When disaster strikes...what do you do?

[Gerrit Viljoen]

So last week I opened my summer season on the Vaal and everything was just going great.Tubing about in small little channels scouting the area for new fishable waters,catching the odd fish and at the same time knowing that I was alone and to be honest the silence and terrain was quite intimidating.

Anyway moving on to the not so good stuff.

Whom of you fellas actually make a point of connecting your fly box to a string for just in case it drops in the water and you can't get to it quick enough?I must admit I've only started doing it after spending some time with GGY in April.

I had a cable tie around a little gap in my fly box,a d-ring around the cable tie connected to my vest via a piece of string.There were times when I forgot to close my zip on one of the pockets and the box actually fell out once or twice.This happens when you wade chest deep water.

So when I went back upstream,pushing the tube whilst wading and going quite slow I stumbled into a deep hole of water,legs disappearing and what not,jumped on the tube and tried kicking upstream to shallower water.

Got that out of the way and found myself next to some rocks were I had a quick fag and a naartjie drink (Game)

I looked down to my left pocket for some or other reason and found my nymph box wasn't there anymore.I had a broken d-ring and some string hanging about.

Yes my complete nymph box was gone.I didn't notice or click at any stage.It must have happend when I jumped on the tube when I lost my footing in that deep hole.

So in closing I lost my complete nymph box just as the season kicked off.So much for the early bird hey?

Anyway the question was what do I do now?Quick answer you gather some hooks,buy the odd out of stock size,sort some beads and other materials and you start tying cause it ain't gonna get done by itself.

Luckily I've learnt some party tricks along the way to make things easier and most importantly faster when tying many flies in short periods of time.

I started Friday afternoon and finished by Sunday afternoon.123 flies to get me going again.

Kyk nou is ek gatvol vir caddis.....

Some snaps

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[Herman Jooste]

Ek ken daai pyn.

Happened to me around 2 years ago. One thing it did do was to initiate a tying burst, not 123 flies in 3 days though.
It would take me a month of Sundays to tie that many flies.

It actually makes me wonder how much kit has the Vaal claimed as " revenge". Maybe I should start a new thread just to find out

[GGY]

Nice one Gerrit.

I like the look of that box - I see you have simplified/standardised your patterns - possibly losing the box was a good thing???

[Herman Jooste]

Nice one Gerrit.

I like the look of that box - I see you have simplified/standardised your patterns - possibly losing the box was a good thing???

And you put the flies in the right way round now,

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Howsit Gary you well? Plain Jane I tell you,works for me!!

[Gerrit Viljoen]

" revenge"

Ja I'm gonna lodge a claim somewhere.

[GGY]

Howsit Gary you well? Plain Jane I tell you,works for me!!

Me - I am fine.
Looking forward to fishing NEXT weekend (18/19 Sept) - wanna do a trip?
(I need to tie some flies myself...)

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Some useless information.

The total amount of leadwire wraps on the Caddis were 2032 wraps in total.This is no thumb suck I count each one to the bone or is that shank?

[FlyFanatic]

EISH EINA!!!!

[GGY]

Some useless information.

The total amount of leadwire wraps on Caddis were 2032 wraps in total.This is no thumb suck I count each one to the bone or is that shank?

Hooks are C49's?