Fly Fishing South Africa

I grew up in Dullstroom South Africa and I started fly fishing at around 9 years old.

We moved to Pretoria and most of the fly fishing stopped for a long time.

Yesterday the opportunity yesterday to visit old family friends. The farmer allowed me to fish his dam again. 1st time in 13 years.

Very very few people are allowed to fish here so I was really privilege to cast a fly here once again.

My biggest trout I caught here as a boy on fly was 2,25kg...

The dam is situated at 6800ft.









I loaded the float tube and targeted deep water most of the day as the water is warm this time of year and I had to drive back to Pretoria in the evening so could not stay for the late afternoon early evening session.

The dam was stocked a couple of months ago with about 50kg of 500g trout and earlier in the year with 1 - 2.5kg trout.

The big trout in this dam is wild as wild can get and they fight very hard.

Unfortunately the wind blew the whole day that made things a bit interesting but I had a lot of fun going back to my roots...















I caught 8 x 500 gr trout and had a lot of fun...

Looks like a great time. Fly fishing is a lot of fun. Our area is in the middle of winter. Just spent 3 days out ice fishing. The wind was terrible and made it a bit more difficult. I landed 37 trout in the 3 days from 13 inches to 20 inches. Had a good time. I landed 4 different species of trout [cutthroat, rainbow, lake trout, splake]. The ice was 10 to 16 inches depending on the lake. Our temps were 30 to 40 F so not extremely cold, but the wind was 10 to 30 MPH. Literally watched one fellow that couldn't stand up and had to crawl to get back to bank. The ice was so slick and the wind so strong it was the best he could do. interesting trip.

Looks like a great time Gerhard, all of our water here is a little stiff at this time. I will never travel to Africa again without a fly rod. You never know when you might encounter some great fishing and I am amazed at the quality and diversity of the fishing in South Africa. Your pictures sure make me wish I was fishing with you, it would certainly beat the two feet of snow in my driveway. Thanks for posting.

Thanks Gerhard. Never thought too much at incorporating some fishing while in Africa, but should time and location allow next time, I will surely try some tiger fishing.

gillettehunter for the cold weather.

I hosted a South African friend on a pronghorn hunt many years ago, and we stopped for a day of fishing on the drive from Tucson to Wyoming at Lee's Ferry, a trophy trout fishery below Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. I was surprised to see my friend was a skillful flycaster and he told me about a river in the Drackensbergs where he often fished for trout. It required a long hike into a deep canyon to reach, he said. I had seen signs advertising trout fishing in local ponds while driving near Tzaneen but it was the first I'd heard of a river with trout in South Africa. Does anyone know about it?

Bill Quimby

Kwazulu Natal and the Western Cape province of South Africa offer awesome small stream fly fishing for trout.

Then we have an tremendous amount of still waters where at places double figure kg's trout are landed....

As trout is a cold water fish they only flourish in our country over 4500 ft above sea level.

Like I said this particular spot is situated at 6800ft above sea level. Its now mid summer and the water is quite warm. So its early morning and late afternoon early evening fishing for the most times. I only had one day available to fish this place.

It was a 3 hour drive to get there at 06:00 and another 3 hour drive back home...

On this occasion I had to fish deep and slow with a sinking line.

If all goes well I will be joining a Fly Fishing club here in KZN and should be able to spend more time hunting trout....

I love fly fishing
Specially for different kinds of trout and char.
My personal best trout is a 6.5 kilo Rainbow trout that I caught with a class 3 rod
My friend caught a 23 kilo Salmon on a 2 hand fly rod a few years ago. That was a monster

Would be great fun to be able to fly fish in SA one day