to whether or not the fish is a resident (indicated by a yellow tail) or a migratory fish (indicated by a red tail) and then a successful release back into its system where, freshly released, they often terrorise the bait fish nearby just for the hell of it. When we got a nice fish, we were always amazed at the size of the dorado’s head, gill plate and razor-sharp teeth. Pro tip: these okes love to bite! Use pliers and keep your fingers away from their mouths. The guides were always super cautious to make sure that we didn’t have the fish out of the water for too long, another reminder of the importance of fish preservation and conservation of the species in the area.

Although the sight fishing was incredibly exciting as we got to witness these fish screaming towards a fly like a kamikaze pilot, demolishing anything in its way, - some of our best takes were often in the deeper, darker turquoise water. We got lucky on a few occasions and managed to get some fish to take a fly less than five metres away from us just as the fly was coming out of the deeper water and onto the banks of the river. If you are fishing deep, you can’t actually see your fly (even though the water is crystal clear) and on a few occasions, we would have some nice fish come up from the bottom out of nowhere and smash the fly just before it got to the shallows. When the dorado come from the deeper water, you only see them for a couple of seconds. Before they devour your fly, all you can register is their luminous yellow fins and from there all you will feel after you have, hopefully, successfully set your hook, is several rapid fire big head nods. These guys like speed. It’s clear from the start, strip that damn fly as hard and as quickly as you possibly can when you see something coming after it.

Before going on this trip, we both had one goal, to catch one of those “PIGS”, which is a +20lb plus golden dorado. At the start of the trip, we were confident that we could get it done, I mean we were in the middle of the jungle, in the home of the golden dorado. How could the fishing gods not hook us up? We saw several fish this sort of size on our trip. but we didn’t see them for all that long and they were often spotted in very tough fishing spots. For example, they were either moving through a section, in very tight spaces, far off the bank requiring a long cast or in-between structure which was hard to get the fly into. Or they’d be in the shallows where they would see us and vamoose within a couple of seconds. Dorado typically reach maturity after two years and can live for as long as 15 years. The males apparently stop growing at around 15lbs, which means that all the massive fish are female. Our biggest fish was around 12lbs which, in our eyes, was absolutely enormous and had us shrieking and high fiving once landed. The biggest fish of the trip was landed by Leonard, a 71-year-old from California, at around 20lbs. Lucky bugger…

Unfortunately, we didn’t end up landing any pacu although we put hours into trying. Our excuse: the guides told us that July was a bit early in the season and that pacu preferred September. The reality is that there were plenty around, the fishing was just so technical, and these fish have an intelligence level that is off the charts. It’s really hard to attract their interest. The guides told us that fighting a pacu is absolutely outrageous, that they have snapped many of the guests’ rods and lines and that their fighting ability far outweighed that of the dorado. Imagine that. While we may have blanked on pacu, we were however able to land two other species (one of each fish), one called a Yatorana (ed. Brycon amazonicus , same family as the machaca from Costa Rica) and another member of the dorado family, called a Salminus affinis (aka, silver dorado).

Months after we left Tsimane and slipped back into normal life, the post-holiday or fish trip depression is a real thing. Put simply, Tsimane is a hard place to leave. Our trip was action packed, hard (very hard most of the time) yet rewarding in so many ways and the best part is that, for us, it felt like no other place on earth. It’s not only about the fishing but, to use an Excel term, the ‘VLOOKUP’ function, immersing yourself in the jungle and the overall experience of the fishing and conservation programme. So, take time to enjoy the little things, the people, the birds, the bugs, the jungle. The fishing is only a part of the beautiful experience you are in for if you set yourself the same goal, we did of making this your bucket list trip.

BUCKET LIST BANKING

HOW YOU AND YOUR MATES CAN SAVE FOR AN EXPENSIVE TRIP

1. You’d need to open a bank account where all parties have joint access to the account. The banks can organise this, one person opens the account and then you complete a quick form which gives all parties the authority to see the account.

2. The key thing is to budget for your trip covering the cost of the trip and all travel expenses to get there. This requires quite a bit of research on costing and flights etc.

3. You then decide how long you want to save for, and all parties make the same payment into that account up until the trip. The interest you earn on the account also starts to contribute quite significantly as the account starts to tick up with contributions. We saved for four years, making small payments each month.

4. Once the money is in the account there needs to be a gentleman’s agreement that it can’t be withdrawn unless there is a major emergency or something where you could pay the member out.

5. Payments into the account can be set up via a debt order or you can remind each other each month.

The beauty of a Stokvel is that with proper planning you can end up doing an exclusive or big trip which doesn’t feel like it’s costing you a massive amount in one go as you have been saving for it over a long period of time. It’s important to set reasonable goals and communicate expectations with each other upfront and to do this with people you trust (for obvious reasons). A smaller group of guys, two to four people max, works best as having too many people involved can bring unnecessary admin. Kyle and I really enjoyed saving together and it got really exciting after a couple of years where the amount started to tick up and the reality set in that this thing we had committed to was actually going to happen.

SPAIN

BULLSEYE

WHEN LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, LIKE-MINDED APPROACHES AND PERFECT TIMING COME TOGETHER, AS IT DID FOR PETER COETZEE ON A SPECIAL STREAM IN THE SPANISH COUNTRYSIDE, SUBLIME DRY FLY FISHING FOR BARBEL ENSUES.

Photos. Álvaro Lorenzo and Peter Coetzee

The plan is to meet Álvaro Lorenzo in the north of the city. Madrid has been home to the last of my meetings for the week, and, rather conveniently, is also Álvaro’s home. This coincidence has come in handy as my plans to retrace Hemingway’s footsteps into the Pyrenees have been washed away by unseasonable rains.

Sweltering heat fills the concrete, graffiti-filled streets. The squeak of a heel meets the sound of a tennis ball being hit, a siren echoes in the distance - the chorus of the morning in the industrial north of the city. I squint looking for Álvaro, Madrid’s chaos is a sensory assault from the calm of Eastern Europe where my trip began.

The countryside is a blur out the window. My seat is tilted back further than normal. The AC is broken in Alvaro’s car, but somehow the thick warm air feels better. “Wild” means mountains and farms in the valleys in this part of the world. The stench of manure won’t bother you when you realize it has taken the place of something that would poison the ecosystem you seek.

We stop for breakfast. It’s Tortilla de Patatas (potato omelette), served on a cutting board with a baguette we wrestled from the gas station, washed down with sweet coffee that always tastes better out of a flask.

Conversation begins the usual way fishing conversations begin these days, asking about fish we’ve seen each other holding online. I’d hoped to find a like-minded angler, more concerned with the hunt than the score, and so far it seems like a perfect match. Knowing that Álvaro takes his unruly Pointer fishing, regardless of her habit of spooking fish, makes me more comfortable still.

Balancing awkwardly on a yellow painted curb in front of a weeded garden, Álvaro takes a long draw of his cigarette. “You have caught GT? You get GT in South Africa?”

“Yes we do, but hard. Not like the Seychelles.”

“Aaah man, the SEYCHELLES!”

The scene is now rolling hills, olive trees with gnarled trunks from years of harvest and giant bull decoys in the fields*. I ask their significance, but he just shrugs. I’ve missed the Madrid fights by a week.

The passage of time is diminished by anticipation. The last few moments of the drive is past a dam to its tributary, and Álvaro is slightly more tense. We might be too late. The fish will retreat into the dam as the river level drops and it will dry up completely any day now.

My mind is full of questions. My biological parallel to the Spanish barbel we are chasing (Luciobarbus bocagei) is a smallmouth yellowfish. A virtually identical animal, yet I cannot fathom them running into perennial mountain streams. It sounds like an absolute dream. Hemingway’s generation missed a trick by ignoring Spain’s endemic species.

“HEMINGWAY’S GENERATION MISSED A TRICK BY IGNORING SPAIN’S ENDEMIC SPECIES.”

We are a few hundred miles from where Jake Barnes, the fictional protagonist of Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises fished the Irati River. Here the landscape is flatter, friendlier to an angler, but less accommodating to the Trout Jake and his friends so desired on their pilgrimage to Pamplona. My mind wanders further still, north-east of the Irati and the Pyrenees, where salmon used to migrate up the steep rivers of the Asturian countryside. Had I been Jake, and had those salmon still been present, I would probably have missed the bull fights then too.

