Everything else you ought to read about!

Editor’s note: After the 2012 festival and associated publication of the WTA’s guidebook, I set about scratching around amongst old files in an extern...

Wild Trout Association celebrates 20th anniversary by Ed Herbst Most countries where fly fishing is practiced have organisations that promote the spo...

The Wild Trout Association in Its 30th Anniversary Year by Miles Divett The year 2021 sees the WTA celebrating the 30th anniversary of its formation ...

Eulogy for the late Martin van Riet by Dave Walker One of the most remarkable chaps that I have ever met was Martin van Riet but I am putting the car...

Surviving the 2003 Bells Fly Fishing Festival at Rhodes by Ed Herbst             It was the late Andy Warhol who came up with the idea that everyone ...

THE ROLE OF THE HIGHLANDS IN MY FLY FISHING PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOME TIPS FOR TAKING BETTER PICTURES By Tom Sutcliffe             In all the years I’ve...

Preamble to Ed and Tom’s Corners             Being the year of the 30th anniversary of the Wild Trout Association, I felt that it was right and fitti...

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A FLORAL PRIMER FOR THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE By Tony Kietzman Moraea huttonii and Tonyosis Kietzmaniaecae on the Bokspruit by Tom Sutcliffe C...

HIGH WATER – A cautionary tale by Ilan Lax Ours and a few other families travelled to Rhodes to see in the new millennium and hopefully sample some o...

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE OF RHODES – by Dave Walker             White farmers settled the more remote areas of the Highlands of the Eastern...

The Hoverfly (Pelloloma nigrifacies) by Werner Barkemeyer   On 19 January 1963 Dr. Brian and Dr. Pamela Stuckenberg made a trip to the eastern slo...

The Rapture of Rhodes  by Sharland Urquhart I had heard about Rhodes, of course. Anybody with an interest in fly-fishing in South Africa had heard ab...

Raging Rhodes Rivers, Another Cautionary Tale  - by Paul Zille The subsiding Tinternspruit in Rhodes below the bridge, 12-01-2011             ...

The Bell River bursts its banks by Dave Walker The week ending on the St Valentine’s Day 2009 saw great rainfall in the Bell River catchment that...

OF FLY FISHING, DROUGHT AND FLOODS by Miles Divett             The 2010/11fly fishing season, at least up until the end of the first week in February...

It’s been a while since I last wrote about buffalo and you know how things have changed since Koos Kieckstardt introduced his new light line big g...

A YEAR IN RHODES by Sharland Urquhart Rhodes had captured our souls so very quickly, so very simply, that buying a cottage became both natural and ...

A fishy tale from the centre of the universe by Graham Fiford There can be few taller stories told than those legendary fisherman’s yarns about the...

10 things I absolutely love about Rhodes by Nick Hlozek             To the fly fisherman, Rhodes has always held a mysterious, mythical even legendar...

It can happen to you – By Ed Herbst             Having survived what was probably the “dry bite” of a cobra – i.e. without the injection of venom – I...

A Fishers Manifesto – by Reuben Message Trout fishing has often been referred to as an art. But is this really so, and has this assumption ever been ...

Journey to the centre of the universe by Tim Rolston April 17, 2012               Rhodes in the distant Eastern Cape is an enigma, it offers some o...

STITCHING THE DRAGON’S TALE                 On the Surveyor General’s 1:50 000 topographical survey maps, the last reference to “Drakensberg”  is the...

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Bizarre bid at fly fishing charity auction: Ed Herbst and Sharland Urquhart The setting             The annual Wild Trout Association Fly Fishing Fe...

Wild Trout Association Electro-fishing Project – Dave Walker             The electro-fishing project has been discussed and in the planning stage for...

A Look at the Regulation of Trout in South Africa By Ian Cox INTRODUCTION The context that currently applies to the regulation of trout in this coun...

Fly fishers can help charity – Ed Herbst             The annual Wild Trout Association Epson Fly Fishing Festival takes place in the Eastern Cape vil...

Scobell’s Kop Radar site by Dave Walker Visitors to the area travelling up the Naudesnek Pass may have noticed an immense white mushroom-like structu...

Big trout in Barkly East by Ed Herbst “If you want the best chance to visit large trout you have to go to their house.” Jason Randall, “Feeding Time...

 Leaving KwaZulu/Natal and entering the Free State is also about leaving the brash, California style mindset of that particular part of South Africa a...

A personal account surrounding a never ending fascination with the authenticity, vastness and true simplicity that stitches together the epic beauty t...

Saturday evening, the 22nd August 2015 was a momentous occasion in Rhodes when a Wild Trout Association dinner was held at Walkerbouts Inn. The purpos...

The magnificent Lammergeier (Gyaetus barbatus) The plight of the vulture population in Southern Africa prompted the placing of suitable animal carcas...

Apathy is a terrible thing. It disempowers good people and creates space in which bad people can do terrible things. Just look at what is happening at...

CAPE TOWN — If you thought our courts were the last redoubt in the defence of our Constitutional democracy, consider the existing load our dysfunction...

The Constitution is all minority groups have to keep them safe.                 Is there anybody in the ANC defending the Constitution? No. Because t...

This morning Acting Judge of the Gauteng North High Court Adrian Vorster delivered a Judgement in the application for a declaratory order in the mat...

            An interesting creature, the human animal.  I never cease to wonder at what drives each one because surely each individual is just that, a...

A great deal has happened since the last time I wrote one of these updates. That was at the beginning of May and I must tell you that it feels like it...

Commuting to Rhodes has always been a pleasure. Not so much this time.  The SAA flight departing Cape Town at 6am for Bloemfontein has generally worke...

            What is it that brings me back year after year to slog the waters of the North Eastern Cape in an event instigated by the Wild Trout Assoc...

THE NYMPH AWARD The Joyce Carreira sculpture Sculpted by renowned artist, Joyce Carreira, the artwork was presented to the Wild Trout Association ...

 Watching a news report on the Australian bush fires recently took me back a few years to my own encounter with the destructive power of fire.       ...

In the same way that we describe distances in terms of how long it takes rather than kilometres, longer time periods are described as winters survive...

Of pipe tobacco, ZAK’s, cordite, and Black Label quarts – Jade dos Santos remembers the late great Basie Vosloo - farmer, angler, pioneer and friend t...

At approximately 2550m above sea level, Loch Ness is without doubt the highest trout dam open to the public for flyfishing. What makes it even more sp...

Johannes Arnold 'Basie' Vosloo - 24 May 1957 – 4 July 2021 The passing of a near-mythical figure in many South African fly-fishing and hunting circles...