An Uncertain Science

There's this perpetual fantasy most fly fishers have of one day unearthing an untouched piece of water nobody's ever heard about, crystal clear of course, and fairly bristling with a hardy strain of largely forgiving trout - browns, if there's a choice. We seem permanently poised to launch off into the wilderness in search of some secreted, sparkling stream on the merest hint that one's rumoured to exist in the vicinity. Ed Herbst and I have had broad experience at it. In fact, arriving back the other day to our truck parked in a patch of rough country miles from habitation somewhere southeast of Worcester after just such a mission, we reflected a little on what it takes to realize this kind of dream and worked out that this particular trip happened to be no less than the sixth sortie of its kind we'd undertaken in the last couple of years.

We'd followed the farmer's truck that morning towards distant hills, pulling up in the foothills when the two vague tracks we'd been lurching along finally ran into a dry riverbed. The farmer got out, pointed to a narrow gorge running in parched-looking mountains and said we'd need to walk up the valley for a kilometre to get above the worst of the bush. Higher up he thought the riverside vegetation might be less problematic than it was since a fire had swept through the previous year. And there were two other streams he added, pointing in succession towards two more ravines in the rugged terrain, all three streams meeting roughly where we were parked. He said the right fork held the most promise. His grandfather apparently stocked the streams in the year dot and his father was rumoured to have once caught a four-kilogram (yes, four-kilogram) brown trout up here.

So we left in high anticipation and with a precautionary supply of frozen fruit juices and bacon sandwiches in our backpacks. But an hour or two later (it may have been longer) we'd only managed to break into the stream in a couple of places, when we could confirm that, yes, there was a stream in the valley, that there was a reasonable flow in it, but not much beyond that. At the last of these openings I slung off my backpack, perched myself on a rock, let my feet dangle in the water, caught my breath, and pondered the situation. I was sweaty and scratched and nearly done in from the constant fight with the thick bush. Where I sat, the narrow stream was hemmed in by tightly towering stands of vegetation the likes of which I'd never seen, willowy, thin-stemmed trees with fern-like leaves. The water was shaded, bugs were scarce and casting was a lottery. The only fish around were tiny, pencil-thin vlei kurpers that dodged about nervously, occasionally rising with a deft flick to snap something off the surface.

Ed pushed off and returned half an hour later saying it seemed to him like the stream might open up around the next corner. His pants were torn and his clothes were black from stepping through the charcoaled remains of trees wiped out in the fire's intense sweep through the valley. We moved upstream, following the course of the river through rough country, discovered there was a little less by way of bush, but not much less, that occasionally the stream did indeed open up - enough, in places, to wade a few pools in succession, even to get in a few casts. We thought things may get even better higher still, so we went higher still, and yet higher still, as if hoping that at some point the scrub would miraculously give way, the canyon would open and a sparkling jewel of a fishing place would suddenly be revealed. The sun burned down from a pale-washed sky and an occasional eagle swung into sight, floating the thermals pushing up off the lips of the small canyon. The water felt cold around our legs despite the heat and the odd run looked like it could easily hold a decent fish. In the sunny spots we tipped up stones, found tiny Baetids, not many, and the odd cased-caddis, but no sign of trout. We gave up only when it became pretty clear that the bush wasn't really going to thin out much more, that the canyon wasn't likely to widen, and that chances of a fishing jewel suddenly getting revealed were remote, at least not inside a few more hours of heavy bush-bashing. So we cut back, walking along the edge of the mountain, keeping well away from the tangled riverbanks. In an hour we were at the truck, opening the windows to let a breeze blow through the oven-like interior, sucking deeply on iced fruit juice. "Chalk that up as just another long walk," I said. "The sixth I can remember," Ed replied, and that's what actually got us counting.

We recalled the long day we'd spent exploring the wrong arm of some remote mountain stream. When we finally did find the river we'd come for it turned out to be unfishable. Laid waste to agricultural development. That was hugely disappointing.

Then there was the time Ed says he heard the river, but never actually saw it. It was running somewhere underground, deep below a barren riverbed.

And the little stream we discovered by chance that gave new meaning to the whole notion of fly-fishing small streams, with its hesitant flow over bright pebbles, and its small, tentative trout sitting in wash-hand basin-sized pools. Somehow despite the tightness of the place we caught a couple, but we never bothered to return.

And the trip up the Twenty Fours, a remote river near Piketberg, wading large, palmiet-fringed pools thick with bass, the day ending just as we arrived at the good water where the trout-fishing proper began, by when it was time to turn around or otherwise risk spending a long night in the canyon.

And the time we burned the clutch on a friend's superior four-wheel drive vehicle trying to reach what we believed were the fishable headwaters of the Slang River near Goudini. Not much water. No discernable river, come to think of it.

One exploratory trip really did pay off though. It was in the Eastern Cape a few months back, with Donie Naude of Vrederus, driving along a track that wound across bare veld until it reached the edge of a precarious escarpment. Below us was a ribbon of silver river, the upper Luzie, last fished, we jointly calculated, if not the other side of living memory, not far from it. We felt the long, steep descent into the valley in our knees and the climb out of it in our lungs. But the fish were lovely -spirited, brightly dressed and a little naive. Ed got one around fourteen inches and between us we had maybe a dozen or so more, all about as long as the handle on my favourite rod. They came to the dry fly sharply, like true mountain trout, sometimes drifting under it before plucking it nimbly off the top just in the nick of time. Not too far upstream there were Bushman paintings in a low cave, and the whole valley had that feel really far-flung places get; of being still and unspoiled and somehow a little mysterious, even strangely secretive. Ed liked the spot and so did I, and we chalked this particular expedition up as one of our rare victories. And not a minor one at that. A young couple happened to be staying at Vrederus when we made this trip and Donie asked if we minded them coming along. They'd been catching heaps of heavy fish in his lake from float-tubes, twenty or more a day, but they fell into the spirit of things and I'd say they enjoyed the sense of adventure, of exploration, and the little fish we caught, as much as they did the serious fishing back on the trophy water.

Like I said, most of us are suckers for the idea 'of stumbling one day on an untouched piece of water nobody's ever heard about, crystal-clear of course, and fairly bristling with a hardy strain of largely forgiving trout - browns if there's a choice.' In this case they happened to be rainbows, but we didn't really notice.

(Vrederus, by the way, is Juan-Marie and Donie Naude's place in the mountains north of Maclear. Their lake is a marvelous fishery, but Donie is happy to show people who like smallstream fly fishing a few of the gems he has access to. Contact Juan-Marie on (045) 9321572. See his webpage as well.)