Here is the last piece of Andrew Fowler's wonderful Mooi Chronicle
When I was a child, families would visit the Kamberg nature reserve to fish, and for family picnics. There was a smartly dressed guard at the gate, with boots that shone like a soldier’s. He saluted you on arrival, as if to complete the military parallel, and then he would politely sell you an entry ticket. He might also be able to answer a question about whether there had been any Eland about, or had they had a lot of rain last week. The picnic areas were clean, with rubbish bins emptied regularly, and the grass was mowed fairly regularly. You could buy a fishing permit, and you could go up to the hatchery and visit Rob Karssings and buy a packet of pellets for the kids to feed the trout. (Ok, you got me. For me to feed the trout). If you fished the river, you booked a beat, and you were limited to that beat, because another guy had booked the one above. If he had not, the manager would tell you it was not booked and invite you to fish above the beat marker, an invitation which you accepted graciously.
In a perverse turn of tides, South Africa now has conservation authorities that can no longer run a resort, or manage its basic upkeep. I recently visited the headquarters building, and as confirmation that it is not just Kamberg Nature reserve that is in trouble, that building too was derelict beyond description. At the same time we have had authorities hell bent on eradicating a stable and long prevalent population of trout from South Africa, and enormously willing to pour money into the controversy surrounding that debacle, while the wattle trees and brambles quietly overrun the mountain treasures we entrust to them. At Kamberg Nature Reserve there is evidence of some haphazard and incomplete alien control work, but there is also domestic waste dumped in the stream on Stillerus that has clearly been left there for years. The Stillerus cottage is no longer available to paying guests, as it has been taken over to house rangers, because no one seems able to re-build the recently burnt ranger accommodation. At the time of writing this it would appear that the objection to the river poisoning will win the day, but there is a perturbing silence about the ineptitude of the KZN conservation authorities in all the matters that really count.
Roy and I passed through the rusty and unattended gate, and parked in what used to be the picnic area: a derelict spot with a non functioning ablution block with a broken door. It was overgrown, and trees had been left to lie where they had fallen. A sign directs you to the reception, but we long since abandoned attempting that: it always seems to be locked. We strung up rods at the lower picnic spot near the gate and walked back down the road. A staff truck passed us, and the occupants waved happily at us poachers. And as one does in Africa, we waved back happily and carried on anyway. I really miss the days when I would have dived into the bushes with my heart pounding in my throat.
The lower water is often broad, and only sometimes deep. We saw a pair of eagle owls, no litter, and enough small trout to keep us interested as we fished back up to the bakkie. Later we would drive up to the hatchery ruin, to continue our poaching. That top section seemed to have more fish, but they were the same size and equally beautiful.
In Bob Crass’ book he writes extensively about this stretch of river, and repeatedly mentions the banks being heavily lined in NchChi bushes, which is still the case today. In his day Kamberg Nature reserve seemed to be the only water available to the public, which seemed to thwart his comment on the other sections. He also writes of how, after a few glory years following the successful stocking at Game Pas in 1899, the fish went “three to the pound” and hardly every better. In the late fifties and early sixties they actually treated the river with Rotenone, in order to reduce the population and improve the average size. This trip occurred after the worst drought in 125 years, and fish seemed a lot less plentiful than they had done in earlier years. In any event, My experience on Riverside and Reekie Lyn over the years is that fish of a pound, two pounds and even three pounds, are not at all rare.
Through late morning and lunchtime small dark mayfly started hatching and the fish were taking these, as well as anything else that looked edible and was cast delicately enough, and close enough to them. One fish per run or pool , was the order of the day, because the disturbance of a fish fighting the taught line was more than enough to put the rest down.
Earlier in the morning I had donned every layer of clothing I had. After lunch I put on my ridiculous looking ski mask. None of it seemed to help. I had lost my core temperature. I don’t know if Roy could have carried on, but I simply couldn’t. Or perhaps I should say I simply didn’t want to. Fortunately Roy was easily persuaded with the promise of a cup of hot tea when we got back to the cottage, and we beat a retreat to the comfort of the bakkie’s heated cab.
If you wanted to explore a high mountain stream, there is probably no one you would want to accompany you more than Peter Brigg. I was very pleased that Peter had accepted my invitation to explore the upper Mooi, and the north branch in particular. PD and I had gone up the south branch, only to find that it ended at a series of spectacular cascades just a few hundred metres up from the confluence. I had had a few vague references to the north branch that made me believe there may be a secret hiding up there. With this in mind, I had suggested to Peter that we not get bogged down on the main river between the oak tree and the landslide, despite how pretty that water is. So we hiked along the jeep track all the way to a spot just above the landslide and the forest.
The day was a lot warmer than the frosty morning that had greeted me from the cabin window at sunrise, and by the time we reached the stream, Peter was lifting his oil treated Filson hat, to let the breeze caress his sweaty sweed, and I stripped down to ditch Terry’s “trout talk” T shirt that I had donned as a vest.
The stream was as clear as it gets, and Peter made a remark that I have made before, about the yellow stoned streambed being as close as you can get to that in the Western Cape. The crisp clear air, with deep shadows on the north bank, and a gem of a stream at our feet made for some good photography. I was reaching for my camera almost as often as I reached for my fly from the top of the streamside vegetation! Peter, on the other hand, with measured care and very evident experience, was dusting the runs and pools with a dry as faultlessly as you would expect from the doyen of small streams.
