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 plent...

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...

Spent the weekend fishing the UHTFC Xplorer festival this weekend and what a top event it was. I ended up with 16 Trout in total and two very nice bass as well. Fished some stunning water even through some tough conditions thrown at us by the gods on the Saturday after noon.

I really didn't bother taking many images of the fish I caught, well it wasn't that kind of event to be honest, but this is just one of four decent cock fi...

I thought it best to give a shout out to someone that not only deserves it for the work he is involved with within the Thendela community but also the tireless work he does for Thendela fly fishing in particular. I've known Richard Khumalo since moving back here to SA in 2012 where we hooked up working for a fly fishing company up in the Midlands. We hit it off straight away and I can honestly say that Rich has become a t...

More free swag from this years FFFT Expo. I've used more dubbings since moving back to SA than any other time in my fly fishing career purely because the type of fly fishing I'm doing these days warrants me using more of the stuff. Yes I blend my own dubbings at home but that was more through sheer necessity because I couldn't find the rights colour blends I needed over here. Now it looks like all my problems have been solved....

Whatever I tie, I fish with. Some flies do better than others while some get relegated to the strip n clean pile for the hooks to be used again. Last winter I tied up a couple of these, what I now call the "Trout Bagger" on the off chance that it might bag me a couple of fish and to my utter joy It was quite the fish catcher for me on still waters up in the Midlands.

It wasn't until this summer when I fished them extensive...

This post probably wont interest many of the Saffas that stop by this site purely because most of you know the river and area too well, but I wanted to showcase another of our more famous rivers "The Bushmans River" here in Southern Africa for all you international brotha's 'n Sista's. I have Jan Korrubel to thank for one of the most memorable days of fishing I'd had in years up until that point and also for these images....So...

Other than Clouser type patterns where dumbbell eyes can be stuck on to them to accentuate the head region as well as give necessary weight to the front of the fly, I’ve never been a keep fan of them on my flies, especially shrimp patterns and I far prefer to use bead chain instead. They’re slightly lighter to cast, and they allow the fly to drop a little slower and keep the fly from digging into the sand a lot less than dumbb...

Here’s a natural fur material that has a marabou like action but with more bulk and durability that I wish South Africa fly retailers would consider stocking, Finn Raccoon zonker strips from Eumer. It has so many fly application possibilities for both fresh and saltwater conditions.  Super soft fluffy under fur averaging between 25 mm to 75 mm in length is perfect for fly bodies, wings & tails or just dubbing material that is...

Opened up my parcel of shrimp tails from Flymen fishing co the other day and was pleasantly surprised to find they’d slipped in a sample pack of their new Faux Bucktail which I’ve seen being showcased on FB and through their newsletter. It’s nigh impossible these days to find quality decent length bucktail especially here in SA,  Primo tails out in the States probably supply the best over the net but it’s so pricey to ship ove...

Here’s a top tip for extending your tying area when working with Bass hooks. Take a paper clip and cut a 10 mm section off. Tie on directly behind the hook eye so it over laps by about 5mm. You can use a couple of coats of head cement but I use UV resin just to hold it in place tightly. Now you have a full 10mm instead of 5mm to tie you materials onto, and the gap is still wide enough to allow for decent hook ups.

Reading "The Mission" issue 2 was like biting into a perfectly prepared rare Kudu fillet off the Braai (Barbeque for all you International readers) To say I’ve been hanging to get my grubby little mits on the latest installment ever since I picked up Issue 1…..is an understatement!! An elation very much a kin to the feeling I get when a fish grabs my fly.

Again I’ll repeat what I’ve already said before…….I’m proud to say, someo...

I’m not sure whether any of you out there have ever give this much thought, but here’s an observation I (The frugal fly tier that I am) made some years back while living in Scandinavia regarding tag end wastage. As fly tiers were all guilty of it, but when starting to dress a fly, how many of you leave a tag end of anywhere between 25mm – 35mm in length flapping around only for it to be snipped off and discarded?

How many of yo...

Fly tying materials are rather pricey over here these days and one needs to dig deep into the black holes we call our pockets, especially if you’re looking for something specific. With just over 7000 supposedly registered fly fisherman in the whole of South Africa it’s understandable that fly fishing material suppliers are reluctant to import loads of unwanted materials into the country especially with the high cost of import...

Was contacted a couple of weeks ago by a Dutch chap who's over here on business at the mo. He'd managed to tracked me down after seeing a couple of my Dorado (Mahi mahi/Dolphin fish) flies on Pintrest that I'd tied up a couple of years ago, and asked if I could tie up one of each and get them framed for him to place in his fly fishing themed bar.

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