I snap to as the car comes to a stop at the end of the gravel road. The area is surrounded by flattened shrubs - a sign of either campers or cows. I’m too excited to tackle up, and stumble to the small bridge we’ve just crossed. Immediately I can see fish feeding and moving around in ankle-deep water. I turn and give a dumb smile to Álvaro.

“Are you sure they will be further upstream than this?” I ask. “Oh yes, they don’t need much water”. he says, confident in his predictions.

I head back to the car and to the familiar clumsy fumble of putting on wading boots and rigging a fly rod, which always seems two feet too long, unless salmon fishing in a strong current, in which case the rod always seems two feet too short. My waders which seemed critical for my Pyrenees plans, seem silly in the sweltering heat of these lower altitudes and are left behind.

We follow the cow path and begin fishing. Within minutes the first few fish have slid up to inspect one of the little foam beetles Álvaro has given me. I’m now perched on my knees, more concerned with documenting this than catching. I could not imagine a better scenario or setting for targeting barbs. We continue higher into the mountains and fish alongside cattle, hiding behind boulders or shrubs while packs of fish work their way up or down the stream. Much of my time is spent just sitting and watching the visual spectacle of these beautiful fish. We are faced with the rare spoil of choosing what fish to cast to, not wanting to risk the disturbance of the pool for the wrong fish, the wrong lie, or just the wrong moment.

The crescendo, and defining moment of the entire experience is at the last pool of the day, the stream now just a trickle. A fish appears from a hole under a branch and accepts my presentation. Snookered by me from its only refuge downstream, it turns and climbs three sets of thigh-high boulders, somehow using the inch-deep laminar flow to ascend. Not a trophy fish by any means, but not something you would ever expect to see outside of a salmon in migration.

I flash one final dumb smile at Álvaro, shaking my head in disbelief.

Spanish fly anglers have access to something here that is almost too good to be true. Look Álvaro up if you’re going to be in Madrid. The window to fish it like I did might be small, but for anyone who has fished and fallen for South African yellowfishes, this experience should be a pilgrimage.

Instagram @alvaro_blackfly

Ed: Known as Osborne bulls or El Toro de Osborne, these 14 metres tall structures were originally created as a roadside advertisement for Osborne’s Brandy but have become an unofficial national symbol of Spain.

“SPANISH FLY ANGLERS HAVE ACCESS TO SOMETHING HERE THAT IS ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.”

ROADTRIP

WHEN SMOKEY THE BEAR AND HIS COMPADRE TRAV SET OFF ON THE EQUIVALENT OF A BUDDY COP ROAD TRIP AT THE TAIL END OF LAST SUMMER, THEY WERE HOPEFUL ABOUT WHAT THEY’D FIND IN TWO VERY DIFFERENT FISHERIES - THRIFT AND VANDERKLOOF. IN HIS INIMITABLE STYLE, SMOKEY TELLS THE TALE OF WHAT WENT DOWN.

Photos. Smokey the Bear and Travis Hanratty

When planning a fishing trip you always take into account the usual stuff like time of year, availability of friends, cash etc... My buddy Trav was working the super yacht circuit like many Saffers do and we’d planned a bit of mission for April. The idea was to go to Lesotho for some late seasons browns around Semonkong and then head up to Vanderkloof Dam in the Northern Cape to try and get a big largie coupled with as much jolling as we could stomach.

Trav had just landed back in SA and we had about a week before we were due to start the trip when, as luck would have it, the rains came early to Lesotho. That, coupled with chilly weather, made that part of the mission a no go. So, we went back to the drawing board to come up with another destination for the first few days of the trip before Vanderkloof. Chatting to some of the okes from our fly fishing crowd for inspiration, there was talk of Thrift Dam and how it had apparently been cooking. For those who have never heard of it, Thrift is one of those legendary trout dams in the Eastern Cape known for seriously cold weather and seriously big fish thanks to the stocking efforts of Martin Davies and his Kamloops strain of monster trout. We made a few phone calls to get proper intel, then jumped on Google Earth to find out where the fuck Thrift actually was, before putting the final pieces in place for our now, ‘Eastern Cape into Northern Cape’ mission!

Finally we were off, loaded with heaps of fly gear, a couple of roadies for Trav and a jar of Uncle Glen’s turbo. Leaving the Garden Route where we are both based, we made our way up the coast on the N2 towards Gqeberha/PE, then inland past Addo and a lekker place, aptly named Daggaboer Farmstall, before driving on to what was formerly known as Craddock, now called Nxuba. Here we stopped for meat, booze, snacks and pretty much every bag of long stem broccoli the Spar had. This stuff is like catnip for Trav and not being able to get it while stuck in the ass end of Turkey while his boat was in dry dock for the last few months, he wanted to try and eat his body weight in broccoli over the next few days. The convo flowing from him went something like, “My bru, have you ever had this tweeklap broccoli on the braai? It’s next level, especially after you baste it with Mrs Balls chutney and spices and get it lekker crispy.” Sure bru... whatever you need.

Suitably stocked up, we drove on to Tarkastad. Now, if you haven’t been there before, you’re in for a treat! It’s legitimately a one-horse town with a big old school church, 11 bottle stores, one petrol station and one police station. As we rolled in there was an oke chilling on the main road plucking a porcupine. I asked him what his plan was. He looked at me like I was the mad one and tuned he was going to braai it. Rad, carry on bru!

Usually okes stay at the super rustic cottages at Thrift. They look pretty cool, but we didn’t want the hack of taking all of our cooking stuff and bedding, so I found a cottage to rent on a farm around 17km away from the dam. I wasn’t sure how kiff it would be as it was so cheap, but it turned out to be an amazing spot with two well-appointed en suite rooms, a lekker kitchen and lounge and, best of all, a separate kuier area with a built in braai, a bar and a couple stuffed wildebeest mounts on the wall. Little did we know that those wildebeest would later play a role in making that part of the trip for us.

On arrival, we chucked all our shit into the cottage, grabbed our rods and jumped back into the car for the mission further up to the dam. We wound our way up the hillside through pristine farmland en route to what we hoped would be some the best trout fishing South Africa has to offer. The weather was epic, afternoon sunshine and no wind. Thrift really is a special place, sitting in a beautiful valley surrounded by cattle farms and the Winterberg mountains. You couldn’t wish for a better setup for a trout dam. Many people have fished here and caught their fish of a lifetime. Excitement high, we were confident we would do the same. Arriving at the dam, as tradition requires, we immediately downed a beer. We opened another one and started rigging up. We both chose intermediate lines. I opted for a hot head black woolly bugger while Trav went for an olive one. We decided to fish a bit directly in front of the cottages where we had parked hoping for a quick end to the mombak. Ten casts nothing, 20 casts nothing, 30 casts nothing. Fok not even a rise anywhere in sight! The amp was slowly dissipating. More beer. 40 casts nothing. The water was clear, there were insects hatching, but where were the fish? Time to move bru... we headed around the point toward the rocky ledges near the causeway. As we came around the point we saw another car and an oke in a float tube. We gave him some space and started fishing along a kiff looking weed bank with deep water on one side and a shallow bank on the other. Ten casts nothing, fly change, 20 casts nothing, 30 casts nothing, fly change... fuuuck! “What’s happening bru?” I tuned Trav. “Maybe they are sitting deep?” came the response. We changed to slow sinking lines and started fishing slow and deep. Still nothing. By now the oke in the float tube had come in to the bank for a little chat:

“I ASKED THE GUY PLUCKING THE PORCUPINE WHAT HIS PLAN WAS. HE LOOKED AT ME LIKE I WAS THE MAD ONE AND TUNED HE WAS GOING TO BRAAI IT.”

Us: Howzit?

Him: Howzit?

Us: Any fish bru?

Him: No.

Us: You fish here often?

Him: Ya lank, I’ve been here for two days and haven’t had a touch. Never seen it this quiet in such good conditions.

Us: Fok.

Him: Ya, beer?

Us: Why not?

As quickly as the stoke arrived when we got to Thrift, it disappeared. The light was almost gone so we made our way back to our cottage driving in silence, listening to Radiohead.

Time to braai, tweeklap Broccoli for the win. No seriously it’s fokken great! Over a few more beers we set up rods and came up with a game plan for the following day.

