Smalblaar River, Western Cape - Part 1

The first fly fishing book I read was Tom Sutcliffe’s ‘My Way with a Trout’. On its cover, the author clad in blue jeans and a red hat played a fish whilst standing knee deep in a remarkably clear river with a curious honey-yellow tinge. It looked unlike any river I had seen. It was, I would discover, a typical Western Cape stream. When I read the book all those years ago - at the very outset of my exploration into fly fishing - the image had a profound effect on me and shaped my thoughts as to the type of fly fishing I wanted to pursue. Cool, pellucid, boulder-strewn mountain streams, that sort of thing.

I have since seen many more images of the Western Cape’s rivers and have always been transfixed by the yellow stained water, pebbles bleached as white as bone, unique fynbos flora and backdrop of jagged mountains and sheer cliffs. It’s a very pretty and distinctive scene. What this all resulted in was a long-held desire to fish a Western Cape stream in the footsteps of Tom Sutcliffe and many other fly fishing writers who hail from the region (a great deal of South Africa’s fly fishing literature has its provenance in the Cape). The only problem is that the Western Cape is so damn far from the rest of South Africa that getting there has never been as simple as jumping in a car for a spontaneous weekend away. It takes a two day drive from most parts of the country just to reach it. 

The opportunity to cast a fly in the region finally came when I travelled down to the Cape to help my sister start life as a student at the University of Stellenbosch. Having put my feelers out, I received two generous invitations from strangers to host me on the Smalblaar River. I felt like a kid at Christmas.

Darryl Lampert image

Darryl Lampert image

The prospect of fishing the Smalblaar excited me. If any one trout river in South Africa has received the most attention in local fly fishing literature it would be the Smalblaar. It’s not too far a stretch to think of it as the Henry’s Fork or River Test of South Africa. Tom Sutcliffe, in his later book ‘Hunting Trout’, is full of praise for the river with his typically wonderful prose: “The secret of the Smalblaar’s enduring appeal is, of course, its free-rising rainbows, miles of them sprinkled like raisins in a cake in water that’s just tricky enough to be really interesting to fish.”

I was to fish the Smalblaar with Darryl Lampert on Saturday and Korrie Broos the following day. Darryl had booked Beat 6 and Korrie the 'Transport' beat. These are the two uppermost beats of the river. I knew I was onto a good thing when I visited a fly fishing store in Cape Town to pick up a few flies and Richard, behind the counter, seemed impressed by the beat selections. Richard mentioned that the upper sections of the Smalblaar were fishing much better than any of the other Western Cape streams. He asked how I had managed to secure these prime beats on the same weekend, and when I mentioned my hosts, he gave me a knowing smile and said I was in very good hands. 

I was blessed with fine weather over the weekend. I’d read much about the infamous Cape winds that can destroy a day’s fishing but fortunately the ‘Cape Doctor’ stayed away with only a slight upstream breeze showing itself on Saturday. Even so, because I was using a long leader down to very fine 8x tippet in the breeze, I had to really focus on using a power stroke to get the leader to unfurl properly. Both Darryl and Korrie commented on this. I guess living in the Cape, fishing in a wind with a fine tippet comes naturally to them. It wasn’t the only lesson I learned over the two days - I probably gleaned more knowledge in these two days than I have in the past two years. Learning from Darryl and Korrie was easy, they are both skilful fishermen and good teachers to boot.

My first Smalblaar trout!

Beat 6 is the uppermost beat on the river, right at the point where the 4km long Hugenot Tunnel emerges from the mountains on the Worcester side of the bustling N1 highway. Speaking of the highway, I hadn’t appreciated how close it is to the river. In some places it crosses overhead and the noise of the traffic and tunnel extractor fan is never far away. I became so immersed in the fishing that I soon forgot the highway was even there.

