Vaal River Update

[troutmaster]

Fished just before Parys and thought I'd beat the flows.Did a 5 hour stint and got nothing. Viz is gone,water high and very cold.Tough tough,not for the faint hearted.

I was hoping for at least 2 more months of great viz

I guess it is to be expected given that the fields are dry, most have already burnt and with so much rain over the catchment area all of that ends up in the Vaal.

BUT, this will not deter me from my plans for the week - I will be out there and giving it 110%

Thanx for the report back G, now go cuddle your kitten...

[OllieOwen]

Fished just before Parys and thought I'd beat the flows.Did a 5 hour stint and got nothing. Viz is gone,water high and very cold.Tough tough,not for the faint hearted.

Ja eish it wasn't very pleasant being on the water this w-end, I got on the water at 1pm Sat just after it stopped pissing!! was a THICK hatch of BWO's thousands of duns sitting on the water, search for hour and a half and did not spot a SINGLE rise, went for late lunch at 14:30, back on water at 16:00 , there were still thousands of duns on water, none airborne, not a single one, think their wings didn't want to dry in the freezing air. Then eventually I came across a few fish rising to the duns, and from about 17:00 -sunset they were rising readily to the may's but I could only manage 2. Sunday was even colder and wind came up so I was on the water from 8-9:45 then decided to call it a day. The viz seemed a bit worse than the previous day but I didn't notice a significant increase in flows?

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Hi Ollie,

Interesting about the mays,I saw nothing yesterday apart from the millions of tiny adult midges floating about from 11h00 onwards.Not a single rise to them,zero!!

I was chucking various buggers,nymps,mostly 3 at a time from combo's of light vs dark, natural vs attractor,small vs large,weighted vs unweighted and finished off by swinging soft hackles ~ no fish!

With all the hyacinth coming down I would've crapped off fishing 6x anyway trying to land a smallie had there been a rise.

[chris williams]

Well at lease you gave it a go Gerrit, unlike me - a pathetic old coward too fond of his creature comforts!

There do seem to be several species of small midge size 2 hatching earlier in the day at present in Gauteng. Neither the trout or yellows really seem to go for the duns, but wait for the spent spinners to fall on the water at sunset and bingo!, potential carnage for about half an hour or so with the fish rises at their peak! I've been catching trout the past few weeks fishing at this time. I've given up on size 20 or smaller cream midge spent spinner imitations as mainly I can't see them in the water at this time of day and I have found casting a size 18 PTN directly ahead of the last rise often provokes an immediate take, even though it's a nymph not a spent spinner - there are always nymphs in the water sub-surface anyway which the fish are also still eating along with the spent spinners. The fish tend to 'gulp' at the spent spinners as they proceed in a straight line mopping up the masses.

[OllieOwen]

Hi Ollie,

Interesting about the mays,I saw nothing yesterday apart from the millions of tiny adult midges floating about from 11h00 onwards.Not a single rise to them,zero!!

I was chucking various buggers,nymps,mostly 3 at a time from combo's of light vs dark, natural vs attractor,small vs large,weighted vs unweighted and finished off by swinging soft hackles ~ no fish!

With all the hyacinth coming down I would've crapped off fishing 6x anyway trying to land a smallie had there been a rise.

Well Saturday there was also millions of tiny midges, also no rises to them, but for the 1:45 mins that I was on the water yesterday there wasn't a may in sight and only a couple of midges that I could see. I didn't even give nymphs a go on Saturday, chucked a few zonkers in the hope of getting my first targeted largie, but mostly just drifted around with my tube looking for visible fish and rises with my dry fly rod ready, reason I could only get 2 on Saturday (mostly inexperience ) but usually when I've seen yellows rise to may's the stay in that spot for at least while or move slowly giving one a bit of a gap
to have a shot at them, this time around I couldn't find one fish just staying stationery or rising in the same spot more than once, they would rise once and disappear , maybe I was in too much of a hurry trying to get to them and scared them off , don't know? the 2 that I got rose about 15 feet from me and the fly landed basically into their open mouths

[Herman Jooste]

Fished with Rory yesterday. Water temp. was 13 deg ( measured ), flows not too bad but visibility attrocious ( 20 - 25cm ).
The rock snot has started with some loooong streamers hanging of the rocks.
Rory managed 2 muddies and 3 sm ( 2 of which I guestiimated aroubd the 2kg mark. ) I got 1 sm.
Sporadic surface activity throughout the morning. We did not stay for the afterrnoon session.
Flys that worked were Mayfly nymphs ( darker colours. )

[OllieOwen]

Fished Saturday, smallies really liked the last weeks warmer conditions, got 6 1,5-2,6kg but had to leave at 3:30 when another good BWO hatch was starting and they sm's rising all over the place so could have gotten a lot more! . Got all on dry dropper.

[chris williams]

At this time of year if family/tie schedule permits, it's often worthwhile turning up for the hatch about 3.30 to 4 pm then for the spent spinners bang on dusk/sunset - the latter has been spectacular here in Gauties in the past few weeks as I mentioned elsewhere.

[troutmaster]

At the moment I am not going out for SM [don't get me wrong, the rod is in the boat - still in the tube, just in case] BUT what I have seen the last month is that VERY EARLY morning there is amazing surface activity and fish feeding lazily off the top...

Might be worth a try 05:00 - 08:00

BUT then again, there is LM and more than enough SM during summer after the 1st rains...

[chris williams]

Yeh, the fish are also often mopping up the soup of the previous nights spent spinners very early, before the new lot of morning flies start hatching