Up well before sunrise, we loaded the car and made our way back up to the dam in the hope that the fish would be feeding at first light. Once again the tunes were pumping and the amp was there. The weather was perfect. Surely they had to be on? We fished flat out the entire day and into the evening without even a touch. I saw one fish rise just before sunset and this gave me enough gees to have another 30 casts or so without any joy. Spirits broken we headed back to cottage for a few beers and a Woolies Lasagne then early to dos

Round three. Again, up well before sunrise, car loaded, tunes pumping, banging up the mountain to what surely had to be a good fishing day. I mean the weather was again prime, how could we not get fish? Fok . At last light we headed back down to the cottage, again not a touch. Dismal car ride back. You know the story by now. Back at the cottage I wasn’t even that keen for beer or some of Uncle Glen’s Turbo. It was time for a serious conversation:

Me: Trav bru, what is going on here? Why are we puzzling so hard?

Trav: Dunno bru.

Me: I mean it’s not like we’re kak fisherman bru, we know how to catch a trout. Tomorrow is our last full day here, should we even fish or should we just head to Vanderkloof?

Trav: Let’s fish bru

Me: Ok cool, what should we do now?

Trav: Braai broccoli and have a bit of a jol?

Me: Brandy and coke?

Trav: Fuck ya!

Fast forward to a bottle of brandy, about 3 kgs of broccoli and chops down, and we were raving around the outside braai area like okes at Afrika Burn. Trav kept tickling the beard of one of the wildebeest mounts, tuning me that he reckoned he could tie a lekker fly out of it, so I went and got my vice and tying gear. He cut a bit of the beest’s beard off and strapped together a black streamer made of wildebeest hair, zonker and bit of flash. The fly was nothing to write home about but maybe, just maybe, the secret ingredient we needed was the Wit Wildebees!

The next morning, unsurprisingly, we did not get up before sunrise, nor did we race up the mountain with gear rigged, waders on all ready to roll. Instead, due to the late night festivities we rose late, made a lekker brekkie and just chilled out, packing up our shit to leave for Vanderkloof the next day. The weather wasn’t perfect, it was chilly and overcast. Around mid-afternoon we decided to fish and rolled back into the car. Beats pumping, Trav with his feet snug in plastic bags under his leaky waders making him sweat like a Gypsy with a mortgage, we headed up the hill for our final session.

The dam looked different, it didn’t look sunny and inviting, instead it looked moody, like we did after a day blanking. We were amped though, something felt different.

With a small olive zonker tied on for me and Trav with his Wit Wildebees fly, we made our way around the dam to a few different spots. 10 casts here, 20 casts there. Finally I saw what looked like a good fish rise across the bay in front of the rocks towards the dam wall. I tuned Trav that we should head across that way and fish there for the last hour before we had to bail. Luckily we had waders on so we cut across the bay and both stood on the edge of the rocks calf deep in water with Trav on my right. The fish rose again maybe 20 metres out to Trav’s right.

I said, “Bru, throw a long line just off the rocks, I reckon that fish is going to come in again and feed close to the edge.”

I had cast straight out and was letting my fly sink but was watching Trav as he made a l ekker long cast a few metres out along the edge of the rocks. His fly landed and he let it sit for just a moment when there was a massive swirl where his fly had landed and he was on. As always when you have a big fish on things are either crystal clear or a blur. The latter was the case for me. I quickly reeled in and just threw my rod onto the bank (in hindsight I shouldn’t have as I ended up bending the casing on my Sage reel as it hit a rock). Trav on the other hand kept his cool.

“TRAV KEPT TICKLING THE BEARD OF ONE OF THE WILDEBEEST MOUNTS, TUNING ME THAT HE RECKONED HE COULD TIE A LEKKER FLY OUT OF IT.”

The fish had not run too far but was sitting deep and giving him that slow dogged pull of a big fish. I was fucking screaming and running up and down the bank borderline hysterical, but without a word Trav slowly managed to manoeuvre the fish towards the bank and we got our first glimpse of a tank brown. I waded in a little and stood ready to tail it. Finally we got it to hand, an absolute beaut of a cock fish with a massive thick head and shoulders and a broad tail. No question Trav’s PB trout and true trophy fish by anyone’s standards. We spent some time savouring that special moment you get when everything finally comes together and you get a good fish. Trav made sure it was fully revived before letting it slip back into the deep. You can imagine how stoked we both were. The kak few days we had evaporated as the trip was rewritten into an epic Thrift mission! Pumping reggae we rolled back down the hill to the cottage to braai broccoli, drink beer and recharge for the next part of the mission. Vanderkloof here we come

VANDERKLOOF

While getting to either Thrift or Vanderkloof from most of the major population centres of South Africa is usually a lengthy hack of a drive, driving from Thrift in the Eastern Cape to Vanderkloof in the Northern Cape is surprisingly short, just over five hours. Neither of us had been to Vanderkloof before so getting our first glimpse of it as we rounded the last corner near the dam wall was lank impressive. It’s a massive expanse of water with bushveld down to water’s edge with plenty of kiff looking bays and rocky edges. Ideal largie water.

We checked into our spot where we’d be staying for the next few nights and headed into town to resupply and get a lay of the land. Again, for those of you who’ve never been to Vanderkloof it’s like a time warp. A small town filled with 70s style houses and the odd larnie Joburger’s holiday house. The locals were friendly, but wary of us especially considering Trav is covered in tattoos and I’m about as subtle as a brick thrown through a window. The first drive to the shop with us acting like teenagers - tunes pumping, windows down and smoke billowing out - had a police car turn and follow us down the main road to make sure we weren’t up to kak

Kyle Ovens from Fly Revolution was already at Vanderkloof as he was hosting a couple of okes on a three-day trip. They were being guided by Eddie Rall, aka ‘The Mullet’ on account of his magnificent hairdo. I’d had been chatting to Kyle, getting daily updates and the fishing had been pretty good with Eddie’s clients landing a few good fish and Kyle catching a solid largie too.

Eddie had kindly agreed to guide Trav and me for the three days we had there. He knows Vanderkloof really well and had given us amazingly detailed pre-trip info so we were well prepared with 7 and 8-weight rods, one with an intermediate line and the other a floater. Flies were as you’d expect - the usual largie patterns but with a few Vanderkloof-specific variations that Eddie advised us on. Further upriver the rains had been extremely heavy, so the dam had been filling up fast, a two to three metre rise every day, which isn’t ideal for largie fishing. Eddie tuned us that most of his regular spots would be under water in the next day or two. “Fuck, here we go again with the tough conditions,” I thought to myself.

That night we went for a chow and a couple of beers at the local watering hole. It’s a ‘choose-your-meat-from-thecounter-and-they-braai-it’ kind of place that also dishes up “2 for R70’ double brandy specials. Add in some proper short shorts regulars, most with a side arm sticking out from under their two-tone shirt, and you get the idea. Trav and I rolled in there and like out of a Western, the music stopped and okes flat out eyeballed us. I distinctly remember one oke saying to his buddy as I walked past, “Fok, dis a groot soutie daai een,” (Golly, that’s a large South African of British descent, that one). However, a few dops and some steaks later and we were fitting in like locals.

“BRU,

YOU’RE GONNA GO TIGHT” HAD BARELY LEFT MY MOUTH WHEN HE WAS ON.”

Next morning we met Eddie at sunrise on the jetty, with Kyle joining us for the first day too. The weather was epic and we were amped. Vanderkloof is so vast and everything looks the same. Without a proper guide who knows where to go, you would end up cruising around like Bobby McPuzzleface with no plan. Eddie took us to the first spot, we fished a bit from the boat and then got out and walked the rocky edge. There was dead tree lying in the water which looked like it should hold a fish. Eddie tuned us that we must slap the water with the fly to get the largies amped. I dutifully slapped the fly down a couple times then on the third cast let it sit for a moment. Two strips and I was on! That first second you can’t work out how big the fish is, but in your head you’re targeting largies so as I went vas I was like, “I’m onto to a largie!” and set hard. The tiny smallie on the other end of the line must have got the fright of its life as I yanked it clean out of the water. A half-pound smallie to open the account, mombak off! We fished super hard for the rest of the day with Trav and Kyle each getting a smallie or two. The water was rising fast and I could check that Eddie was getting a bit twitchy as his usual spots weren’t working. The wind started pumping that afternoon and we had to run far in pretty much ocean-size swell to get back to the jetty. Eddie had a kiff boat that handled the chop well but after an hour and half of being smashed, our legs were like jelly. Finally back on land, I went to check a stick marker I’d placed on the water’s edge that morning. It was now a couple metres under and the water was still rising fast!