Darryl and I spent a bit of time on the beat’s first pool because the trout were feeding off the surface in a frenzy. Faced with a consistent flurry of surface dimples and splashes there was little need or incentive to move on. Trout were rising to small mayflies and soon enough I caught my first Smalblaar trout on a #16 CDC mayfly pattern. It was a pretty little rainbow trout of about 12 inches.

Darryl had set up a tenkara rod and soon he too caught a fine looking rainbow trout. Darryl offered me a trial of his tenkara rod and the presentational advantages of this technique were immediately apparent. I hooked a trout and felt a little awkward when my first instinct was to draw in line with my non-rod hand. For those who may not know, tenkara uses a fixed length line attached to the rod tip. There is no need for a reel. It felt strangely discomforting when playing a trout without one. Tenkara is a simple and minimalist style of fishing and I enjoyed trying it.

Darryl Lampert image

We moved upstream to fish a long section of tumultuous pocket water where we separated, Darryl fishing the left branch and I the right. I caught a tenacious trout from the very first pocket I cast into. In a flash the trout rose to take a black Klinkhamer in the fast current, within seconds of the fly touching the water's surface, and I had to apply side strain to keep the wily fish from darting into the roots of bank side bushes. I have very little experience of fishing rivers with this type of water and at that moment, having caught a trout with my first cast in the very first pocket of water, I thought it was easy. How wrong I was!

The river's flow was swift and the currents were a complicated, boisterous web of competing water.  I struggled to achieve drag free drifts, even when trying to lift as much of the line and leader off the water. To try and avoid drag I would naturally try to get as close to the target water as possible to keep line off the water, but this increased the risk of spooking fish. The converse of this is trying to cast as far away as possible from the intended pocket of water, but this increased the chance of drag. Darryl showed me the trick of casting and letting the leader fall on to a rock upstream to delay the effects of drag and he also taught me to avoid casting immediately upstream into the main current as this compounds the effect of drag (rather, casting from the side and letting the bulk of the line fall into slacker side water with only the dry fly in the intended current helps to reduce drag for a few more precious seconds). It was a steep learning curve and a hard slog, a little humbling if I’m honest, but I was content to watch and learn from Darryl who, like a magician with a wand, continued to bring trout to his fly throughout the day.

Darryl Lampert image

Moving up the beat I hooked and lost two trout from the sort of pools I’m more accustomed to fishing (which Darryl graciously left to me). But these fish were smart, the first dislodging the hook in tree roots and the second saw the fine tippet break on sharp rocks. It wouldn’t be until the end of the day, at the penultimate pool of the beat, that I would land another trout. Just before the magical looking little Krom River flows into the Smalblaar from an adjacent valley, we alarmed a duck which must have had a nest of ducklings nearby. The duck gave us a splashy broken wing routine, disturbing the water all the way up the pool in an attempt to draw us away from its nest. Once the duck eventually flew off, content that we posed no danger, we let the pool rest for several minutes until trout started to rise. Darryl and I each got a fish, their pink lateral lines magnified in the bright warm glow of the setting sun. It was a fitting way to end the day’s fishing.

I was able to reflect on the day on the hike back to the parking lot next to the highway. The Smalblaar is a wonderful river, varied enough in its character that it poses questions of the angler, making for thought-provoking and at times technical fishing. The water is clear enough to spot fish, another skill to be learned. Trout were often holding in thin, exposed places that I would ordinarily have passed without any notice. I was impressed by the average size and condition of the trout, and pleased that they were so willing to rise to a dry fly. I fished nothing but a dry fly all day which, I guess, is always a pleasant way to fish because of the visual excitement. It was also a day of lessons and good company.

Darryl mentioned that Tom Sutcliffe describes the Smalblaar as ‘the prince of streams’ and, whilst Tom’s opinion on local fly fishing matters is pretty much listened to as smartly as a Catholic listens to the Pope, it was a statement I could with just a day’s experience of this river readily agree with.

Smalblaar - Part 2