"Not everything humankind does...

is motivated either by the spirit of competition or the will to win." One of my hobbies/passions is Fly Fishing and the above quote comes from the author of the Last Cast column in one of my favourite magazines, The Complete Fly Fisherman. The quote rings too true in my case as, not being the most experienced fly fisherman, I more than often like to get out and just survey my surroundings and the people enjoying the sunshine with me. More often than not, my version of fly casting involves beating the water to a froth, scaring more than just the fish away. But Sunday was different. Steph wanted to do a bit of studying, so I decided to get out of the house, lest I get implanted onto the couch watching the Formula 1 Grand Prix (the replay of which I ended up watching late night and getting to bed around 1am anyway). And what better way to get out of the house, without involving the lawnmower, than to go fly fishing? Over the last few years, I'd noticed a trout farm called Footloose, not too far from home yet closer than Dullstroom, the mecca of South African fly fishers, and decided to pay them a visit. There were a few cars in the car park (where they were supposed to be) and I could see a few dams through the fence. The only thing that put me off at first were the shouts and noises of children...this is supposed to be a quiet, reflective sport. "What the hell," I thought, "I'm here. Let's go and have a look." I paid my thirty Rand entrance fee, had a chat with the Indian manager at the desk (what's come out today, which dams are trout waters or not, and some general chit chat) and walked through the main gate. "Fuck me," I thought. "I've walked into a fucking children's birthday party." There were about forty or so kids running around, some fishing with floats and a pasty bait, some just running about. Instinct, and a quick survey of the five dams in front of me running parallel to the entrance, told me to head for the far righthand dam where there was no-one in the immediate vicinity. A nice quiet place to start from, to get used to the rod, the weight of the line and fly, have a few practice casts, see what happens, sit down and let the frothy water calm down again. I worked the dam for about and hour or so, remembering the text message I'd received from Steph on my way out, to "have fun and bring some nice fish for dinner" (was that a threat of "bring home some trout or don't bother coming home at all", or what??). I tried everything in my bag, floating and sinking lines, dry and wet flies of all shape, size and colour, even a different weight rod. Nothing. Damn, I was going to have to move to another dam, up to where the screaming banshees were running around also beating the water to froth. Ah, well... I decided to move to the topmost dam of the five, which gave me the perfect spot to survey the rest of the farm, as it is situated at the top of a hill. I sat down for a few minutes, had a drink of water and rested my already aching casting arm. Again, for about another hour, I used everything in my fly-casting quiver, again with the same results. I sat down again, had another drink of water and a chat with another fly fisherman who had had the same results as I had. He described the tactics he had used, and I told him mine, and we wished each other good luck. After a good rest, I remembered a piece of wisdom scribed on the back of a packet in which I had bought some new flies. In short, it said that if the water was murky to try the brightest fly in your box. I opened my black box of flies, had a quick survey and picked out what turned out to be the smallest fly in my limited collection. It is a green nymph fly, consisting of nothing more than a gold bead, some brown fluff and bright green wire tied to a number 10 hook. As you can see by the photo, it is just over 10mm long and, in all honesty, I didn't have much confidence in it. Being a wet fly, I changed back to the sinking line, shortened my leader to about 2.5m and sent the nymph swishing through the air. After a few casts, I thought some more about what I was doing and figured that, with the nymph being as small as it was, I had to slow down my retrieve and let the fly bounce along the bottom of the dam. Fuck me if that wasn't the right thing to do! Within ten casts, I landed four fish of which three were trout and one was a smallmouth carp (when I hooked this fish I thought I'd got into a monster trout, it took off like a rocket). I also lost another trout which I estimated to be around the 1kg mark, a real beauty. By this time, darkness was approaching and the fish had gone off the bite, so I decided to return home, extolling my increasing experience in this wonderful pastime, of which my father is still one of the masters. Needless to say, I had to phone my folks and let them know how I'd fared, and just to hear the slight jealousy in my father's voice. We ate two of the three trout last night, and they were delicious. Getting back to the quote at the start of this blog, "not everything humankind does is motivated either by the spirit of competition or the will to win"...but triumph does generate a different kind of enjoyment and everyone enjoys winning now and then.