That night the same story. A couple of beers at the house then off to the local tavern for a chow with Eddie and a few more dops. The locals knew us a bit better now and we got the odd nod of the head as we arrived and even a smile from the waiter.

Day 2, we ran seriously far, at least two hours into the middle of nowhere. We fished first from the boat at a few spots with no joy and then pulled into a kiff looking bay and got out to walk the edge. It looked very deep off the side but Eddie said he knew there were a few clusters of rocks around ten metres out off one of the points. I was walking in front alone while Trav was around 50 metres back cruising with Eddie. I went out on to the point and slapped the water a bit. On the third or fourth cast I went tight. This wasn’t a smallie, but it definitely wasn’t a giant fish. It gave a good fight and a few minutes later I landed my first largie of the trip. I was lank stoked. At least I’d landed the target species, even if it wasn’t a giant. I thought to myself that if the water rises anymore and the fishing turns off completely, at least I could head home moderately happy. Trav came to join me and we

walked around the next bay to another small point where a few small boulders stuck out and you could see this lekker drop off running parallel to the edge. It looked very good. I tuned Trav, “You cast first here bru it looks lank fishy.” He moved ahead and slapped the water a few times, then threw a long cast out over where he’d been slapping and let the fly sink a little. The words, “Bru, you’re gonna go tight” had barely left my mouth when he was on. I was whooping and high fiving Eddie while Trav, as he does, was silent and focused on not fucking it up. A couple minutes later and Trav had landed his first ever largie. We were all super stoked. High fives all round! Trav released the fish and while literally standing in the same spot, stripped out a little line and threw a short cast along the edge. While tuning me how kiff the fish he had just landed was, he immediately went tight again! This fished was pulling hard and definitely bigger than the first one. Same again high fives and whooping from me and silence from Trav as he landed another beaut of largie. My turn bru. I shoved Trav aside and slapped the water and threw casts over the same spot for an hour. Not a touch. Fok. We fished very hard for the rest of the day without a touch.

That night we were finished, broken after the long day and the long run back to the jetty, but stoked as at least we’d each got our target species. Back at the house, we just had a few beers and I made my infamous ‘Pasta alla Smokey’, the staple for all my fishing trips. The water had again risen another few metres, so things weren’t looking good for the next day

The following morning the wind was pumping and there were clouds around. Just as Eddie pulled up I tuned Trav, “Can you see that mist near the dam wall - is it raining there?” Turned out that the dam had reached capacity during the night and it was flowing over the wall. That meant it had risen something like ten metres in three days. Fok, not good for largie fishing. Eddie wasn’t looking amped, his mullet looking like a wet sock as the boat banged against the side of the jetty.

Me: Howzit bru

Eddie: Môre

Me: So how we looking today, what’s the plan?

Eddie: We going to run very far. I have a place I think we should try in this high water. We might need to swim a bit.

Me: What do you mean swim?

Eddie: I mean swim out a bit from the side as I don’t want to take the boat over the spot or it will scare the fish.

Me: Really?

Eddie: Yes trust me, there are very big fish there. We just need to do it. You will get a giant there. Me: Ok hundreds, I’m amped.

Off we went. Again, a long run into the middle of nowhere. We finally got to this spot where there was a long rocky outcrop and a drop off. I was like, “Surely we’re going to fish the edge of the rocks?” “You can,” Eddie said, “but if you want to get a giant there is a flat rock around 50 metres out that we must swim to and stand there and throw long casts.” Trav wasn’t keen, preferring to fish the rocky ledge. I wasn’t that keen either. There are no flat dogs in Vanderkloof or anything that can really hurt you, but still I wasn’t overly amped. “Fuck it…”I thought to myself, Eddie was adamant it’s what we had to do. So off we went.

Eddie didn’t want to get his shirt wet as the pumping wind would make him cold when we were out on the rock so he tied it around his neck and held my 9-weight, while I had my 7-weight in hand. We went balls deep, then waist deep, then chest deep, then up to our necks until we were treading water. It took some time before Eddie found the spot, a lekker flat rock that we could stand on in waistdeep water. It wasn’t very big. Just big enough for the two

of us to stand very very close to each other. Eddie with his shirt off standing behind me, pretty much pressed up against my back like a scene from Titanic, softly saying, “Just slap it over there Smokey.” It really wasn’t a vibe at all. A few slaps in one direction then a few more. A long cast over the spot and repeat. This went on for maybe 30 minutes or so.

Me: Ok Eddie I’m done bru

Eddie: Nee Smokey, just keep throwing, it’s going to happen.

Me: Ok, another 15 minutes bru

More slapping and casting continued with no joy... my arm was getting sore and I’d had enough of Eddie pressed up against me like a randy teenager at a matric dance. I was on auto pilot, just slapping and casting, stripping in slowly. Then all of a sudden I went tight. Fokken tight. I set the hook and I was on. I tried to lift the rod but the fish stayed deep. This was a big fish. Unlike cool and calm Trav, I was screaming at full volume at Eddie saying, ”It’s a giant, it’s a fucking giant bru”. After a few minutes I had gained some line and the fish was close, we hadn’t seen it yet and it just kept looping round and round the rock we were on. Eventually, it came to the surface and we got our first glimpse of a proper fish. I nearly wet myself. This was by far the biggest largie

I had ever hooked and now that I’d seen it I was terrified it would come off. I’m not sure how long the fight lasted, but I finally had the fish beaten. Due to the lack of space on the rock I had to slip off into deep water to bring it close enough for Eddie to grab it. It was a tense moment at the end of an epic fight, as Eddie grabbed its chunky bottom lip. Fuck yes! We ended up swimming and wading the fish back to the side to revive it properly and snap a couple of pics. I watched as it slowly kicked away back into the deep. High fives and whooping all round! I was so stoked. The end of an epic trip with a largie of lifetime. It’s amazing what something so simple as catching a fish can do for your wellbeing. The kak-long bumpy boat ride back didn’t feel so bad now. Eddie’s mullet looked even more magnificent in the afternoon light and Trav, well, Trav just looked like Trav, blissed out and happy as usual.

That night we came in hot to the local jol, Trav crab-walking and me looking like Jay Leno on a big night out. We were the kings for that night and the locals seemed to agree as the drinks arrived almost immediately and we got many a smile and nod. Maybe I imagined that part... either way the chow was lekker and washed down with many brandies as we relived the highs of the past week’s hard fishing and good times.

SHOP THE MISSION

Thrift to Vanderkloof Attire

Let the Fish Be the Hero

LATEST RELEASES

SALAD BAR

THE MISSION – STERKIES SET

Sterkies lovers, lend us your ears and your heads and your backs! From the buttresses of Elizabeth to the scarab beetles of Barbel Bay and the hard-fighting, dry fly-munching smallmouth yellows throughout this phenomenal fishery - Sterkies holds a special place in many a South African fly angler’s hearts. This new drop is made with you in mind. Featuring artwork by Justin Poulter, our Sterkies collection features an sharp white T-shirt with chest and back artwork, a green trucker the envy of John Deere fans and a spread of stickers. Get them before they disappear in the festive season rush. themissionflymag.com

ORVIS – TROUT RISING RIPSTOP HAT

Cool, calm and collectable, this snazzy Orvis Trout Rising Ripstop Cap features a contrasting mesh back, an adjustable snapback, fits most melons and can handle the heat. orvis.com, flyfishing.co.za

We’ve been verbally constipated for the last year or so, sworn to secrecy over the development and testing of proudly Seffrican brand Xplorer’s new wading boots. Finally, the cat is out the bag and already we are hearing good things. The new River Pro Wading boots have been field tested for over 18 months in rivers and stillwaters throughout South Africa and Spain. Expect a lightweight boot made from synthetic leather/nylon uppers for comfort and ankle support, while a re-enforced, durable, abrasion resistant material wraps around the boot above the sole to offer extra protection and reduce wear in the most hard hit areas. Side drainage holes help release water, keeping then light and quick drying. Set for release in December, they come in sizes 8-13 in both felt and sticky rubber sole options. xplorerflyfishing.co.za

