Its been a while granted, but with moving back up to the midlands, my trip to the Bokong and all the extra fishing I've been doing of late I've had very little to write about in recent months. Anyway I'm back in the fold now and to start the new year off I thought I'd give away a box of dries to some lucky sole. As with every fishing trip I've done, I always over compensate and tie too many flies and although I did catch plenty of Yellows and Trout while on the Bokong with a multitude of different Dries, I just have too many sitting around picking up dust  so to put yourself in with a chance to win some free swag all one needs to do is take your time and count how many items can be found on the Jayvice wooden stand. 

The Box is brand new and consists of 72 dry flies. Ballbyter ants, Foam ants, numerous types of foam Beetles, Daddy long legs and wolf spiders, Hoppers, Goddard Caddis. Spun deerhair black crickets, Dyrets, Elk hair caddis, Flying ants, Hog hoppers....well the lis...

I’ve been playing round with a number of Hopper patterns over the last couple of months for my upcoming trip to The Bokong river in Lesotho. One of these patterns I’ve come up with I call “The DHD (Deerhair Dubbing) Mini Para Hopper”. I recently took them to the Mooi river in the Kamberg and the Brown Trout loved them so am rather confident the Yellows on the Bokong will think likewise. It looks a complicated fly to construct but it’s rather easy to be honest. I tie these either on a size #8 and size #10 Mustad caddis hook but one could use any brands caddis hook of their choice.

Step 1

Place hook in vise at an offset angle and take either an orange or red thread and build a small hotspot a quarter the way down the bend of the hook. I used Fluoro orange for this tutorial. Then coat with head cement.

The main ingredient for this fly is Deerhair dubbing. This will give the fly the float-ability it needs. If you’re unable to get any then use a tan dry fly dubbing and mix it in with small cut...

Unless you have a boat or a kayak to fish from, your options for Fly fishing in Durban harbour are extremely limited. The rising crime rate around the whole area has put paid to everywhere that that was once accessible by car years ago, and have all but been closed to the general public. This leaves a small area around the Bat centre, the concrete groin area from the back of the N.S.R.I along the back end of the Yacht club and the Northern sandbank flats that stretch to just past the “Wilsons Warf” waterfront area. 

Coupled with that, one must contend with not only seasonal changes (Water temperature fluctuations ) but also monthly tidal cycles as well, so accessibility to this sand bank becomes limited to the two weeks around spring lows, and if all bodes well for you and you can get time off around this period or it falls over a weekend, you also need the weather to be favourable, and if that wasn’t enough to think about, we all know that most fish go off the feed during the low tide...

I’ve tied a number of different variations of what I call the Black Cracker shrimp/Mud prawn over the last week or so and have eventually ended up with this version courteous of some well-directed help from Leroy Botha. Out of the two different types found along our shore line I’d go with the Black Cracker every time if I was bait fishing as the Grunter love this critter over the lighter version. Anyway I made an SBS for this pattern which am sure many of you can play around with and improve on.

Step 1: Take a #4 or # 6 Mustad streamer hook and make a slight bend from just in front of the hook point. Place in vice and add two small strips of 1,5mm lead wire to just behind the hook eye.

Step 2: Take a small sprig of 10 to 15 deerhair tips and tie on top of the hook shank near the hook bend.

Step 3: Cut two small strips of 2.5 mm brown foam 10 mm x 3 mm and a piece similar to the shape I’ve cut here for the carapace.

Step 4: Take the two strips of foam and place one on either side of the hoo...

I don’t take part in any FB fly fishing Forums except for the SA Fly fishing and SA Fly tying Groups for a number of reasons but mainly because I genuinely don’t have a lot of constructive stuff to contribute having not lived over here long enough. I often have a hot head and generally say what I’m thinking which often offends people and gets me into hot water within these community groups “for this exact reason!!”I was shown am image the other day that had been posted on a SA FB group, of a well sized Brown Trout that had been caught on the Mooi River by MJP just below Riverside lodge. His script wrote “This took twenty careful and heart stopping minutes to deal with on a 2wt”

Now don’t get me wrong but why write “careful” in the script then place this fish on the grass. Sure I can understand it must have been a wonderful fight on such light tackle, but the Mooi river isn’t some “Put n take”  fucking stocked dam up on the Vaal where you’re obviously used to dragging your...