More Golden Slabs

Slab of Gold

Kyle and I hit the Vaal River again this past Thursday (28th March) in pursuit of one of our favourite quarry, the Smallmouth Yellowfish, as the waters begin to cool ahead of winter. The river was flowing at probably just under 20 cubics and was also fairly murky with visibility probably sitting at about 15 centimeters. I wasn’t expecting much and to be honest we never took a single fish till about 11 o’ Clock. Once we worked out the pattern though we managed to pull a fair number of fish out, probably ranging between 0.5 and 3 kilograms.

Kyles Catch

the Pattern was quite simple. basically it consisted of bright green flies (such as rock worms) being fished in fairly deep water, but it took us a while to figure this out. interestingly not a single fish was taken in shallow rapids, which tells me that the fish might be moving slowly towards deeper pools already in preparation for winter.

Another Great Yellow

Above is a picture of another nice sized Yellow. This one took me for a pretty long walk down the rapids before I was able to net it. All in all it turned out to be an excellent day on the water and I did not lose even half the number of fish that I normally do. This could probably be attributed mainly to a new rig that Kyle showed me, but if I could add any advice it would be to fish with only 2 flies. The reasoning for this is that with 3 there is just so much more potential for the loose flies to snag up under water while fighting a monster fish.

A Decent Yellow

Club Waters

Rapids

My two highly experienced fishing buddies: Keith Falconer of Explorer Fly Fishing and Chris le Roux, took me out to visit club water on the Vaal just outside of Parys this past Sunday. We went in search of a few smallmouth yellowfish and I really feel for the guys as I don’t think that I stop with the questions from the moment that we get onto the highway until long after the last fly is thrown for the day. “Do these flies look ok?” “Are they the right colour?” “Should I tie them with a glass bead or tungsten?” “Is the water flow correct in this spot?” I am aware of how unrelenting I am with these questions, but I blame them for being so damn accommodating.

Lovely little yellow

Unfortunately for us after the recent rains the river level had risen about 30 centimeters overnight and on top of that the water was reasonably chilly! The consistent chill that I felt the entire day was in stark contrast to the swelteringly hot productive yellow fishing days that I am used to. I managed one sizeable mudfish (losing 2 nippy yellows) and Keith netted 2 beautiful small mouths for the day. We didn’t do too well but after a few phone calls to other avid Vaal anglers, we found that everyone had a shocker at the hands of unsuitable weather conditions and fluctuating flow rates.

A fish is a fish!

Well, I say that we had a shocker but then again no day on the water is a shocker to me. It is always a pleasure to be out on the river, especially with the right people sharing their knowledge and experiences. Every slow day is a great learning experience and I learnt more about fly selection and line mending techniques in one day than I have in the last 10 trips that I have done alone! Thanks Keith, looking forward to the next one!

 

Slab of Gold: My Personal Best

We had a rollercoaster of a day out on the Vaal a couple weekends ago. It was a strange day of intermittently successful fishing. One minute the fish were on the bite and the next they were off, then suddenly on again, all in the space of a couple hours.

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.

Yellows: Few and Far Between

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!