YETI - MEN’S HOODED ULTRA LIGHTWEIGHT SUNSHIRT

Summer tiiiiiiiiiime and it’s hoooooot as ballllllllls outside. That means you need to dress accordingly if you want to both beat the heat and catch fish. Enter Yeti’s Hooded Ultra Lightweight Sunshirt. With essential UPF 50 protection worked into a moisture wicking nylon-spandex fabric blend and an ergwonomic fit to optimise movement, wearing these sunshirts will feel like you’re wearing next to nothing. Bonus for the nudists. yeti.com, upstreamflyfishing.co.za

FINNTRAIL – WADEMAN WADERS

New (at least in South Africa) wader brand alert! Escape Fly Fishing are bringing in waders and other products from Estonian outdoor specialists Finntrail. Perhaps the pick of the bunch is the Wademan, a simple, reliable yet lightweight stockingfoot wader perfect for South African conditions. They boast a durable fourlayer construction with a HARD-TEX© membrane and fully sealed seams and zippers. Featuring a design with enhanced mobility and comfort including an ergonomic cut in the knee area allowing for unrestricted movement (lunge for that fish!), Wademan waders also have a spacious chest pocket equipped with a YKK zipper to keep valuables like phone and car keys dry and secure; an inner flip out pocket, drying loops, elastic suspenders and a belt with a YKK buckle. Each pair includes a sealed phone case and a convenient carrying bag. finntrail.com

SECOND SEND – RECYCLED ROPE BELT

We love this range of recycled belts made by Reece Haikney, whose day job is Ops Manager at Shackleton’s Brewery. Made from retired dynamic climbing ropes, Second Send’s belts feature double ring hardware, are stitched with durable thread and come in a range of ever-changing colour combos. They also make keychains and dog leashes. Perfect little Christmas gifts for adventurers. secondsend.co.za

FISHPOND – STORMSHADOW PACKS

Lost a rod case? Need a better one for travel and for guarding your precious go-to rig? Then you might want to consider this combo rod and reel case from Orvis. Made with hardy 600D CORDURA® ECO (built from earth-friendly 100% recycled polyester), it features a padded area for your reel and a zip closure to keep your combo secure on the road. Made for max length 10’ 4-piece rods, these cases come in single and double variants for carrying two rods. orvis.com, flyfishing.co.za

If you are looking for solid protection from water, but maybe don’t need a fully submersible option like their Thunderhead range, then Fishpond’s all-new (for 2025) Stormshadow range (featuring a Chest Pack, a Sling Pack and a Lumbar Pack) deserves your attention. The Chest Pack is made from recycled, TPU-coated fabric. It sports a side-access TRU Zip pocket to keep valuables dry, a magnetic front pocket for fly boxes, and a front stretch pocket and docking ports to manage your tools and other goedes. While the ergonomic shape and padded back panel distribute weight evenly for all-day comfort, a backpack attachment straps lets you clip it into Fishpond packs if you need to lug more gear. The integrated net scabbard ensures your net is handy whenever you need it. Similarly, the Stormshadow Sling Pack is a tough, waterproof sling made of the same recycled TPU-coated fabric with AquaGuard® zips to handle rain and spray. An internal TRU Zip waterproof pocket gives your phone or car keys further protection, while there’s plenty of space in the main pocket, a removable divider, plus magnets, Hypalon® tool points to hold essentials in place and a net scabbard. An ambidextrous design and padded strap give you comfortable carrying options depending on your preferences. Lastly, if you need a bit more space, the 8L Stormshadow Lumbar Pack is made with you in mind. Same waterproof material and secure pockets, plus tons of space for a full-day hike in. Bonus: a stay open magnetic lid speeds access, while the bottom straps let you carry a jacket. Throw in the dual bottle holsters, and an integrated net slot and you have everything you need to stay comfortable and organised for all day fishing. findpondusa.com, frontierflyfishing.com

SCIFLIES - NEON ICON

Originally designed by Sam Sumlin of Space Coast Flies for bonefish, pompano and redfish, the Neon Icon is an extremely versatile pattern that gets down, sports a jigging action and provokes strikes from an array of fresh and saltwater species. That’s why Mbombela-based fly brand SciFlies has converted it into a tigerfish fly tied on a Grip 21571BN #1 hook. Available in a range of colour combos from blonde/tan and golden/olive naturals to firetiger and a Whistler-esque white/red, this will make a fantastic addition to your fly boxes. scientificfly.com

HANAK – LARGE TUNGSTEN SLOTTED BEADS

If you need to get down on it,... like really get down, then you need some proper weight worked into your flies. Whether you’re targeting kob off the bricks or tying flies like belly scratcher minnows or nosediving sandshark flies, Hanak’s large tungsten slotted beads range from 4.6mm to 6.4mm to get you all the way down. Available in silver, gold, copper and matt black, plus fluorescent light pink, hot pink, chartreuse and orange. hanak.eu, upstreamflyfishing.co.za

VENIARD – HAND STRIPPED PEACOCK QUILLS

Details matter as much for the angler’s OCD as they do for the fish. So if you’re jonesing for tight bodies with specific shweet colour segmentation on your dry flies and nymphs, you’re going to want to pick up some Veniard Hand-stripped peacock quills. Tie them in with steady turns and finish them off with a light coating of goo or varnish for durability. veniard.com, upstreamflyfishing.co.za

FULLING MILL – COMP HEAVYWEIGHT BRONZE HOOKS FM5090

C for serious when it comes to stillwater fly fishing? Best you tie your flies on the gold standard, which is Fulling Mill’s Comp Heavyweight Bronze Hooks. Essentially the barbless evolution of Fulling Mill’s best-selling Competition Heavyweight hook, whether you’re tying delicate dries or bold stillwater lures, this hook delivers uncompromising performance and competition-ready precision. fullingmill.co.uk, flyfishing.co.za

XPLORER – TRAVELLER VISE

It doesn’t matter if you’re a comp angler frantically tying up ammo at night for the next day’s session or a weekend warrior trying to find a point of difference to change the minds of some particularly stubborn fish - a travel vice is a superb nice-to-have when you’re away from your tying desk. Xplorer’s Traveller Vise with Pedestal Base is a true rotary vise made from high quality aluminium, with CAM-operated jaws, an adjustable neck angle, anodized base and bobbin cradle, giving you functionality, durability, and ease of use, on the road. Hard carry case and Allen keys included. xplorerflyfishing.co.za

AHREX FLYHOOKS

We have our roots in the Scandinavian fly-fishing tradition. Anglers and the waters they fish in inspire us to create the best hooks possible.

Whether it is running or still-water, off-shore or in small mountain lakes, you will find a hook in the range, that can cover your needs.

Ahrex Hooks are made without compromise – designed by Scandinavian fly fishermen for fishing all over the world.

We are using innovative technology and the best materials available for each specific hook.

Happy fly tying – The Ahrex Team

FULLING MILL – LOTIONS AND POTIONS

It’s Friday night and you’re 18-years-old. You’re wearing your CK jocks just in case someone decides to inspect your crotch. You put the finishing touches on the frosted tips of your tousled do, apply a last dab of zit cream and venture out into the world. Those days may (or may not) have gone, but you still need similarly thoughtful finishing touches when it comes to presenting flies. Fulling Mill’s High Glide is a triple threat floatant and desiccant that cleans, dries and waterproofs your flies in one easy step. Simply open the lid, drop your fly into the top, close, shake well and the water soluble powder will absorb excess water and apply floatant to keep your fly floating better, higher and longer. On the other end of the spectrum, Fuller’s Mud is the ultimate degreasing agent designed to help your tippet sink and prevent leader flash. fullingmill.co.uk, flyfishing.co.za

TOPO DESIGNS – ALL ADVENTURE ACCESSORY BAG

While fabled Colorado bag gurus Topo have done collabs with fly fishing brands like Redington and Howler Bros. before, their own range of packs, slings and utility bags are a great fit for many fly fishing applications. Take the All Adventure Accessory Bag. With an adjustable, removable shoulder strap, front and back daisy chain webbing, interior mesh pockets, heavy-duty zippers and a build made of 200D recycled nylon lightweight ripstop, it works as a travel essential bag or as a micro mission fly fishing pack. topodesigns.com, flyfishing.co.za

TIEMCO - SHIMAZAKI LEADER SPLICER

If where and how you fish, is of a precise, delicate nature, that probably means you need an elegant fly line to leader connection. No ungainly loop to loop connections that get stuck in the eyes of your rod - no sir! You need to insert your fine leader into a spliced fly line and to help you with that Tiemco’s Shimazaki Leader Splicer is just the tool for the job. Simply place the fly line along the groove and push the needlepoint straight in the line tip. The transparency of the tool allows you to watch every step of the way. tiemco-global.com, frontierflyfishing.com

