Retreaves for Rivers

The most important aspect of the retrieve for river fishing is to keep in contact with your fly and to eliminate slack in the line. Dry flies, particularly sedges, can be twitched and skidded across the surface to imitate the way sedges often run across a river. Nymphs can be fished on a dead drift, at the same speed as the current, or stripped in a little faster to represent those nymphs that are stronger swimmers. Raising or lowering the rod tip can be used to adjust the height of the nymphs in the water, or the depth at which they are fishing if you like.
On fast rivers you can fish streamers, for example, across and down and by mending the line downstream and retrieving quickly, get your fly to swim fast and aggressively in a wide loop.
When dry fly fishing it is very important not to tighten too quickly when a fish rises to your fly. If you do not allow the fish to take the fly into its mouth and start to turn down, you risk pulling the fly straight out of the fish's mouth. This results in a disappointed fisherman and an unhappy and frightened fish. When a fish makes a frantic grap or leap for your fly it is only to ease to respond in kind with an over-quick "strike". If a fish rises in a slow and stately fashion, it is much easier to give it that little bit of extra time before tighening your line.
Induced take for upstream nymphing
The induced take can be deadly when nymphing in running water. The object of the exercise is to make the trout think that the nymph that he is about to eat is going to escape. This is done by raising the tip of your rod, when your nymph is within range of a trout, just enough to make the nymph lift a few inches. How soon you have to raise your rod tip, and by how much, will depend on the speed of the current: sooner and higher for fast waters and later and less for slow water.
Something that happens on all waters is the fish that follows your fly right to the bitter end. Just as you are about to lift off and cast again you spot a fish at your feet as it makes a grab for your fly. This can be a form of induced take. Particularly on stillwaters, it is always worth pausing at the end of a retrieve to see if a fish has followed the fly. A pause or slight lift can often do the trick.
Whether you are fishing on a river or a stillwater, and whatever your choice of retrieve, you will not connect with and catch fish unless you concentrate all the time. Subtle takes may be indicated by just the slightest tweak of your line or the sensation that you have caught a bit of weed. Every time you see a slight movement or get a funny feeling holding the line, do tighten as it may be a fish. Every now and then it will be weed and a lump will fly past your head. But the next time, when you think you have caught some weed, it will be a fish.
Whether fishing stillwaters or rivers, it is all too easily to fish in a mechanical, repetitive way without thinking about what the fish are doing or what your flies are supposed to do in or on the water. If you are not catching fish, stop and have a think and try something different. Very often a different style or speed of retrieve can help put a fish on the end of the line.

Retreaves for still water

A very important retrieves for stillwaters is the very slow retrieve. Most nymphs and the like do not move very quickly and to imitate them you need to retrieve almost painfully slowly. Gentle retrieves of an inch or so of line at a time, at the most, are what is required, perhaps with the odd twitch or lift of your rod to imitate a burst of speed by the natural insect. You use the fore finger and thumb of your line to hand to make a continuous retrieve of line into the palm of your hand, where it is held by the other fingers of the same hand. You should pull - and in fact can only pull - a very short length of line each time you move your thumb and finger backwards and forwards. There is no need to move your line hand away from the rod butt as you do not need any arm movement to retrieve longer lengths of line. At the end of the retrieve, you can drop the small coils in your hand before casting again. By all means experiment until you find a successful retrieve and then stick to what works.
The slowest retrieve of all is, obviously, the static retrieve when you simply cast out, take in any slack and then leave your line and flies well alone. This retrieve can be used with both nymphs, or sunken flies, and dry flies. Surface movement and a breeze will impart some movement into the flies. A high level of concentration is critical when fishing the static retrieve as takes can be very gentle. If you think that you have felt a touch, it is always worth tightening your line quickly as it may be a fish that you felt. If your line has been blown into a wide curve, the best way to connect with a fish is to tighten by moving your rod sideways in the opposite direction to the way your line is blowing.
The figure of eight
One of the best-known retrieves is the figure of eight. This retrieve is ideal when you want a slow, steady and continuous retrieve. Line is retrieved through a combination of pulling with your thumb and forefinger and rotating your line hand. Start by holding the line with the thumb and forefinger of your line hand, close to your rod handle. Rotate your wrist backwards, towards you body, and then put your little finger over the line and rotate your wrist in the opposite direction. Now, holding the line in the palm of your hand, having released your thumb and forefinger, take hold of the line again and repeat both rotations. The line that has been retrieved will start to form a figure of eight in your hand.
Fast retrieves
In contrast to the strictly imitative static or slow retrieve is the fast continuous retrieve, sometimes known as the roly poly. Fast retrieves are appropriate if fishing fish or fry imitations or perhaps a caddis. Also a fast retrieve can inject life into fish on a dour day. To achieve a fast and continuous retrieve you need to tuck the butt of your rod under your arm, so that both hands are free to retrieve the line in fast steady and continuous pulls, one after the other.

CDC KLINKHAMER

A Great dry fly pattern, that imitates emerging insects such as caddis flies. Experiment and tie variouscolours for the thorax and body...such as ginger, olive, light brown, black, use peacock herl instead of dubbing,and so forth. When fishing this pattern, the CDC will float on the water, but the body and thorax will be in the water.

