Mountain Dam Madness

Mountain Dam, on top of Boschberg Mountain in Somerset East, in the Eastern Cape, is one such location that boasts the full package of insects and trout. Standing waist deep in the crystal-clear fountain water, with the sun on your back and fish rising all around you throughout the day, is very close to fly-fishing heaven. Mountain Dam lies 1,500 metres above sea level, whilst the town lies some 800 metres below, and provides a dramatic drop off for its own micro climate. As the wind changes direction, it incites a variety of insect species to hatch throughout the day. These gusts also create thermo clines; layers of water at different temperatures, which trap different insects, at different stages of their life cycles, and at different levels within the water column.

So how do you entice a fish when everything to tempt its palate is available and just waiting to be plucked from the menu? Observation! Look around you and see what insects are in the fringes at the water's edge or which insects are in the air or on the water's surface. Match the hatch. Also remember to keep an eye out for aquatic moths, which are referred to as sedge or caddis, as one often disturbs them in the grass while walking to the water. Look at their size and colour and if you see and hear splashy rises, then chances are good that the trout are feeding on sedge. Often, when you look at a dam you will notice a wind lane. This is the lane where the water is as smooth as a mirror and then meets choppy water. It is in this lane where hatching insects are trapped, offering the full autumn smorgasbord of insects.

Guiding Wes and Bill, visitors from the States, we headed for Mountain Dam on a blustery but sunny autumn day, to see if we could put all this theory into practice. Setting up a #5 weight outfit with a floating line and an 11-foot leader with 4X/8 lb tippet, we all pulled on waders and boots and headed for the weed beds. The odd fish was showing itself, indicating that the fish were scrutinising the weed beds for their main course. We tried a 'Jin Nymph', an olive interpretation of a GRHE (Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear), and allowed it to sink before retrieving it just above the weeds. Wes produced the first fish, which we kept to evaluate its stomach contents and found several cased caddis, dragonfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs, many caseless caddis and a crab claw. We changed our flies to imitate what we'd seen from the stomach contents and to good effect too, as Wes and Bill caught and released another nine fish between them that morning before we retired to enjoy a typical South African braai of Karoo lamb chops and a cold beer or two. During our break, the wind picked up significantly and the few fish that were moving around disappeared.