Blog | Prior Disillusions

Blog (Page 18)

Fly Fishing The Surf Zone - 3rd - 5th February 2012

A largespot pompano landed in the surf near Durban

Nick picked me up at 4am and Saturday morning and we headed for Suncoast Casino where we were meeting a few of the guys from the Durban Fly Tyers club.

At 5am we were on Casino Beach but hadn't spotted any other fly fisherman. Undeterred we started flicking a fly while waiting for the others. Graeme arrived shortly after 5am and we had a chat to him about the club and how many people we could expect at the upcoming meetings. Since no one else seemed to be arriving we began fishing our way up the beach.

The sun was just rising over the horizon with a few scattered clouds in the air. The air was fresh and the water was warm and amazingly clean. Soon I'd had a small knock or two and was feeling rather optimistic.

After around half an hour I noticed Nick and Graeme chatting away on the beach. Eventually I succumbed to peer pressure headed over to see what was so interesting. While chatting to them I continued flicking a fly into the surf and then bam, I was on. Instantly both of them stopped chatting and began fishing once again. On the end of my line was a small Largespot Pompano.

At this point another DFT member joined us and the four of us continued fishing the surf. Within 15 minutes I was into my next fish, a Thornfish which, although normally annoying, was a new species for me so I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We fished for another 30 minutes or so and I landed one final pompano before heading over to the Suncoast Wimpy for a quick breakfast. It had been a great morning and I was especially pleased that all fish had been landed on a home tied fly.

From the Wimpy we headed to the Kingfisher to pick up a few supplies before stopping off at the harbour for a short scouting trip. Nick sadly hadn't picked up a fish in the morning session and was hoping the ever faithful Gurney would end his drought.

We fished the harbour for around an hour, wading the sandbanks, before deciding to call it a day. There did seem to be a lot of activity around us but sadly neither of us had any luck. None the less it had been a great morning's fishing and I headed home happily.

After getting home Sharon and I headed for the squash courts for the usual Saturday afternoon knock. We played for a couple of hours, had a quick beer, and then headed for Nick's place to do a little fly tying and to have a braai.

I taught Nick how to tie in hackles as well as how to dub a body before we lit up the fire and threw on some tuna. A fantastic meal followed consisting of seared tuna, wasabi potato salad and a Greek salad.

Sunday morning was once again spent processing photos, editing videos and trying to catch up on website work. This was accompanied by a chilled afternoon and a small walk after dinner. Not the most exciting day but it feels great to be catching up on some of the website work I've fallen behind with.

All in all an awesome weekend.

GoPro Fun At Inanda - 27th - 29th January 2012

The weekend began with trips to Macnut Farm and the Point Yacht Club to scout them out as potential wedding venues. Although it’s great to see the venues it's somewhat annoying that the owners want to spend hours with you discussing menu options, draping, etc.

In fact, it took so long that when we left the PYC Nick and Clinton were already pulling the boat out of the water. We had a quick chat and they showed off a few of the Grunter they'd bashed on the new vessel. Not bad at all, other than the use of bait of course!

Amidst all of this my mom gave me the new Columbia Baha Fly Fishing shirts which she had collected from the embroiders for me. They look absolutely fantastic!

We then rushed home, packed our squash bags, and headed for the club via the Pavilion. I'd made the decision to buy myself a GoPro HD Hero 2 to start getting a little video footage of our fishing trips. It looks great and all that remains to be seen is whether I can produce footage of the quality they say it can produce.

A largemouth bass caught at Inanda Dam

I was once again involved in doubles so I spent quite some time on the court. The only downside of this is that, since it starts somewhat earlier than my usual singles, it also finishes earlier...and that results in far more beers being consumed.

Sharon was once again working on Sunday morning so I took the opportunity to head down to Inanda Dam for a little bass fishing and to test out the new camera. This involved strapping the camera to the car on the drive down and then to the tube while I was fishing. Thankfully I produced a few bass which meant I had some hopefully decent footage to go through once I got home.

From Inanda Dam I rushed home to take my mom out to Bhowani Lodge, another of our potential venues. She seemed very happy with it and I think the general consensus is that our wedding will be held there. Hopefully that's the end of the searching.

The rest of the afternoon was spent going through the piles of GoPro footage and putting together a short montage of my days fishing. I must admit, I was hugely impressed with the quality and the resultant video. And it can only get better from here.

