A DAY ON A STEEP-SIDED, STRAIGHT OUT OF HEAVEN MOUNTAIN STREAM

Tom Lewin on the middle section of the upper Lourens

This is the sort of stream I knew Tom Lewin would like – steep cascade water sprinkled with wild rainbows, a stream flowing like a crystal staircase through pristine fynbos in high mountain country.  It’s the last of the fishable water on the Lourens River before the stream just seeps out of emerald green carpets of moss at its source. The trout have been here for a hundred years or more; densely spotted fish, with bright vermillion flanks and lilac spots on the gill covers. By the look of them we think they may well be Mc McCloud River Redband rainbows. If so, could the last of the true Mc Cloud Redbands be holed up in a stream at the southern tip of Africa?

We tackled up with a view over Somerset West to the Strand then across False Bay to the hazy outline of the mountains near Cape Point. Tom put up the sweetest looking bamboo 3-wieght, a Carlin, made in Alaska by Far North Rodsmiths. The rod was a long way from home.

We began with a RAB, took a few fish, changed to a CdC Midge, got a few more, but the fishing was slow for this stream. I divide it roughly into thirds; the bottom third is too treed and shady to be really good, but then the stream suddenly opens and widens slightly where it’s really at its most beautiful and best, before the steep-cragged walls of mountains close in near the source. Moss and ferns appear here and the place takes on the sombre, timeless look of something out of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

The more tree-lined bottom third

Where the stream opens up

The moss covered stones and ferns of the upper water

Tom never the left the dry fly all day. But we were blanking on enough good runs to feel comfortably sure the fish were off, thought maybe a front was moving in. The best thing to do when it’s like this is sit in the shade of a tree and watch the river. We did and half an hour later about mid-way up the open section, fish started taking the RAB more seriously. None of them jumped on the fly though. They just lifted to it in the slow, steady rise of fish that are interested sure, but really not crazily hungry.

At just the right spot on the stream Tom took a rainbow as pretty as you like and I got a picture of him holding that trout with the sea in the background.  We wondered where else you could do that, discounting sea run trout of course. Whatever, it has to be rare, but what makes this particular spot unique is that technically you’re looking at two oceans here not just one, the Indian and the Atlantic.

Some of the trout are highly spotted and colourful

Tom Lewin - a trout in hand with two oceans in the background

This stream is beautiful in so many ways. The fynbos is extravagant, the trees magnificent – wild Olives, Almond, Rooiels and Wild Peach – the landscape simply majestic. And up in these remote mountains there’s the added delight of the almost certain proximity of leopards – even if we never actually saw one. We did once find a footprint up here that we all guessed must have been left by a leopard.

The beautifully finished and very delicate Carlin bamboo fly rod.

Typical of the upper water on this stream

Somehow Tom’s fine Carlin bamboo rod, his furled leader, his close in, gentle fly fishing style and his determination to stay with the dry fly all day seemed so much in place up here. 

RAB hooked up to a Carlin eye. Note the furled leader

This was a small stream fly fishing as good as it gets – anywhere in the world.

Tom Lewin in a kind of small stream heaven