52 centimeters but no weight

So, guided by future smallmouth yellowfish legend Chris “the gold digger” Le Roux I might just have caught my personal best for the second time in 2 weeks, but without a scale to measure. This is the second time I’ve been out with him and both times have been electric.

Awesome smallmouth yellowfish

We hit the Vaal near Parys and immediately found ourselves the only two anglers on the water. We rigged our lines with our favourite flies (or rather Chris’ favourite flies) and made for the rapids. In true style Chris was on within the first five casts or so. And that pattern just continued throughout the day which ended with him landing approximately 22 yellows, one of which was a striking 60 odd centimetres.

An unfortunately grainy photo of Chris' monster smallmouth

I on the other hand managed to land a mere five yellows and 2 muddies, one of which could have been my new personal best, broken after just a week. One of the things that i learnt from Chris was the correct method of Czech nymphing, which requires NO strike indicator. The concept is that with a strike indicator you allow a lot more drag and “bowing” on the line, ironically leading to more missed strikes. Now for the novice this would seem a paradoxical approach to yellow fishing, but as you use the technique more and more, you find yourself fine tuning your senses to detect the strike not only more frequently but also easier.

Inside!

Always remember it is often difficult to adjust the leader length of your line to the varying river depth with an indicator, and leader length in relation to this is of paramount importance, which can, with practice be more easily adjusted without an indicator by simply developing a feel for the depth of the target area. Tight lines.

Approximately 2.7 Kg smallmouth

Both I and the Bass Bugger managed to land numerous mudfish and the Bass Bugger even managed to net his very first Yellow! And a beauty at that.  The highlight for me was that towards the end of a relatively slow day on the water, I netted what was at approximately 2.7 kilos by far my largest smallmouth yellowfish yet.

Slab of gold

I have to admit that on this occasion I upped my tippet strength to just less than 10 lb test mono, which I concede that at face value seems a tad overkill. However, the water was flowing at quite a rate on this particular occasion and quite honestly we needed all the advantage that we could afford ourselves while fighting a hooked fish.

Netting a fish

The method that I used was Czech nymphing with a three fly tandem rig, and the prize winning fly for the day was an orange hotspot tied on a size 14 hook as the point fly. I used a copper john as my control fly (which is almost always the case) and various flies as my top fly. I find that this is my most successful configuration for targeting smallmouth yellowfish. However, I tend to switch the top and point fly from time to time.

Reasonable smallmouth

Just a quick “photo poster” of one of our recent trips to the Vaal River. Not many yellows came out but again we managed to hook enough muddies to bring tears to one’s eyes.

Typically false-hooked muddy

The Bass Bugger caught what must be one of his best muddies to date, estimated at around 2 kilos, maybe more. even when we are not hooking into yellows, there is still nothing quite like being out on the river on a sunny Saturday.

Excellent muddy!

Here is a picture of the kind of sores or ulcers that I have observed covering many of the fish that we have been catching at the Vaal River lately. I’m not sure if they are a result of parasites or pollution but they are certainly unsightly, and a cause for concern in my opinion.

Carp 4.2 kg

We have been targeting the Vaal River more and more lately. We are addicted and I think it is becoming a weekly habit, I just hope the bass fishing doesn’t suffer too much. This past weekend we had quite a day. The weather was absolutely perfect, warm with a bit of cloud cover. Unfortunately the flow rate was a little low for yellows, and I think that the water is also lacking a bit of oxygen. However thanks to the MANY ravenous carp, catfish, and mudfish, the fishing was still loads of fun.

Muddy 2 kg

Within 5 minutes of being in the river I was into a belter of a carp, which can be seen above. It may not look like much but it weighed just over 4 kilos, and trust me on a 6 weight rod with 4 kg tippet it was more than exciting to play. This was the very first carp that I have caught on fly and the alias “Free state bone fish” is more than fitting.

Vaal River Moggel

From here on it was just hook up after hook up. We caught numerous mudfish, a couple of catfish, and even a Vaal river Moggel, which was the first one I have ever seen. Sadly I had my heart broken but possibly the largest catfish that I have ever hooked… After a brutal 15 to 20 minutes of fighting, my 4 kg tippet broke at one of the knots. It was inevitable; my tackle simply lacked the backbone to turn the fish and I could do nothing but follow it up and down the river. One thing that I must make note of, and this is something that I have noticed many times before, is that catfish seem to go absolutely bananas just minutes before a storm. When there is electricity in the air, a bit of wind, and the faint sound of thunder in the distance, this is when, without a doubt, they begin to feed actively.

Baby Barbel

Although the one that got away was by far the largest fish we hooked on Saturday, the sheer number of fish we hooked, false hooked, and lost just made the day one of the greatest days I’ve had on the river. In saying this, one of the things that does concern me, is that many of the mudfish that we landed were covered in ulcer like sores and I can’t help but think that this is a red flag for pollution. ill post photos in a later post.