22 October Newsletter

Home page picture themes

I am going to do a weekly theme on the home page. I had already started in a way with Vrederus, then Gateshead followed by Birkhall in the Eastern Cape. This week the theme will be small stream rainbows.

Fly Tying

I am about to post the tying steps for a brilliant Mountain Midge imitation (sometimes called the Net-winged Midge), made from a single natural grey CdC feather. I can tie a dozen in the wink of an eye and they catch trout in our Western Cape streams with amazing consistency. I know Ed Herbst likes this particular pattern so I phoned him yesterday to ask who the designer was, not being sure if it was my own pattern or not. According to Ed it apparently it is mine. Is the mind slipping or what! But you will enjoy this fly!

The wood and bamboo geniuses are at it again

Our wood and bamboo masters, Steven Boshoff and Stephen Dugmore, are at it again, but fast on their heels is a young man by the name of Deon Stamer who is building exquisite small stream landing nets here in Cape Town.

Starting with Steve Boshoff, he now has a prototype long handle landing net. Says Steve, ‘In Rhodes with Mario Geldenhuys, I found my current nets uncomfortable in terms of ‘reach’. The new design is inspired by Tenkara, but the Japanese use them as a ‘funnel’. I think it best to use it ‘mine-detector-style’ with the net submerged under the fish. This one is in embuia, but the handle is sandwiched around cherry wood to reduce weight.'

'Carrying is Japanese style, poked through the belt. A wading staff version – with spliced joint to assist travelling is under construction. ‘

Brilliant. For more on Steve see http://www.tomsutcliffe.co.za/index.php/my-friends-pages/stephen-boshoff-fly-rods

Then Stephen Dugmore is making a bamboo fly rod with a wooden handle, not a new concept, but certainly novel. Says Stephen, ‘This is my latest rod.  Never thought I would like a wooden handle but it feels really great.

Above is a picture of the balsawood fuselage structure within the grip.

The grip is finished with TruOil, which is used on gunstocks. It doesn’t really feel any more slippery when wet than when dry. It is perhaps not as firm as cork but feels firm enough. The big plus is you get a great sense of continuity with the rest of the rod.’

Is there is no end to the ingenuity of these guys?

For more on Steve Dugmore see http://www.tomsutcliffe.co.za/index.php/my-friends-pages/freestone-rods

Deon Stamer

A Stamer landing net made for small stream Guru, Pete Brigg

Out at Eikendal fly store in Somerset West the other day I picked up two of Deon Stamer’s new ultra-light and quite beautiful landing nets. One was made from strips of bamboo, the other from wood. They are exquisite. That’s the only way you can describe them without going overboard with adjectives of praise. He has promised me a few pictures soon.

Contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Hooks

My email was flooded this week with a debate on the ultimate hook for dry fly fishing for trout I guess as the axis of the debate, though it verged into nymphing. I will include some excerpts from the correspondence because it is very interesting and the sources are reliable and really well informed.

From MC Coetzer

‘For about three seasons I’ve been fishing the Skalka Dry 1 hook for all dry fly applications and I am extremely happy with them. It is the perfect hook in terms of shank length to gape ratio, barbless and long pointed. When you get down to the smaller sizes – say about #16 (which has the shank of a standard # 18) – the bigger than normal gape really makes a huge difference.

The Skalkas are handmade in the Czech Republic by a Mr J Skalka. They are however available through the Czechnymphs website.

Had a chat to Karel Krivanek about dry fly hooks and he says that they use the curved hooks in situations where they get lots of small fish which invariably shake and jump a lot. ‘

(See http://shop.siman.cz/index.html?pod=/skalka_hooksx0.htm)

Ed Herbst’s contribution:

‘I think we have all become mesmerised by the Czechs and have not acknowledged the possibility that in some instances the emperor might be naked.

The essence of circle hooks is that you must wait until the fish has turned away and the Dohiku hooks and similar designs with upturned points have an element of circle hooks in them.’

(See http://www.flydk.sk/html/dohiku_barbless__hooks.html)

‘This may be an advantage when nymphing when there is often a small delay between the fish taking the fly and the angler striking but, as you say, this might not work on dry fly.’

Steve Dugmore’s input is interesting:

A Dohiku dry fly hook. Note the upturned point.

 

‘I have never liked the idea of upward curved points.  I have tried them but don’t like them.

To me it makes intuitive sense that an upward pointing point can’t be as good at penetrating as a straight (or even downward) pointing point. It’s like a toboggan, water-ski, surfboard etc . You point the tip up if you don’t want it to dig in! With a hook it is exacerbated by pointing towards the shank which narrows the gape. If the fish bites from top to bottom the point is unlikely to dig in. It is more likely to skate. If it bites the hook ‘sideways’ then an upward or downward, or straight pointing hook, makes less difference. Offsetting the point sideways would however make good sense.

