The wildest of adventure sports
A veteran shows Claire Keeton and Marianne Schwankhart the fearless side of fly-fishing
THE exhilaration that comes with climbing and whitewater paddling has been supplanted in Geoff Ward’s life by a passion for fly-fishing in mountain streams.
Geoff, 69, took us casting for rainbow trout about an hour from Cape Town in the Limietberg Nature Reserve on the Smalblaar River.
When he was younger, he kayaked this river in flood and climbed soaring peaks in Du Toits Kloof above it. Fifty years ago, with friends, he did the first ascent of a classic route (Exposure in F Major).
“I link fly-fishing to climbing and whitewater paddling not in terms of risk but strategy,” he said. “You have a chunk of rock or rapids and with both you have to read what’s in front of you.
“With fly-fishing, you must read the channels in the river and cast for the prime lies. It’s not high risk but there is a sense of mindfulness, being in the moment, and an adrenaline rush that runs through all of them.”
Geoff said: “It’s a natural progression. (Famous) climbers like Yvon Chouinard and Joe Simpson fly-fish now.”
These sports are usually pursued in wild places and the higher upstream you wade or hike to fish, the more striking the scenery.
As novices, we were lower down on the easy “beats” — sections of the river marked out by the Cape Piscatorial Society, which issues licences to fish per beat — close to the Huguenot tunnel and Du Kloof Lodge.
On the first warm afternoon, we waded and cast along a peaceful stretch of the Smalblaar near the lodge, where we stayed for two nights.
On the verandah, Geoff assembled a rod for us, giving us useful and offbeat tips (underpants are extraneous, they get soggy).
Then he pulled out the feathery flies, some of which he had tied himself, and attached them to the leaders (transparent tapering end tied to the lines).
Once we had rods, we brushed through ferns on the bank to reach the pools and channels of the river, twisting between the pale boulders.
“You need stealth to get into a position where you have a degree of cover and the trout don’t see you,” Geoff said. “You need to present the fly in as natural a way as possible.”
This requires casting the fly to land and flow at the right speed in a current, among other skills — skills Marianne and I needed time to master.
We got only one bite and no fish in two days. In contrast, Geoff caught a rainbow trout within 30 minutes on our second morning and got plenty more interest.
The boulder-hopping on slippery stones, the continual casting, observing the flow of the water, swimming and climbing at an overhang all kept us absorbed.
“Fly-fishing is like a jigsaw puzzle with bits and pieces and you never stop learning,” said Geoff, who trained as a psychologist and worked as a researcher.
After this, he launched a specialised outdoor-equipment company, Outward Ventures. His latest products include “freeze-dried bait”, which he is keen to test himself.
Early on the second morning he had to choose a fly to match a cloud of flies which had just hatched and were luring trout out of the stream.
Marianne and I covertly made our way under a bridge to the pool with the most action and tried our luck. She caught the leaping fish on film but not on a rod and nor did I.
Geoff caught a small trout soon after we waded in, which we admired and then gently released.
From this point, we moved up the Smalblaar past its confluence with the Elandspad River, under a bridge, on the Worcester side of the tunnel on the N1.
This short section close to “civilisation” was polluted by litter and traffic noise, however, just upstream of a weir and wide pool the environment was untouched.
“We need to look after these places and keep this river well preserved, available and clean.
“You can have a good day out on these rivers without catching any fish,” said Geoff.
The fly-fishing season in the Western Cape lasts until the end of May. The rivers close from June 1 until August 31, but the water can be high into September.