Aluminium Wading Staff is a great option. Sturdy, yet light-weight and collapsible, it comes with a holster, ergonomic grip and a shock cord lanyard. frontierflyfishing.com

AHREX – FLEXISTRIPPER

While it might sound like a showgirl with relaxed tipping terms, the Ahrex Flexistripper is in fact a lightweight (135gms), portable line basket that might just provide a solution to anglers who do not enjoy traditional stripping baskets. Instead of an overly rigid structure, the Flexistripper utilizes flexible pegs to manage fly lines effortlessly, ensuring smooth line retrieval. A comfortable, adjustable neoprene belt can be moved wherever suits on your hips or torso. Great for both wading and casting and easy to travel with, the Flexistripper helps you minimize tangles and maximize casting efficiency in any conditions. ahrexhooks.com

HORIZON – TACTICAL LANDING NET

At 62 cm long with a hoop length of 38 cm, a width of 26 cm and a bag depth of 32 cm, Horizon’s Tactical Landing Net is the perfect choice if you’re looking for a reliable net. Made with a durable aluminium frame, it’s durable, lightweight and compact and features a built-in elasticated paracord with carabiner, a snagresistant net bag and... it floats, so even if you absent-mindedly drop it, there’s a good chance of recovery. frontierflyfishing.com

XPLORER – TIPPET

KEEPER

WITH CUTTER

Tippet spoolsunderrated pieces of kit. Go on, change our minds. Yet out the box, you’re going to rate Xplorer’s Tippet Keeper With Cutter as it does the job of keeping your tippet spools organized, accessible, and ready for action and then some. Crafted from high quality aluminium and stainless steel components, it hold up to five spools, sports a built-in cutter and features a carabiner clip for attaching to your pack, vest, or lanyard. xplorerflyfishing.co.za

The difference between landing the fish of a lifetime or watching it slip away often comes down to one thing: your tippet.

PAY DAY

THE BEST NEW FLY TYING BOOK FROM AN OUTDOORS LEGEND AND A ROOFTOP TENT FOR THE WHOLE CLAN.

THE BOOK: Pheasant Tail Simplicity by Yvon Chouinard, Craig Mathews and Mauro Mazzo. In cooking there are those subtle staple ingredients that you might not notice outright, like in a curry or a roast, but forget to put them in, and you just know the meal is missing something. When it comes to making flies for trout fishing, ring-necked pheasant tail is one of those ingredients. In the modern game of sharing online fly tying videos, hunting for views, likes and shares, it sometimes feels like new purpose of fly tying is to catch fishermen and not fish. Now, Pheasant Tail Simplicity: Recipes and Techniques for Successful Fly Fishing  doesn’t suggest that we should be boring and not experiment – rather it embraces how simplicity can lead to successful fly fishing every single time. In much the same way that Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia and one of this book’s co-authors, approaches making his gear and

THE FAMILY-SIZED ROOFTOP TENT: ALU-CAB RT-4S

Fact: with Randelas for a currency, overseas family holidays to most countries are just too expensive for most average 4-person families. Another fact: denizens of southern Africa are spoilt with some of the most beautiful, special wilderness places in the world. Conclusion: it makes a lot more sense to explore your own backyard in your holidays, especially if you invest in pimping your ride with something like this epic new tent from Alu-Cab. A fully standalone, 4-sleeper rooftop tent with over 4.5m² of sleeping space, the RT-4S is designed for families, overlanders, outdoor orgy-lovers and anyone who needs more room up top. Thanks to its flip-out bed design, it provides extra headroom and sleeping space, beyond what your usual clamshell rooftop tents allow. You can mount it on an SUV or canopy, with side-opening flexibility to suit your setup. The integrated telescopic ladder stows inside and supports up to 150kg | 330lbs when deployed. Other features include 2 x dual-colour (red/white) LEDs, 2 x USB ports, 4 x Type C ports, 2 x 12V car-style sockets, a raised external air vent and

apparel - Pheasant Tail Simplicity highlights the attraction of the basics. For a material that is cheap, readily available, and has a variety of functions; whether used for the body or tail of soft hackle wet flies, bead head nymphs and dry flies, the use of pheasant tail barbs isn’t always given its due credit. Until now. This beautiful coffee-table-style book features a handful of essential trout fishing patterns (and one bonefish fly) involving pheasant tail, including detailed steps explaining how to tie them. The instruction is detailed enough for a newbie fly tyer who understands the basics of fly tying to find value, but flows just right to be enjoyed by an experienced tyer with an appreciation for the fundamentals. For those who prefer step-by-steps in video format, most patterns include a phone-scannable QR code that takes you to the YouTube version, allowing you to sit, digitally, with the authors themselves. The tutorials are punctuated by humorous short stories and prose, seasoned with some of the most stunning photographs in classic trout fishing, inspiring you to keep turning the pages, learning more and to adopt this book’s over-arching message of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid). patagonia.com

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“DUH-NUH-NUH-NUH-NUH-NUH-NUH-NUH, BATMAN!”

BATS ON THE FLATS

THERE ARE FISH YOU TARGET ON THE FLATS BECAUSE THEY TAKE FLIES AND OTHERS, LIKE BATFISH, THAT YOU OBSERVE AND REGARD AS BEAUTIFUL WEIRDOS THAT IGNORE YOUR ADVANCES SAVE FOR THE ODD CLOUSER (MUCH LIKE YOUR LOVE LIFE). UNTIL NOW, THAT IS. MATT DEFILIPPI AND THE ALPHONSE GUIDES APPEAR TO HAVE CRACKED THE BATFISH CODE. HERE HE TELLS US HOW IT WENT DOWN AND WHAT THE BREAKTHROUGH FLY IS ALL ABOUT.

Photos. Matt Defilippi, Alphonse Fishing. Co

Before we get into the details of your breakthrough fly, tell us about batfish themselves.

Batfish are a strange, oddly-shaped, aquarium-looking fish that frequent the Indian and Pacific oceans. They are found in coastal regions near shallow inshore reef systems and outer atolls. They were previously thought to only eat algae, grass, shrimp and crustaceans on the flats but, as of last year, we found out that they also enjoy a jellyfish or two.

Talk us through your battles with batfish in the past. Since I started guiding in the Seychelles (close to four years now) batfish have never been on the list of species out on the flats as only two or three were caught the whole season. They were considered algae and grass eaters by some of the older guides but, whenever we saw them on an off day or out guiding, we’d try have a sneaky cast at them. We wanted to catch them but never knew how, other than to throw normal bonefish flies at them and hope for the best. Sometimes they would curiously follow a small Golden Knight or micro Alphlexo, but they would never fully commit or rush over and grab a fly. Guys would come back from a day out on the flats and claim they guided or caught a batfish, but the story would come out at the bar later that it was actually snagged near the dorsal or flossed near the mouth. So they just became a ‘fish to look at on the flats’. Because there are so many of them they would actually become a nuisance as they would occasionally spook and scare the permit you were busy following.

What changed?

One day, my fellow guide James Kirsten and I were out on the flats guiding a guest on a sandy knoll on the edge of St Francois lagoon. It was a spring pushing tide and we were waiting for geets. We hadn’t seen much besides batfish and turtles everywhere. We were not too phased and just carried on searching for geets as the water started pushing in. I then noticed a batfish stick its head out of the water and eat something off the surface. I remember thinking to

myself, “Shit, I’ve seen them do that before!” But I didn’t give it too much thought. Then about five minutes later another bat did the same thing and ate an object off the surface like a brown trout would do. Now I was curious and this time I got a glimpse of the object it was eating. It looked blueish. I was still not 100% sure what it was though, so I walked ten metres and quickly stopped as a huge bluebottle jellyfish drifted past in front of me. Not wanting to get stung by it I kept my distance, but then I thought let me just watch this thing and see what happens as there were about three or four bats ten metres or so down current towards where the bluebottle was drifting.

