The fly that so far has caught me the most SM Yellows is:

[pieterkriel]

maybe the best question to ask here would be:

If yellows are doff, not so bright or such, why then would a certain angler go out and catch 2 fish on a day and another 40 fish same day same water? Would fly selection not then play a role along with the correct methods?

I can see where Andre is coming from, if I take a complete newby and then give him a fly I know to work well, and show him exactly where to fish and how to fish I am pretty sure he'll catch a yellow, but that same newby as he progresses in technique with the same fly will slowly start to catch more fish, should he now start varying his fly he will then start catching even more fish.

Same applies in my mind to all fish, a good fly and correct technique will produce a few fish, a better fly may up the chances and combined with better technique even more.

For a fish, any species to actually fall for our tricks shows that we are not dealing with extremely intellegent beings.

[Scythe]

blah blah ... jeez you guys have taken me out of context ... blah blah

Now now Auntie Andre, you know I harbour you no ill intent so no need to get the nickers in a knot.

All I am saying is that you're generalising too much. If there WERE troot streams in ZA that held similarly large numbers of fish as the Vaal does and had the same poor clarity conditions then there is no doubt that you would be klapping similar amounts of Troot in runs after having waded through them etc etc etc

Why else do guys like Klima and his brethren moer the trout in large numbers on the waters there in the way we moer Yellows on the Vaal here ?

By your own admission, if you take a Sterkfontein SmallMouth and compare it with a stream Troot in gin clear water, you get very similar behaviour in terms of skittishness. (if there is such a word)

I have said it before, the Vaal really does make it way too easy. All the factors, poor viz, turbulent (noisy) water hiding our footsteps and a veritable shitload of fish, contribute to making YellowFish an easy target for even a novice fisherman that has the basics down and by that standard you are justified in your opinion.

However, that doesn't mean that they're easier to catch per sê than say Troot or any other species, as you simply can't compare the Vaal to a Troot stream.

A point which can clearly be illustrated by the fact that so many 'novice' flyfishermen go out in summer and blank

[dlampert]

Who would have thought that a simple poll to work out where I should be spending my flytying time before my Orange river trip, would result in the handbags and curlers flying

[Michael]

In my experience, an angler who has mastered the Vaal somewhat and managed to catch a fair number of smallmouth yellows...and also maybe managed to fool some largescale/smallscale yellows...and then goes to a trout stream like the Smalblaar...anihilates the trout. Why? I believe it's more of an art to catch smallmouth/largescale yellows in rivers than trout in rivers.
You may catch 40 smallmouth yellows on a good day in season on the Vaal...and then you may catch 100 trout in season in a good river like the Smalblaar, Elandspad, or Spekboom.

And yellows school around...whereas trout have lies and are loners.

In season, you can take a novice angler to a river like the Smalblaar...and if he can get a half-decent cast and half-decent drift...he will catch quite a few trout....WITHOUT knowing where the better lies are. Just walking along and casting to likely spots.

In my opinion...a "yellowfish" river master, is a far better angler than a "trout" river master. You have to be far more imatative in your flies to be consistently successful.
By that I mean...many guys go to the Vaal and hit 30 fish. Then a week later they go back and get 5. They say the fishing was tough...it actually wasn't...they just went back, to the same spots, used the same flies and the same tecniques. It doesn't work like that...you have to read the conditions, the water, etc etc etc etc.

[pieterkriel]

Why else do guys like Klima and his brethren moer the trout in large numbers on the waters there in the way we moer Yellows on the Vaal here ?

Scythe, maybe you must visit Klima's haunts, you my reconsider your opinion a bit. The rivers they fish are definitely also not in the least, except maybe for size, to be compared to the Vaal, these rivers runs extremely clear, visibility something you can't comprehend if you have not seen it. In those rivers fish sees you long before you see them, not so easy to get them troot out there as you may think, Greylings may be another story, they tend to school and spook much less. In these rivers the trout sits in their lies and if your approach is not right you'll never see one trout for the duration of your fishing trip, but for maybe a lucky drift.

[pieterkriel]

In my opinion...a "yellowfish" river master, is a far better angler than a "trout" river master. You have to be far more imatative in your flies to be consistently successful.

Michael, luckely you said in your opinion - but not so in mine. You can't compare the skill it takes to catch 30 yellows to the skill it takes to catch 30 trout in a small clear running stream, now suddenly accurate and correct casting becomes a issue, and the trout see you comming a long way of. If you are lucky the trout may be happy to take a dry that is not drag free (however more often not) and nymphs under the water, again maybe you might get a trout to take the odd unnaturally swimming nymphs (however more often not)

It might be better to admit that catching yellows and catching trout should not be compared with such generalization.

Ever stalked a smallscale or largescale yellow in a gin clear stream?

[Andre]

Looks like I have started a real pi$$ing contest here. Anyway, Daryll's thread was about the fly that has caught the most Small mouth, and maybe I incorrectly interpreted it to apply to the Vaal and Orange rivers which are seldom , if ever ,gin clear, and not the Sterkfontein dam or the other rivers up north where the small scale and large scale are prevelant, and certainly not the Olifants for Clannies yellows. It is fine to digress, and throw in a few iff's and but's to sludge my theory. I am okay with this and am enjoying the debate. Had the thread read as follows :-
"The combination of water condition, tackle and leader setup, technique used, and selected fly, that has caught me the most Smallmouth in the Vaal and Orange", we may have been able to avoid all the non specifics. The trout yellowfish comparisons are interesting, but in my experience, the similarities in techniques applied and tackle setup are few,particularly when using the Smalblaar as a comparison.

[Andre]

In season, you can take a novice angler to a river like the Smalblaar...and if he can get a half-decent cast and half-decent drift...he will catch quite a few trout....WITHOUT knowing where the better lies are. Just walking along and casting to likely spots.

In my opinion...a "yellowfish" river master, is a far better angler than a "trout" river master. You have to be far more imatative in your flies to be consistently successful


Brave words Michael. I know of many guys that will dissagree, myself being one of them

[dizzy]

I disagree with that statement too, not because I think that either of them
are better than the other, but because the situation is very different, hence
different techniques etc. need be applied.
Fact is, they are different fish, different habits, different habitats, these all
contribute to totally different approaches.

I have a question though: Many of you have voted for a fly with a "Hot Spot" in as your most successful fly for Yellows,
and an egg fly is deadly at most times for trout.
Is it possible that the "Hot Spot" has the same "effect" as the egg fly?

[Andre]

I disagree with that statement too, not because I think that either of them
are better than the other, but because the situation is very different, hence
different techniques etc. need be applied.
Fact is, they are different fish, different habits, different habitats, these all
contribute to totally different approaches.

I have a question though: Many of you have voted for a fly with a "Hot Spot" in as your most successful fly for Yellows,
and an egg fly is deadly at most times for trout.
Is it possible that the "Hot Spot" has the same "effect" as the egg fly?

The trout eggfly, is generally orange to immitate a trout egg, whereas a hotspot fly for yellows, is generally a nymph tied with an orange bead or section of orange , red etc. dubbing, so it is unlikely that the intention is to immitate a yellowfish egg, furthermore, yellowfish eggs are not orange I am led to understand( not 100% sure of this)
Perhaps they just see it better, or it is an aggression thing. At certain times of the year, hotspots, like egg flies for trout, don'treally give much advantage over other flies, so it may just be that voracious feeding syndrome at a certain time of the Yellowfish's season.
Perhaps the orange in the