Gijsbert and I visited Balloch farm this past weekend to try out the Vlooikraal and Willow and camped in the cave with some other friends.   We drew up a trip report with some feedback for those interested. Enjoy!

Friday, 24 April:

We left Bloemfontein at 17h30 and drove in rain almost all the way from Lady Grey to Balloch and arrived there at 21h45.  Temperatures were on the cold side and I was a bit concerned about the weekend's fishing, having had a look at the weather forecast.  Gijsbert had arrived from Grahamstown before dark and he had a quick look at the stream and advised that we rather head downstream first on the more "open" water to build up some confidence for the Willow. Sounded like a great plan to me!

Saturday, 25 April:

The morning was overcast and cold, with light rain drizzling down intermittently.  Around 09H00 my girlfriend dropped Gijsbert and myself off far downstream from the cave, almost at the Balloch turn-off from the dirt road and we started working our way back upstream on the Vlooikraal.  The water level was on the low side and crystal clear.  The morning was made more interesting by a strong headwind that swept down the valley and hammered us with gusts every few minutes.  Being only my third trip with a 3wt on small streams, I didn't find the fishing easy at all (in fact, the most challenging I've had to do since I started fly fishing) and was struggling to stay out of the branches and grass, not even to mention making good presentations and staying hidden.  I reduced my leader to 8ft to try and cast properly as I was struggling too much with the longer leader and light, small flies   

By lunchtime I hadn't caught anything and my spirits were low to say the least.  Mario had warned us it can be tough, and it was definitely the case for me.  Just three very light strikes, that's it.  I have a feeling my flies were too big (all beaded and around #14 and #16, not 100% sure) but it was just as well, because I wouldn’t be able to cast anything lighter anyway.  I have a few very small unbeaded flashback nymphs, but with my skill level there was no way I would be able to make it work.  Gijsbert was doing better and was off the mark for the day with a rainbow and a brown.  But it was tough fishing.  We hadn't progressed as far upstream as we wanted and we decided to head back to the cave to take a break and warm up a bit.

After lunch we headed back downstream again and I quickly caught a rainbow in the dam just to feel a bit better about myself    From there we fished back upstream towards the cave.   The weather lifted a bit and the sun came through every now and then and the wind also calmed down a bit.  Our luck seemed to change as well.  The afternoon went better and Gijsbert picked up pace quickly with a few rainbows on an Adams.

I managed to catch a beautiful 10 inch brown and a small rainbow in the same pool.  I didn’t expect to find such a brown and was very chuffed indeed.  My weekend was made with my first wild brown!  We were very happy as the day ended off much better than it started and we knew it wasn’t going to be a blank weekend