Wedding Planning Heating Up - 20th - 22nd January 2012

Somehow we ended up at the Pavilion after work on Friday. I'm not quite sure how it happened but it turned into a small date night consisting of sushi followed by a movie. We opted to watch the new Sherlock Homes and although it wasn't disappointing it certainly was a little too similar to the first movie to enjoy it as much.

Saturday morning consisted of time spent at the Camelot Bridal Fair with my mom and Sharon. It did have some pluses in that I found a potential photographer, but it was also somewhat boring on a whole.

I then rushed down to the squash club where I was filling in for a doubles tournament. This meant 3 and a half hours on the court which was fantastic, albeit somewhat tiring. It did however mean that I had truly earned the post-match beer.

Sharon only joined me at squash later since she was waiting at the Bridal Fair to find out whether we'd won the free wedding...sadly we hadn't.

Sunday morning was somewhat relaxing with Sharon heading off to work while I chilled at home. I took the opportunity to catch up on some website work as well as to watch a few action movies which Sharon probably didn't want to see.

It was during one of these movies that I realised that the pair of slops I'd bought on Friday night felt different sizes. Low and behold one was a 9 and the other a 10. FAIL!! I also discovered that a pair of Falke socks I'd bought for Sharon came with 2 right feet. Another FAIL!

So when Sharon had finished work I met her at the Pavilion to change the slops and socks. They were out of both and we ended up having to return them leaving me once again slopless.

The rest of Sunday was spent relaxing at home and sorting out the odd piece of admin. Not a bad weekend at all.

The New Baha Vessel - 13th - 15th January 2012

A small bass caught at Inanda Dam

The weekend started off with a braai with some old mates. It'd been a while since we'd seen Western and Karen so it was great to catch up with them and to hear about their recent trip through Africa.

We did of course drink a few beers which put an end to my no drinking in January rule. It was however for a good cause so I wasn't all that stressed. Post braaiing we decided to play a few games and ended up turning on the Kinect and laughing our asses off at just how stupid we looked. All in all a great evening full of fun.

Saturday morning was spent rather leisurely looking at a couple of churches which we're considering for the wedding. We did also have a look at one venue but it would require external caterers so we're still deciding if it's worth the extra effort.

From venue hunting we headed for the squash courts for what was my first knock of 2012. Nursing a slight stomach bug made my hour worth of squash somewhat interesting and I walked off the court totally knackered and hoping it was purely due to the illness. Could I really loose that much fitness in just under a month?

Sunday started off with a little admin as I helped Nick patch up a few holes on his newly acquired boat. This was of course all worth it as we hooked it up to the Jeep and headed down to Inanda Dam to make sure it didn't sink. This did of course mean that we packed the fly rods and planned to nail a few bass in the process.

When we arrived at the gate at around 11:30 we could hardly believe the queue. Yes, it was a beautiful day, but the queue was ridiculous. It must've taken us around half an hour to just get through the gate and then we had to worry about finding a free slipway.

With the boat finally in the water and seemingly floating, we climbed aboard and headed out across the water at a huge 33km/hr. Although we're certainly not going to be winning any speed contests it all comes down to how many fish we produce, and things were looking good.

Our first issue turned out to be the wind which had suddenly picked up. Without a sneaker motor we were forced to anchor which was far from ideal. So after finding a semi protected bay we dropped the anchor and started flicking a fly. Sadly an hour passed and neither of us picked up a fish.

Satisfied now that the boat wasn't going to end up on the bottom of the dam we headed further from the launch site looking for another protected bay with more structure. We chose one close to the top of the dam and fished a few spots with no luck on the surface or sub surface.

It was now around 2 in the afternoon and the wind seemed to be switching. We headed over to the opposite bank and found a small, good looking bay. Nick kept the boat still while I casted out a small, orange woolly bugger. Immediately a handful of small fish attacked the fly aggressively with water splashing everywhere.

The fish didn't look like bass and I felt they may be small tilapea. As such I put on a #14 orange hotspot hoping to land my first ever tilapia on fly. I threw the hotspot in the direction of the fish and was immediately on. Amazingly it was a small largemouth bass.

We parked the boat, I gave Nick a hotspot, and we sat there bashing the small bass just for a little fun. I landed 13 fish and Nick, who had a 9 weight rod with him, struggled for his 3 due to the lack of feel of the bigger stick.

After we were satisfied we'd landed a few fish we carried on in search of larger quarry. In another bay Nick got into a decent largmouth fishing an epoxy minnow while I picked up another small fish or two on a bass bug.

Satisfied his boat had produced we called it a day and headed back to the slipway where we pulled out the boat and headed home. It had been a successful day on the water and we'd learned a few important lessons.