Fly fishing is not for ants

Over my December holidays, I spent two weeks with ‘The Hot Fisherman’ in the Eastern Cape. On one particularly sizzling day, we decided to trek to Stutterheim to do a little fly-fishing. I thought our little fishing trip would be quite romantic. Hells bells, could I have been more wrong?


I caught everything – dead trees in the dam, reeds, the branches of trees behind me and I even managed to hook myself (twice). After just about every cast, I found myself trudging up the hill to locate my fly (prickly little suckers those flies are) which had lodged itself in some immovable object. The funny thing, is that I could cope with the leeches burrowing little holes into my feet and ankles (unfortunately they weren’t big enough to justify quitting for fear of blood loss) and I could cope with the Horse Fly’s making mince meat of my calves with their little serrated mandibles, but what I couldn’t handle, was the fact that I was undeniably a terrible fly-fisher woman. To make matters worse, ‘The Hot Fisherman’ has been doing this since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. There I was, stuck on the side of a leech infested dam, bleeding and feeling about as useless as a pork chop in a synagogue. It did get better though. Eventually, I was only fetching my fly from the grass behind me on every second or third cast!

Here is some common fly fishing terminology I learnt on my outing:

Stripping line – the point at which you begin removing your saturated clothing, because you are dripping sweat like a sumo wrestler in a sauna while waiting for the bloody fish to bite.

Unloading the Rod – when your hot fishing partner gets turned off by your dismal attempts to cast, your bleeding legs and the mud splattered all over your face.

Wind Knot – the knots you get in your line because of pathetic casting.

Sink Rate – the speed at which you become submerged in mud while attempting to retrieve your fly from the immersed branch you just caught.

Impressionistic Flies – the mark the hook of a fly leaves in your skin after catching you in the back.

On the whole, I would say it was a very successful trip and I would do it again in a heartbeat.