For me optimum would intuitively be a straight point and a slight sideways offset…. but then intuition is often proved wrong in matters such as these!’

Ed Herbst replies:

‘There is an historic precedent for this.

When Vincent Marinaro designed a midge hook for Partridge in 1978, the K1A, he offset the point.’

See: http://www.thetroutfitter.com/catalog/flytying/partridgehooks.html#anchor1059780

From Korrie Broos

‘Most of the handmade, custom designed hooks were originally made for competition fly fishing, with a specific purpose in mind of higher hook up rates, easier penetration, deeper penetration, keeping small fish on the hook etc.

There are a couple of common factors that are universal to all of the hooks.

Wider gapes, longer points, sharper points etc. and in effect an oversized hook, for the normal size.

Every individual characteristic of each hook’s design was made to for a specific purpose. I bend all my hooks off centre, and the hook-up rate is far superior.’

Mark Krige (ace fly fishing guide on Western Cape waters) says,

‘There might be another side to this coin. I fish small waters for small fish quite a bit, and I get the impression I lose fewer hooked fish on the Dohikus than on straight-point hooks. Small fish have a knack for wriggling off a hook, but the curved point seems to me to hang on better. I haven't noticed an increase in the number of misses when fishing dry flies tied on these hooks, but then I've always missed a few anyway...’

Well, that’s it. Some interesting thoughts on the anatomy of the fly hook from some of our most well respected small stream fly fishers.

Apologies to my good friend Roger Baert

The Baert's new home in the south of France

I wrote in the newsletter I send to my subscribers that Roger and Brigitte Baert have been living in the south of France for eight years. Finger trouble! That eight should have read two! Roger kindly sent me the back issues of his regular newsletter. He writes beautifully, every bit as well as Peter Mayle who made a small fortune writing books about life in the south of France. Roger was the father of South African float-tubing and was the owner of this country’s first specialist fly shop, The Flyfisherman. Here’s an excerpt from Roger’s Newsletter No 2:

? Allo, Allo, Citoyens de Margon!  La coiffeuse sera disponible sur la Place ce matin jusqu'à 11 heures. ?  (Hear, Hear, Citizens of Margon! The hairdresser will be available on the city square until eleven o'clock this morning)

That was from our Town Crier a couple of days ago.  This character no longer officiates on horseback or on a mule.  He has evolved with the times.  He is actually a she and uses an electrically operated public address system.  Three announcements from strategically sited loudspeakers get the message out to the whole town while they are still at their breakfast tables.  The same thing happens to remind us to collect our monthly ration of black garbage bags from the mayor's secretary. Or to advise parents of the cancellation of a do at the kindergarten.  Or the announcement  that there will be a rock festival in the nearby village next month.

 And so the Southern French old village atmosphere seeps into our systems and we get to feel very much a part of it.  Matter of fact, of the 500 or so inhabitants of Margon, a full 20% are English.

One would never have dreamed this possible back in the days when we lived in Europe.  But there you have globalisation.  The previously xenophobic French have, for practical reasons,  learnt to speak English and automatically improved their attitude towards the English;  And the English,  feeling more at ease with the French  are now learning their language and more and more are deciding to settle in France.

And from Newsletter 8:

Well, it took some time, but I have found three stillwaters where we will be able to go for some plain and simple no kill, or limited kill, flyfishing for trout from float tubes. None of these waters are very close but they are within reasonable distance for two to three day expeditions  with B&B accommodation.

Using the opportunity of our annual trip to our old friend John Rillaerts who has a summer home

close to Limoges, we made a night stop on the way home at the smallest of these waters near an old

mining town called Gouzon.  The lake is in an abandoned mine pit which is about 18 meters deep

and 8 hectares in surface area and there's uranium in them there depths.  But not enough to have made it either profitable or scary.  So a group of flyfishers rent it from the municipality, stock it with trout, maintain the grounds and sell day tickets to the right sort of people.  What a pleasure!

We booked an afternoon's no-kill flyfishing with the man on duty that Saturday.  His name was Rob and he  happened to be English and was most helpful.  With temperatures in the thirties this is not the best time of the year for trout....so we had the lake practically to ourselves.  But we were here on a fact finding trip and wanted to become familiar with the waters and the prospects for September, October and beyond.  The last thing we expected was a nibble. Instead we got a BITE. Brigitte was the one who got it (of course!) and the photographer was me (as usual) except for the final landing and handling of the fish where her ladyship declined to get her hands all slimy.  But her camera work was fine, except for the fact that you only see the fish.  Never the handler!  The fish weighed 2.7 Kgs.