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Best time of year for yellows on the vaal?
- Thread starter Ryan
- Start date
Hi Ryan
Much earlier than most people believe, when i was living up in JHB i would fish through out the year as there was not much else for me to do on weekends + company petrol. I have had some unbelieveable fishing in late August and September but the water she is very chilly !! I was fishing the deeper pools at Ben Joe and Vag Bietjie and had days of 20-30 fish and the place all to my self but water clarity and levels play a part! 15-20 Cumecs is ideal and as for the flys well the usual suspects do the job, hot spots, orange colour caddis , copper johns, olive purple black flash back nymphs small crab patterns and most of your caddis patterns if you are tying your own flys - weight them well or use split shot on your dropper and your point fly cause if your flys are not pouncing on the bottom you going to have far less takes! Dam i am so keen to get up there this season - yellow fish on fly is the berries i could almost say its some of the best fishing i have ever had! Let me know how it goes cause you might be seeing me up there pretty soon.
Cheers
TF
Much earlier than most people believe, when i was living up in JHB i would fish through out the year as there was not much else for me to do on weekends + company petrol. I have had some unbelieveable fishing in late August and September but the water she is very chilly !! I was fishing the deeper pools at Ben Joe and Vag Bietjie and had days of 20-30 fish and the place all to my self but water clarity and levels play a part! 15-20 Cumecs is ideal and as for the flys well the usual suspects do the job, hot spots, orange colour caddis , copper johns, olive purple black flash back nymphs small crab patterns and most of your caddis patterns if you are tying your own flys - weight them well or use split shot on your dropper and your point fly cause if your flys are not pouncing on the bottom you going to have far less takes! Dam i am so keen to get up there this season - yellow fish on fly is the berries i could almost say its some of the best fishing i have ever had! Let me know how it goes cause you might be seeing me up there pretty soon.
Cheers
TF
Andre Laas
Sealiner
Hi Ryan
No expert myself, but I have spend a great deal of time on the Vaal while growing up and studying in Potch.
My all time favourite spot was at Raaswater close to the Scandinavië drift bridge (just below the weir under that bridge is another great spot). Used to get fish there throughout the year, but fishing peaking (i.m.o) in November - Feb.
Best set-up is by far a chech-nymphing with nice heavy Copper John as dropper, followed by some form of caddis larvae imitation (If you are into the entomology - Hydropsychidae larvae ) (Although it is an American Webpage, this page have a lot of information on gogo's in streams and rivers - http://www.epa.gov/bioindicators/html/benthosclean.html). To best gauge the colour to use, you will have to pick up some rocks and look at the worms. You can i.m.o. never go wrong with a bright green caddis larvae (cast upstream and allowed to dead drift back only taking up slack). This was my top producing set-up. This was closely followed by a set-up that either included, or replaced the caddis larvae with a good old "San Juan" "bloodworm" (actually not a bloodworm at all bud midge larvae: Chironomidae)
Another top producer was the orange hot-spot as Tuna mentioned. I also had fairly good results when fishing a clear epoxy shrimp (Atyidae: Caridina sp. http://www.ru.ac.za/institutes/iwr/ucewq/cultures.html) pattern close to any form of submerged and emerging vegetation. The shrimp was one of the only patterns that I used without a dropper fly, and with a twitching retrieve.
Another great producer for the bigger smallmouths was the good old black woolly bugger. Never got many fish in a session with that one, but then again never hooked a small fish on it (maybe I was just lucky). You can also try the olive and white woolly buggers. Had a lot of success with the "white death" fly when there were a hatching of just about any flying gogo's. Other flies that I can think of from the top of my head was the "Prince nymph" (a purple, flashy number), the "Bitchcreeck nymph" (yellow and black worked best for me) and "TVN" (Theo van Niekerk).
These are not the only ones that will work, but are the ones that I had best results with.
No expert myself, but I have spend a great deal of time on the Vaal while growing up and studying in Potch.
My all time favourite spot was at Raaswater close to the Scandinavië drift bridge (just below the weir under that bridge is another great spot). Used to get fish there throughout the year, but fishing peaking (i.m.o) in November - Feb.
Best set-up is by far a chech-nymphing with nice heavy Copper John as dropper, followed by some form of caddis larvae imitation (If you are into the entomology - Hydropsychidae larvae ) (Although it is an American Webpage, this page have a lot of information on gogo's in streams and rivers - http://www.epa.gov/bioindicators/html/benthosclean.html). To best gauge the colour to use, you will have to pick up some rocks and look at the worms. You can i.m.o. never go wrong with a bright green caddis larvae (cast upstream and allowed to dead drift back only taking up slack). This was my top producing set-up. This was closely followed by a set-up that either included, or replaced the caddis larvae with a good old "San Juan" "bloodworm" (actually not a bloodworm at all bud midge larvae: Chironomidae)
Another top producer was the orange hot-spot as Tuna mentioned. I also had fairly good results when fishing a clear epoxy shrimp (Atyidae: Caridina sp. http://www.ru.ac.za/institutes/iwr/ucewq/cultures.html) pattern close to any form of submerged and emerging vegetation. The shrimp was one of the only patterns that I used without a dropper fly, and with a twitching retrieve.
Another great producer for the bigger smallmouths was the good old black woolly bugger. Never got many fish in a session with that one, but then again never hooked a small fish on it (maybe I was just lucky). You can also try the olive and white woolly buggers. Had a lot of success with the "white death" fly when there were a hatching of just about any flying gogo's. Other flies that I can think of from the top of my head was the "Prince nymph" (a purple, flashy number), the "Bitchcreeck nymph" (yellow and black worked best for me) and "TVN" (Theo van Niekerk).
These are not the only ones that will work, but are the ones that I had best results with.
Andre Laas
Sealiner
And now I just wish the Vaal river came down through Natal!!!!!!!!!!!! I miss flyfishing for smallmouths a lot!!!