I thought, “Na, can’t be...” but I kept my eye on things as the bluebottle got closer and closer to the bats. When it was within five metres of the bats all three of them charged like mad animals fighting for a piece of scrap meat. The biggest batfish got there first and slurped it down sticking its whole head out the water, eyes and all. I was shocked but still thinking it might have been a fluke. It was now almost home time and my guest said we could all catch a few bones before we head back as the GTs were nowhere to be seen. Nine-weight in hand I was walking back to fetch the boat when I saw another bluebottle drifting past. This time I wanted solid proof. I took my bonefish fly and gently hooked the bluebottle and let it drift with my fly in it. Some would call it live baiting. A bat raced out of nowhere and, off the surface, inhaled the bluebottle with my fly and I was on! All I remember saying to James and my guest, before losing the batfish shortly afterwards, was, “Batfish on surface flies, James! Fucking batfish on top water bru!”

We were both pretty stoked on the idea but, only when we tested the fly version of the jellyfish were we really chuffed. I went back and told a few of the other guides about it, but nobody was really sold on the idea yet. When Kyle Simpson saw my first ‘bluebottle fly’ attempt he had a good laugh while he fiddled with it and said something along the lines of, “What the hell is this supposed to be?”

The next day I was out on the flats with good friend and guest Avron Karen when we stumbled upon a big group of bats. Our day was over and we had caught some nice fish so I asked Avron if he minded if I tried my new batfish fly before heading home? A minute later, first cast, first bat, and tight. I was on. The batfish stuck its head out the water and inhaled the fly off the top. We were both shocked that the horrible looking fly had actually worked and we had just caught a batfish on the flats using a floating fly just swinging it in the current. We cracked the news to the boys that evening confirming that it was legit and the mission to tie a realistic bluebottle was on. Between Kyle, Brad Young and myself we came up with what is now the bluebottle fly we use for bats on the flats. As far as I know it’s a completely new fly. I haven’t heard of anyone using a floating bluebottle jellyfish fly before but maybe someone out there has done it.* It’s definitely new to the Seychelles and could possibly be used to catch other species that eat bluebottles.

How do batfish fight?

They are very strong. Anyone that has ever caught one before knows that they put up a good fight. They use their shape to sit in the current and don’t give up. They may look odd but they are great sport. Obviously, you can’t compare them to GTs, milks or permit, but they have their own unique strength and fight that makes them super cool. They are definitely worth a cast.

“THEY CAN PUT UP A DECENT FIGHT WITH RUNS FAR INTO THE BACKING.”

Now that they are somewhat “cracked”, what’s the verdict? Are batfish on the menu as a Seychelles target species? Do you and other guides feel confident enough to guide guests into them? Do guests want batfish on fly or is it more of a weirdo thing guides do on off days?

It has definitely become one of our sport fish to catch on fly here in the Seychelles. We have gone from catching a handful a season to almost 30 in our first season targeting them. In terms of guiding we can definitely go out and target batfish now. However finding the right fish is a factor and they seem to slow down a bit when the wind drops off, almost as if they know which wind blows the bluebottles in. If the batfish are in skinny water feeding on the bottom they won’t eat the blue bottle. Then they are focused on some food source in the sand and they are not looking up at the surface. However, bats that are following turtles on the flats or cruising in deeper water off the edges of the flats will almost always come up to try eat a bluebottle fly. Surprisingly a lot of guests are intrigued by this new species to target. We get a lot of them dedicating a part of their day to target bats to tick off the list. I’ve had some world-renowned fly fisherman go nuts when they see a bit of dry fly action on the flats. I personally won’t dedicate

PEANUT PERMIT BRITTLE

More in the mainstream than jellymunching bats, Matt has also had some superb fishing recently with a permit fly based on a brittle star. After opening up the stomach of a permit that got munched by a lemon shark on St. Joseph atoll, Matt found it was full of brittle stars, which he describes as, “a skinny starfish with with five long thin legs and a small R1 coin like body”. The triggers seem to like it too. Read more about this Alphlexo variant at themissionflymag.com

a large part of my day trying to catch bats but, if the opportunity is right and my guests are keen, I’m all for it.

What setup do you use and how do you guide for them?

You’d typically use your bonefish setup for them… 9-weight, 16lb leader. 8 and 10-weights are fine too. They’re usually clean fighters but don’t let their comical appearance fool you. They can put up a decent fight with runs far into the backing.

Do batfish behave like this elsewhere in the world or is it just in the Seychelles?

I’d imagine they would eat like this in most places they inhabit. Guys have caught bats on bluebottles now on Cosmoledo atoll and other outer atolls in the Seychelles so it’s not just an Alphonse thing. I’m not sure if anyone has tried anywhere else around the world as batfish are not usually on everyone’s menu as a sport fish on fly. Guys on liveaboards often see them at the back of the boat while mooring, eating scraps that get tossed overboard and flushed out. They’re a strange fish.

* Jimmy Eagleton has been experimenting with bluebottle flies for Mola-mola (sunfish).

KWAGGA

TROUT FARMER, RUGBY STAR AND THE SPARK THAT FIRES THE BOK BOMB SQUAD INTO LIFE, KWAGGA SMITH IS A FREAKING LEGEND OF THE OVAL BALL WHO (AS FAR AS THE FAN BOY EDITOR OF THIS RAG IS CONCERNED) SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO PAY FOR ANOTHER DRINK FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. HE’S ALSO THIS ISSUE’S LIFER.

Photos. C/o Kwagga Smith

The first fish I remember catching were bass. Growing up on our family farm as a kid, my weekends were spent going to the dam, fishing with my dad and my brother. My brother is two years older than me and he was my best friend on the farm. Both he and my dad are big fishermen too, from deep sea to freshwater, to tiger fishing. On weekends we’d take the quad bike, drive down to the dam, dig up earth worms and then catch bass on worms, and on conventional plastics. After a while catching them with the spinning rod was getting too easy so we switched over to flies. That was the best thing for me - late afternoon, just before dark, take a small popper and just throw that. Those big bass are amazing.

The farm I grew up on is between Lydenburg and Ohrigstad about an hour away from Dullstroom. After school, I was based in Stellenbosch with the Blitzbok sevens team for six months and then based in Johannesburg for the next six months with the Lions. That carried on for eight years, and then I signed a contract to play rugby in Japan. In 2020 during Covid my wife Ilke and I decided to buy a trout farm called Kareekraal (kareekraal.co.za) near Dullstroom. There was no rugby because of the pandemic, so for eight months we just worked on the farm literally every day, working on the dams and building three cottages. It’s now doing really well and we are looking to expand a bit with three more cabins. Then we can sleep 30 people. The farm is 200 hectares with three trout dams, which is a lekker size. In Japan we live in a really cool town called Iwata, where all

the Yamaha stuff is made. It’s Yamaha head headquarters worldwide and most of the Japanese guys that play with me still work for the Yamaha company. So we have two homes. One is our apartment in Japan, which we just lock up when we leave there and the other is the farmhouse when back in South Africa.

I love coffee. I have my own AeroPress, my own portable grinder and I take my own beans with me. There’s a little coffee roastery in Dullstroom attached to Anvil Brewery. I normally buy their Black Fritz blend, which is a mix of Ethiopian and Brazilian beans.

A typical day for me with the Boks starts with coffee. After breakfast we normally have meetings or a gym session, then lunch. You then go to the field, do your field session, then get back and do your recovery. Mondays are a full day because it’s when we do the reviews. We start at 8am and you get back to the hotel at 5:30pm. Tuesdays are very similar and then Wednesday is the off day. Our weekend is from a Wednesday afternoon till a Friday morning. If we are in Joburg or anywhere close and I have an off day, I normally shoot through to the farm. I’m not scared of driving. I’ll leave on a Wednesday afternoon and head back on the Friday morning, straight into the captain’s run before the match on a Saturday. Sundays don’t count because you are so flipping sore, you don’t want to do anything. And normally, we travel on Sundays. If we are overseas, if I can’t go fishing, I try to play a bit of golf on off days.

“I MADE MY DAMS DEEP. ONE IS SIX METRES DEEP. OR THREE RG SNYMANS.”

“JESSE KRIEL IS THE GUY THAT’S OUT THERE AT 6 AM IN WINTER, IN HIS JOCKS, CATCHING TROUT.”

