BRIEF IMPRESSIONS OF RHODES AND UGIE SEPTEMBER 2011

THE TRIP UP

The drive up was characterised by more than just the boredom of sitting behind a wheel as mile after mile of road slides away under the bonnet. Between Laingsburg and Beaufort West there are now no less than four stops for road works where the delay mostly exceeds the 10 minutes they confidently quote.

 

In fact nearly everyone gets out of the car, stretches and looks vaguely confused and agrieved. But the Karoo was at least as alive with wild flowers as with fast passing trucks.

Then just beyond Steynsburg the R 66 seems to crumble into a mosaic of potholes that are scattered enough to be dangerous. I saw an upmarket German sedan left on the side of the road after obviously blowing both front low profile tyres.

I dropped a CFO fly reel into one of the potholes. It was dwarfed in the ragged edged cavity.

 

Potholes are much in evidence all the way through to Barkly East, so by way of a break I took the long way round and turned off the R 58 to travel through Wartrail and New England, crossing some lesser known but beautiful streams, like the Willow, the Diepspruit and the Joggem.

The Diepspruit

The dramatic Joggem, above and below

Next day after an evening in Rhodes I crossed the Naude’s Nek Pass where there was still ice on the summit.

The view eastwards towards Maclear and Ugie was spectacular and in the lowlands I came across a flock of a few hundred crowned cranes.

THE UGIE LADIES FESTIVAL

Here’s a fun event where the contestants are treated like royalty for two and a half days and get to fish some of the fine streams in this part of the world. The catches were good, the guides were excellent and the rivers really pretty. http://www.tomsutcliffe.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=165:the-ugie-ladies-festival&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=89

Guide Richard Viedge and Dr Michelle Welsh

Sharland Urquhart on the Pot River

Luck on the Pot River for Inge Divett

Magnificent scenery. The Little Pot River

Happy guide, happy anglers - Richard Viedge (local fly guide), Inge Divett and Michelle Welsh (Inge is the wife of well know fly fisher Miles Divett)

THE STERKSPRUIT ON BIRKHALL

After the Ugie festival I spent a week fishing the Sterkspruit, trying hard to get to really understand this lovely river. For the most part I was alone and fished it widely, taking plenty of trout on dry fly and nymphs.

The confluence of the Bell (left) and the Sterkspruit

On my way to Birkhall I stopped at the bridge over the Kraai. The Bell and the Sterkspruit looked good, but there was clearly far more flow in the Sterkspruit.

Below the bridge the Kraai looked in perfect condition.

The Kraai below the bridge

The first morning Birkhall’s owner, Basie Volsloo, took me to the site of a dam he is rebuilding in a valley above his home.

It will be a significant impoundment when it’s finished. I then wandered up the feeder stream for an hour or so and discovered trout fry!

The little feeder stream

A cock fish with a hen alongside him

After a long search I spotted no less than six adult fish in this tiny stream. Happily for Basie, it looks very much as if stocking will be unnecessary here.

It’s a slip of a stream but at a push it would fish well with a 000--weight fly rod!

Days followed days on the Sterkspruit where, save for one afternoon when I managed only three fish – and they were like drawing teeth – the trout came happily to dry flies like RABs and Elk Hairs, or to nymphs like the Zak or Gary Glen-Young’s pretty Baetid nymph imitations.

The first day I parked the truck on the edge of the stream where the water rushes in fast, shallow riffles and took 14 fish in less than 600 metres of the river. I first used a dry fly, but when they went slow on that I switched to a small size 16 Zak with a purple tungsten bead. There was no need for an indicator. The fish were too quick and strong on the fly to miss a take.

This was the section where I got the first trout I ever landed on my new Deon Stamer net. See http://www.tomsutcliffe.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=200:handmade-landing-nets-the-new-wave&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=89

First trout in my new Stamer net

 

I was spooning trout every day and small black Baetids were more than prolific in the stomach contents.

I left the river each evening late enough to catch something of a sunset.

One day I crossed the Bokspruit on my way to visit Dave Walker in Rhodes. Above the newly repaired bridge were a hundred or more trout, mostly sitting over a shelf of exposed bedrock.

Below the bridge I saw not a single fish. Strange behaviour. I have never seen this number of trout at the bridge and some were nice fish, at least 15 inches long.

I spent the last day with Tony Kietzman fishing the gorge section of Birkhall, Tony using his Tenkara, his friend, Stephanus Klopper, sharing my Winston 2 weight with me. As we swung into the farm gate a young Jackal Buzzard stared down at us from his perch on a road sign. I took a picture of him through the windscreen of my car.

Stephanus Klopper

Tony Kietzman

Again the fishing was good enough to imagine the Sterkspruit is one of those rivers that somehow will never let you down.