Early last week the craving started. At first it was merely a whisper, but with each passing day the temptation increased until I finally succumbed. Wednesday evening as I went to bed I told the misses that I will be taking Friday off for personal reasons. She knew exactly what I meant and encouraged me to go.
After having moved to Cape Town, settling in, finding our feet and cycling the Argus I finally came around to joining the Cape Piscatorial Society. After reading the great articles on Nightjar Adventure I decided to book a beat on the Holsloot. I specifically chose the Holsloot because it is quite late in the season and since it is a tailwater it should still be flowing nicely. Thursday before a presented a talk at the weekly theoretical physics seminar I booked beat 4. As always before a fishing trip I had some trouble to sleep the night before. I guess we fly fisherman are still just boys when it comes to our favourite pastime and sometimes we still become overwhelmed by the prospect of getting our wading boots wet.
I dropped the wife off at work and headed up the N1 through the Hugenoot tunnel and on to Rawsonville. The gps coordinates obtained from Nightjar Adventure were spot on and took me straight to the allocated parking spot for beat 4. After getting my fishing gear ready I scrambled over the water pipes and made my way to the first pool.
After having moved to Cape Town, settling in, finding our feet and cycling the Argus I finally came around to joining the Cape Piscatorial Society. After reading the great articles on Nightjar Adventure I decided to book a beat on the Holsloot. I specifically chose the Holsloot because it is quite late in the season and since it is a tailwater it should still be flowing nicely. Thursday before a presented a talk at the weekly theoretical physics seminar I booked beat 4. As always before a fishing trip I had some trouble to sleep the night before. I guess we fly fisherman are still just boys when it comes to our favourite pastime and sometimes we still become overwhelmed by the prospect of getting our wading boots wet.
I dropped the wife off at work and headed up the N1 through the Hugenoot tunnel and on to Rawsonville. The gps coordinates obtained from Nightjar Adventure were spot on and took me straight to the allocated parking spot for beat 4. After getting my fishing gear ready I scrambled over the water pipes and made my way to the first pool.
Most of my prior river fishing was spent in search of yellows in the Vaal with the occasional stint on a small stream chasing some trout around. I feel most a ease with a nymph at the end of my rig but the deeper pools of the Holsloot seemed to beg for dry flies. I caught two 10" fish on a Chubby Chernobyl and lost a whole lot of takes. Upon reaching some runs a black tungsten bead GRHE tied slim accounted for another three fish in the net and at least 10 missed strikes.
The fish were not big, but they were plentiful and if I had a better hookup rate I would have had an awesome day on the river. But to catch ever more and larger fish is not why we pursue this endeavour. In my experience the cleansing of your soul starts with getting your wading boots wet.
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