We fished to the junction quite quickly, landing a few small fish, and then we set off expectantly up the tiny north branch. Being half the river of that which we had just left, it was pretty thin. In fact the lower, and slower section had quite a lot of unsightly algae coating the streambed, and we agreed that it needed a good flush of summer rain. But as we moved up we encountered some deeper, and some faster water, enough of which looked like it could hold a trout. We raised a few in the better spots. They were all small, and all as pretty as mountain trout get. Then quite quickly the stream steepened, and not much further up this branch than the other, we encountered a very similar sight. Boulders the size of apartment blocks appeared tossed in the way of the stream, in a steep gorge, and the water rushed through gullies and over high falls.
We did hike above the impasse, because I said to Peter that if we didn’t we might later sit at our respective desks in town and wonder what we may have missed above. But the pools up there were all pretty bedrock with rushing white water, as sterile as they were beautiful, and we decided that unless someone had planted fish above (and we don’t know about that), there probably were none. We had run out of river. Looking at a map later I was to see that both the south and north branch become impassable to trout at almost precisely 1800m ASL.
We had some lunch up there in the gorge and then, with more day left than stream, we returned to the oak tree and fished a few hundred yards of the stream we know, catching a few trout as we went.
Later we sipped some of Peter’s “Cameron Brig” whiskey in celebration of a pleasant day exploring a remote stream. We had walked twelve kilometres, and Peter predicted that he would feel the tightness in his legs when he stepped out of his car back home. I smiled. I had felt more than just a bit of tightness already, but that was a few days back. If I kept going like this, I might actually get fit!
But I couldn’t keep going like this. I mean I feel like I could: Day in day out, just hiking and fishing. I wanted to. ….eight days was not long enough for it to feel like anything but heaven. But I have a salary to earn, and a bond to pay, and a wonderful wife, who for reasons known only to her, likes having me around. Bless her soul.
As my trip drew to a close, I was in a reflective mood. The cottage at Reekie Lyn had quickly become like a home. My bedroom was a mess of mostly dirty washing, such that every morning I found myself sniffing clothes to find the freshest ones. (But then I ended wearing the ones that seemed to suit that day’s river beat, regardless of the state of the items). My wet boots had a fixed spot on the veranda, and the line of wet socks was part of the view from the front window. Staring at the surface of the small dam in front of the cottage for rising trout had become a strange morning and evening ritual, because I had to do it on bended knee to see out of the low windows, and because I never would actually fish the dam anyway (this was a river trip). I had enjoyed the solitude immensely, and didn’t get “the shack nasties” at all, but perhaps I would have done if I stayed out there on my own long enough. It wasn’t like I had been totally alone. Roy had stayed two nights, and I had had someone to join me fishing most days. I had taken a fly tying kit, bit not opened it at all. I did edit my photos and save my GPS tracks every night, and I took a laptop, purely for the purpose of writing, which I did every night. For some strange reason I took one business call, to place insurance cover on a project in Ghana. I suspect if I hadn’t taken that call it all would have worked out anyway. I got wind of one fly fisherman who was apparently offended at not having been invited to join me. I don’t know him all that well, but more importantly I don’t quite understand why he would want to spend time with me. Catering was remarkably simple: Just TV dinners, some braai meat and various things raided from the grocery cupboard back home. Things I really should have brought: Some nivea cream. Things I should really have left at home: My wallet (I didn’t use it).
The trip in numbers. I had measured 27kms of river on my GPS map software. In the end I over-estimated how far up the north branch we could fish, so it was in fact more like 26kms. I had also factored in nine days to make it three kms per day. I shortened it to eight days because I figured it would be difficult and unreasonable to get back on Sunday night and go to work on Monday morning. I wanted to spend a de-brief day with my wife. Then I had a rained out day, so in the end it was seven days of fishing. With the distance to fish per day slightly up, I was counting on walking past a bit of water. Overall I think I failed at that. Mostly I think I couldn’t bring myself to walk past good trout water, but in some cases my fishing companions had clearly come to fish, not walk, and I bowed to that happily. So I skipped a few stretches. I chose to skip the stretches that I have fished regularly and recently anyway. I also chose to skip a 1.3km stretch below Reekie Lyn on account of the severe and depressing wattle infestation. Parts totally new to me: a section of lower Riverside, Tendela, and the top of the north branch. Unfortunately I didn’t get to fish Tendela on this trip. I had not bet on a fairly severe frontal system, complete with high winds and then snow. I think this accounts for my poor catch rate on the first few days of the trip, but maybe it was just the fisherman! I have written this account as though I fished sequentially from the lower water up. In fact it got mixed up a bit.
Tackle :
I used a 9ft 4 weight for Trout Bungalow and Reekie Lyn. I wouldn’t normally go this heavy, but I chose the outfit due to the high winds, and it felt like the right call, each of those three days. I fished an 8ft 3 weight on Stillerus, and Riverside. Up in the Kamberg nature reserve, including Game pass, I fished a 2 weight 7 foot 10. Leaders throughout were Verivas flat butt leaders of 12 to 16 ft, with a 6X tippet. I waded wet, and with no wading staff, and I wore my brand new Umpqua Swiftwater packvest, which was very comfortable.
You can fish this water:
With the exception of Trout Bungalow, all the water I fished is publically accessible as follows:
Reekie Lyn: Just join the Natal Fly Fishers Club (NFFC), and you can fish it as often as you want
Stillerus: Ezimvelo (“Parks Board”): apparently you can buy a daily rod ticket. I have never seen the office open. I pay my dues by killing wattle trees and picking up litter as I go.
Riverside: NFFC…see above (Or you can stay at Riverside cottages…Google that)
Thendela: a community project: phone ahead and arrange a day ticket with Richard Khumalo
Kamberg Nature Reserve: Ezimvelo…see above
Game Pass: I use this name but it is in fact an old family farm that existed inside of the reserve but it was expropriated in the late 1980s and is part of Kamberg Nature reserve: see above.
More from Andrew at Trutta Blog