My home waters are on my trout farm, Kareekraal. But I also fish and explore other waters with John Thoabala and the guys at Mavungana Flyfishing in Dullstroom. It’s nice for me to see how they do stuff and learn from them. I think you can always learn about anything in life. At Kareekraal we have three really big nice-sized dams. There’s one with three cottages just 20 metres away from the water. But I always advise people to walk to the other two dams. They are not far, not even a kilometre away, and they have less fishing pressure than the dam where the cottages are. Every guy that stays at those cottages just wants to walk out and cast. As soon as you go to one of the other dams it is the same amount of fish, but they don’t get pressured that much and you don’t have your wife watching, the kids running in the water or the dogs swimming where you want to fish. One of the other dams also has a cottage, but it is a little bit more private. A lot of people prefer that if they’re only four people. Bigger groups prefer the dam with the three cottages next to each other.

My go-to setup is a 5-weight Orvis rod and reel with a black Woolly Bugger with an orange bead - a Spiedkop - and a sinking line. I cleaned and rebuilt the dams so I know exactly where all the structure is, where it gets deep and where I put a pile of rocks. I made a few structures in the dams, but I normally don’t tell people where they are. There’s a lot of fish sitting around and I made my dams real deep. One is six metres deep. Or three RG Snymans. The fish get big with the biggest rainbow now at 4.2kg and the biggest brown 2.5kg, which is not massive, but it’ll keep growing.

The best advice I have ever been given came from my dad. He said keep doing what you enjoy and try to do more of it, because then you’ll be a better person. For

me that means being on the farm and investing in my own little dream that I have. I get so much joy out of it that if everything else doesn’t go my way, it doesn’t matter. It’s just temporary. At least I’ve always got the thing that I love to do. Family is also really important to me. My wife and I are partners in business. We are really happy and we do everything together. She plays golf and she loves fishingespecially tiger fishing - and that’s lekker because we can share it. It’s not like you do this and I do that. We are in it together.

I am most proud of my sporting achievements. Growing up, I was never the biggest guy on the team, especially in the forwards. In high school people said, “Too small. You won’t make it.” So for me it was always about proving those people wrong and showing them that I can make it. That’s one of the big things I am proud of.

The Springbok I would back to be an excellent fly fisherman is Jesse Kriel. I don’t think people take him for an outdoors guy, but he really loves fly fishing. He’s been to Kareekraal and he’s the guy that’s out there at 6:00 AM in winter, in his jocks, catching trout. He’d be the best fly fisherman out of the Boks, but he’s also the guy that’s most interested in it. The worst would probably be Franco Mostert, because he is so scared of water and I think he’s a papgooier

The most satisfying fish I ever caught was my first tiger on fly. That thing was just amazing. And then during COVID I went fishing in Zanzibar. I spent two weeks there so I started making friends and managed to get a guy to take me out fishing on his little wooden boat with a 15hp Yamaha at the back. I caught a 35kg GT. It wasn’t on fly, but I love catching GTs and that was just so special.

My go to drink is rum and coke. Red Heart Rum.

One place, never again is probably Las Vegas. I’ve done it three times having played sevens there, but I won’t go back. It’s just not my vibe. I’d rather go somewhere where we are in nature.

One place I have to return to is the Zambezi River. I want to take my fly rod and target the tigers only on fly. I’d also like to go to Jozini Dam again. I have been there, but we were hunting. Now I see all the tiger fishing going on there, so that’s a bucket list destination I would definitely go back to.

When is it okay for an angler to lie? Well, it’s always the big ones that get away, so that’s basically a lie we all tell all the time.

The handiest survival skill I have is that I’m really good with my hands (ed. for someone who was often told he was too small for rugby, Kwagga has outsized hands. All the better for giving Nic White a PK). As kids we used to go camping, just me and my brother and two mates. You’re seven years old and you learn how to make a fire and live off the land. Shoot a bush pig, cut it up, cook water to make coffee and so on. I’m really comfortable in the bush. Going somewhere where there is nothing is the best kind of place for me.

I would like to master all the techniques and special skills of fly fishing, because it takes you to different places and it connects you with nature. I’m a good caster, but there’s a lot of other skills I still want to master, so when I get the opportunity to go fish on the flats or do something like that, I’m ready.

The biggest adventure I’ve ever been on was going to Mozambique. It’s not like you fly there. It’s a whole vibe of driving up towing the boat. It normally takes a full day or two days to get there, which is why we normally go for at least 10 days. And then when you are there, you are just in your own world. We fish a lot and I just love it.

Something I have changed my mind about is that growing up I never would’ve thought I would play rugby in Japan. Playing and winning the Currie Cup, playing Super Rugby, I didn’t even think about Japan. At the Lions we played good rugby from 2015-2018. At the end of 2017 I had played good rugby, but wasn’t selected for the Springboks. So it was like, what’s the next challenge? You’re giving it everything, but it’s not happening. Then the opportunity came to the go to Japan and I actually became a Springbok after my first season there. That’s when Rassie (ed. Erasmus, the current Springbok coach) took over. You can plan a lot, but you never know how things are going to happen.

When it comes to fear, I think whatever it is, facing it is a big step. Everyone has fears and if you think about them the whole time, you don’t face them. They then become this burden that you are just thinking about and not actually doing something about. To face your fears, you have to take action. Get into it, whatever it is. If you fail, at least you know, “I gave it a shot and I know this is not for me.” But the biggest bit of advice I can give is to face the fear.

It’s important to me to live life fully. I don’t want to die one day thinking, “I should have done that or I should have done this.” It’s so difficult because you’ve got to have a balance between everything. You can’t just do what you like. You have to work and earn money and try and build something for your family. But it is still incredibly important for me to live life fully. I don’t want to have regrets.

What I get out of fly fishing has definitely changed over the years. I fly fished a bit before I bought the farm in Dullstroom, but after buying the farm - an actual trout farmand getting into it, stocking the fish, understanding how they grow and behave - that’s definitely changed a lot for me.

The last fish I caught was a rainbow trout from the Bird of Prey Dam in Dullstroom with John from Mavungana.

“FRANCO MOSTERT IS SCARED OF WATER AND I THINK HE’S A PAPGOOIER.”

POP QUIZ

EXCELLENT OR EXCREMENT? ARE YOU SMART AND NICE OR SHOULD YOU WORK FOR ICE? TAKE OUR RAPIDFIRE QUIZ TO SEE IF YOUR GREY MATTER ABSORBED ANYTHING... OR IF IT’S REALLY TIME TO SWITCH OFF YOUR CPU AND TAKE A HOLIDAY. Competition was fierce at the Andre

1. Pieter Snyders’ tadpole pattern for largemouth yellowfish is called what (page 16)?

A. The Human Centipede.

B. The Cuck-a-doodle-doo.

C. Orgy-Porgy.

D. The Circle Jerk.

E. The Sex Dungeon.

2. What food source unlocked bats on the flats in the Seychelles (page 90)?

A. Leftover guide sandwiches.

B. Bluebottle jellyfish.

C. Brittle starfish.

D. Scraps and effluent flushed out the back of liveaboards.

3. What were the biggest challenges filming the Aussie salmon film, Grasshopper (page 36)?

A. Copping massive sardine flies to the back of the head.

B. Getting stuck in rips and having to be rescued.

C. Amorous seals that would not let them leave their fishing grounds.

D. Finding fishable headlands with manageable swell and deep drop-offs.

E. All of the above.

4. When Smokey the Bear and Trav Hanratty road-tripped to Thrift and Vanderkloof, what got a ‘twee-klap’ (page 62)?

A. Their Wit Wildebees fly.

B. Their stash of Uncle Glen’s Turbo.

C. Their enthusiasm.

D. Their broccoli stocks.

E. All of the above.

5. The ‘decoy’ bulls dotted across the Spanish countryside are... (page 56)?

A. The Bulls rugby team’s lost defensive strategy (based off current URC results).

B. A symbol of their own virility and machismo according to Spanish men.

C. An advertising campaign for brannewyn

D. Publicity for upcoming bull fights.

E. Markers to indicate you are in indeed in beef country.

6. According to Kwagga Smith, which of the Springboks could make great fly anglers and why (page 96)?

A. Cheslin Kolbe, because when it comes to running down the man, he’s been known to catch a rooster or three.

B. Jesse Kriel, because he’s the kind of guy who is out at 6am in winter in his jocks trying to catch fish.

C. Franco Mostert, because despite being a papgooier who is afraid of water, the man has a steady hand.

D. RG Snyman, because with reach like his, who needs 11-foot nymphing rods?

E. Malcom Marx, because his darts hit the target all day long.

“RG SNYMAN, BECAUSE WITH REACH LIKE HIS, WHO NEEDS 11-FOOT NYMPHING RODS?”