hi all,
i was fortunate enough to spend the weekend at a friends house on i guess the upper middle portion of the willem nels river above robertson,
below the main water supply dam.
i was private property and obviously pristine.
there was talk of fish in the river by the labourers which was obviously received with interest by myself and and friend so we went off to find anywhere that may hold a fish.
My mate promptly hooked and landed a small mouth second cast with a worm set up of around 10 inches, until the obviously unmolested fish in the pool were spooked.
I set off downstream to find another pool were the kids and wife wouldn't be scaring the living daylights out of the fish with their swimming activities.
This was an exceptionally clear stream that was mostly only possible to scout by walking/hopping down the acual river bed and sides but i managed to scare and locate a few fish away from the family activity.
Having only a 6 wt with me i was literally unable to get a cast off with the bush around and had to resort to drifting a large bass bug down the current and into the pool, where when it reached a certain point it was pounced on by a small but vigorous bass i guess.
I managed to get 4 takes without landing any fish, which was disappointing but i was thrilled anyway as it was my first bash at fly fishing apart from at Zandvlei.
I am already itching to go back, and explore some more as there really is no one else around.
Had this river ever been stocked it would easily hold trout , and i was wondering if anyone on this forum has ever fished this river or the substantial dam that it has and can give me some reliable information about the possibilities of the fish in it?
Many thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to enlighten me.