MATERIALS:Hook: Scud hook, #12 - #18Thread: 8/0

BlackTail: Chartreuse Wing-N-Flash

Body: Light Olive or Lifecycle Olive SLF dubbing (Alternate: Nymph Body Dubbing)

Rib: Black tying thread (Alternate: Crinkle Flash, Chartreuse)

Post: CDC puff, in grey or white colour

FLASHBACK NYMPH

Another very effective pattern, for yellowfish and trout.

MATERIALS:

HOOK: Standard Shank nymph hook, #10 - #18

TAIL: Brown, Black or Tan Hackle Fibers, 10 to 20 (Substitute: Pheasant Tail Fibres, Micro Fibbets)

RIB: Copper WireBODY: Brown, Black or Tan Superbrite Dubbing (Substitute: SLF Dubbing, Rabbit Fur, Haretron, Antron Dubbing)

THORAX: Same as Body, or Peacock Herl

THREAD: Colour to Match colour of fly, i.e. Brown, Black or Tan 8/0WINGCASE: Silver Tinsel (Substitute: Silver Flashabou, Holographic Tinsel. Think Christmas tree decorations!)

Treeferns Comp 2008

The Treeferns competition was held on the weekend of 3 May 2008 when a very heavy cold front pushed through. The morning of the competition was misty and very cold, it was about 3 degrees Celsius, but still the competitors arrived at 6:30am for debriefing. The fishing started at 7hoo and lasted till 16h00, the fishing was tough but if you fished hard and gave the fish what they wanted, you would catch. There were thirty five fish caught in the day and one brown.

We just would like to thank Bells Whisky, Fly Fishers Unlimited, and Angling Africa for sponsoring this great event.

The Great Pappa Roach

Hook : Grip 13812 ( Streamer / Leeches ) size 4 - 12Thread : 6/0 OliveBody : Siman Sparkle Squirrel dubbing Brush ( Olive ) & Olive Zonker stripTail : Olive Zonker StripWing case : Olive MallardLegs : Silly LegsEyes : 40lb Nylon ( melted )

Teaching my wife

A beautiful 2kg rainbow caught by my wife, at Treeferns Trout Lodge. She used a 6# Stealth magnum rod, with a floating line, using a size 10 beaded blood worm, with a very slow, almost dead retrieve.

Its really great seeing women take on this sport.

Tree Ferns Trout Lodge

It was like arriving on a cloud, it was like the world had stopped and all time stood still, as I surveyed the six visible dams. Just the sight of the dams made me eager to start fishing right away. As I got close to the water a white veil of mist covered the surface, hiding the ripples where I could have spotted trout rising. There was only one thing on my mind, and that was to get my line into the water. I had heard of big fish being caught in these dams, but to me they were all old wives tales; little did I know that a good 3 kg rainbow trout would be waiting for me. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I started fishing at the bottom three dams, “Grootdam, Kwiting dam, and Mobumotsu dam”. I started at Grootdam first, looking if there was any sign of insect life, but there was none early that morning, so I tied on the fly that I always start with on new waters, “The black Woolly Bugger”, also known as the “Speedcop”. First casting it out straight in front of me, then retrieving it with a slow long retrieve, then casting it out to the left of me and then to the right, covering water as I went along. Time passed with no sign of a take or rise, so I decided to cast my Speedcop straight out in front of me and let it sink just a bit, and then start retrieving.

As soon as I did that I had a massive rip on my line, the line that was left from me retrieving had gone and I was already in my backing before I even knew it. At that point I knew I was on for a fight that would last for about six minutes, if not more. I was playing the fish really carefully because I was using 5X fluorocarbon tipped material. As soon as I saw the fish I knew it was going to be my biggest trout since I started trout fishing 9 years ago. As soon as it got in my net, it was a massive sigh of relief, but I realized that my net was not big enough, half of the fish’s tail was still hanging out of my net. I took the fish out, took a picture and released it again to allow it to make someone else as happy as it had made me.


Over the next few days the fishing was great. I hooked a Rainbow Cock Fish weighing in at around the 2,1kg mark. In the following four days I managed to hook 16 healthy, strong trout. It was a good few days’ fishing.


Flies


There were two flies I used on this trip that worked very well for me: size 10 Black Woolly Bugger, with blue tinsel, size 14 Davies beaded blood Worm, and a size 16 DDD.


The Woolly bugger must be fished with a long leader and a slow retrieve, waiting for the fly to sink a bit.

The Davies beaded blood Worm must be fished statically, with another fly that’s on top of the water. (i.e. top dropper fly being the DDD and using your Davies beaded blood Worm as the point dropper fly)

The DDD is fished statically, with a floating line and with a slow figure of eight retrieve.



Accommodation

The chalets are situated on the high ground overlooking the dams and offer visitors amazing views of the surrounding area. The Arum, Rhebuck, Oudekraal and Panorama stone chalets each offer 3bedroom, open plan kitchen, bathroom, deck and braai facility. The chalets are serviced and fully equipped but are self catering. They are ideal for anyone, even for the first timers.
There was even space for me to tie my flies for the next days fishing. I Will Recommend this Treeferns Trout Lodge to anyone who wants to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life and want to enjoy the beautiful surroundings and the good Fly Fishing.
Writer: Oszie Johnson