Bird of prey and Laverpa

[emjaysmit]

Hi there guys....ok, so Sunday we hitiing these two dams. Got space and booked the spots. We will leave Nelspruit very early so that we can be at the dam at around 5am. Laverpa will only open later but Jonathan has been kind enough to have us on the water at Bird of Prey at the crack of dawn.

Apparently the dam has been excavated a little....made it a bit bigger and a bit deeper. As this will be our first port of call I would have liked to know from you guys if you have got any pointers for me on the following :

Leader/tippet length...(Jono rates 8lbs as water is slightly off color)
Fly selection (do I maybe start off with a dry and then go deeper or vice versa)
Fly size and color
Fast or slow retrieve (Jono did advise me that super slow is key)

Then it's maybe some breaky time and then off to Laverpa....again same as the questions above...what would be the rccomendations. He says the early morning bite is tops as the water temp is running roughly 18-19 degress. Weather this side has been super unstable. 4 in 1 seasons this past week with quite a bit of rainfall. Temps are said to be lowish, overcast and some slight rain...temp will be roughly between 18-24 degrees and folows in this trend....cold tomorrow and gradually starts warming up a little by about 2 degrees every day.

Please excuse me guys as I tend to think like a bass fisherman....cold weather aint a problem but a gradual increase in temperature is always a good indicator. Normally I would go for a dark or black color and if it were bass they would be closer to the surface as well as feeding more actively...especially due do it being cloudy in nature and all the rain provides adequate insects sprouting up and hatching....more oxygenated water...new feeding oppertunities with newly flooded vegetation. Will trout have this same tendancy? I am sure that those bright, slick, windless, sunny days will push them deeper to cooler water and less sun penetrating on them.

Looking forward to this session...might even got a pb smashing possibility. Till I go visit my dad in the uk and I can join him targeting those 16lb+ trout...these fish will just have to work...his pb's sofar are 18lb7oz brown and 19lb3oz rainbow, they like fishing for these monsters in little 3 and 4wt setups...soooooooo jealous.....

[allsorts]

Hi Emjay - you've asked a lot of questions and a comprehensive reply would take ages - many books have been written on stillwater trouting and if you are going to do it regularly I suggest you get Dean Riphagen's book which will give you an excellent grounding in the basics. The key thing to remember is that trout are not bass! Rainbows are pelagic (I assume you aren't fishing for browns), they cruise rather than relate to specific structure, they don't like warm water and need lots of oxygen. At this time of year water dams can be too warm with low oxygen so apart from an early morning foray into the shallows to feed they will likely be deep and trying to avoid burning oxygen by running around too much - feeding being secondary to comfort. Just like you or I when we are stuck in a hot building.

[Korrie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hiKvlFyv0I

Probably the best 12 minutes you will spend, learning about stillwaters

[emjaysmit]

Thanks for the insight guys...was just hoping someone was firmilliar with the dams and might be able to have shared success stories on what worked and when it is likely to work. There are big browns and rainbows in both dams and I dont mind catching either.

Will definately check out the you tube clip to....I have already downloaded about 200 gigs worth of youtube stuff so I have been studying quite a bit. That was exactly my argument regarding the warm water. Warmer water has lower oxygenated content and thus I suspected they would be sitting deeper. I just thought they would maybe follow the food source early in the morning as conditions are more favorable and allow them that brief period to feed shallower...damn I am loving this challenge more and more every single day....

[yella]

Ok this is boring advice but if you want to catch them easy just take an olive woolly bugger, fished steady and close to the bottom. Caught loads of fish at Laverpa like that in a very short space of time in atrocious conditions. If the water is really dirty go to a black woolly bugger. To get the fly down you will need a very long leader if you are fishing floating line.

There are loads of other more fun ways - but this is the sledgehammer approach.

And what also works well is a small unweighted black nymph rigged 30cms behind the woolly bugger.

[emjaysmit]

Thanks alot fo the confidence booster as most trout in our area seem stupidly vulnerable to olive and black wooly buggers...gave me a bit of extra confidence