Mike McKeown
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I don’t have a favourite… I have good combinations and they will work in different environments…
Hopper – Copper – Dropper = fast water, 2 – 4 feet deep, overcast, midday…
Stimulator – Caddis – Dropper = fast water, 3 – 5 feet deep, mid morning to mid afternoon, dirty water…
Addams – Nymph = slow water, 2 – 4 feet deep, morning and afternoon, clean waterIn very shallow runs or pocket waters.
High Floating/Skating Dry – un-weighted nymph = all dayIn a heavy hatch.
Small Stimulator – hatch match the following – CDC/Seals fur emerger (un-weighted) – lightly weighted nymph.Stonefly hatch…
Stimulator – hatch match the following – CDC Stone Fly Emerger – Stone fly nymph…Cadis Hatch
Stimulator – CDC Sparkle Pupa – V-Rib / Lava Lace bead head cadis.Last but not least… fished in all conditions…
Small Stimulator (14 or 16) – lightly weighted Orange Seals Fur, Hot Spot, PTN, (16) – Lightly weighted ZAK ( a great all round mayfly pattern that will account for 50 percent of my fish, I will get the recipe, if you want it…)Just an FYI on Cabelas waders. When I was looking for waders a couple years ago, I looked at Cabelas in Owatona, MN. I was ready to pull the trigger on some Cabelas branded ones. There was another guy in there waffling between Cabelas and Simms waders. The guy was really torn. The saleswoman asked him what he was going to do in them and he told her he was going to be going to Alaska and needed new waders. She told him to buy the Simms, no question. When he asked why she told him that about a third of the Cabelas waders she sold developed a leak within the first few hours of use. She said Cabelas was great about replacing them, but it wouldn’t help you if you were a couple days out into the Alaskan bush. Her opinion was that Simms is better out of the box.
I ended up with a set of Simms L2’s and couldn’t be happier. Love ’em.
Now that was overheard by a salesperson. Maybe Cabelas makes a higher margin on Simms, I dunno. But it was enough to keep me from buying the Cabelas (and enough where I bought locally rather than from Cabelas).
To keep costs down, many products are percentage tested…
They make 100, and test 20 of the batch, thus a 20percent test ratio, if 2 of the 20 tested are faulty, then they have a 20percent fail rate… some companies accept a 20 percent fail rate… and ensure that they have great back up to replace the failed product quickly and effectively… they then replace the failed product with a “tested” one, ensuring the customer does not have 2 bad units, in a row…
This kind of testing is common in many areas, from IT to toys…
Simms and other premium Fly Fishing product manufactures, test each and every one of there premium products, thus they tend to work first time, every time… you pay for the testing as it is labour intensive, but then you get what you pay for…
Personally, I seldom have to wear waders and own an old pair of rubber waders, they might see action once or twice a year, tops… I did not use them last year…
Mike
Hi Aaron
Yes you can catch them on fly, they are an awesome fresh water game fish… Deceivers and Clousers… mute colors, but they have to have a tiny splash of red…
BRoss
The goliath was only in one lake and has been introduced into a couple now, but you are quite right, they are very limited in distribution. I would not recommend that they are the only species you target on an African trip.
And yes, South Africa make an excellent fishing destination,
Northern Mozambique for some salt…
Vaal River for some Large Mouth Yellows…
Okavango for some Tigers and Game viewing…
Kenya for some Nile Pearch and more Game viewing…Three weeks of some serious destinations and the only expensive bits would be the air travel… you will be well fished out and have seen some serious parts of the world…
Mike
Tigerfish – they’re real. Live in S. Africa and Namibia, right, Mike?
What’s interesting to me is that its *upper* jaw appears to be able to open; I have never seen that on a fish before.
Ugly bastards.
Zach
Yip, that be a real fish… and I doubt that that one went back; it is a large specimen, probably on a wall somewhere now.
Nothing ugly about the regular ones, the giants tend to loose some colour…
That looks like it might be Cahora Basa, they were relocated there in the mid 80’s… it is a large impoundment on the lower Zambezi, there are no records of that species being introduced into Lake Kariba, but there are some guy who say it was done on the sly…
The goliaths were originally in just one of the African great lakes and became a generic mutation…
The common strain only gets to about 20lbs, but they fight like demons… they make incredibly fast and hard runs, they get air-born often and in the first few runs, you might be fighting the fish in the air for half the fight.But they live in warm water where the air temp is in the upper 90’s and often pressing into the 100’s and in some cases upper 100’s, so the fish build lactic acid quickly and even big ones are landed quickly… if you can keep the hook in that bony mouth… 50% of them will throw the hook in the first jump…it is an incredible sound, they chatter their teeth as they jump and you can hear it ½ a mile away. BTW those teeth are not for show, they WILL take your finger clean off, through the bone…
They have an incredible turn of speed, the fastest fresh water fish by a long way… but it is not only the fish… to catch them you need to be in the remote parts of Africa and often you will have Elephant, Rhino’s and all sorts of game feeding on the banks of the river, less than a good cast away and you in this little boat.
And yes, I would not swim anywhere you would find Tigers… there are three things in Tiger water,
Hippos – they kill more people in Africa that any other large animal.
Crocks – self explanatory.
Vundoo – a monster barble (catfish, in your terms) that have been recorded up to 10 feet.
Also, Tigers are in Malaria areas…Not to put you off, they are great fish and catching them is half the fun, the rest is in the surroundings, the scenery and the environment…
Guys, if you want the best holiday you will ever have, get yourselves down this part of the world, the big ticket is the air fare, the rest you can do at a fraction of the price you would expect.
So by now your Google’ing tiger fishing…
I’ll save you some time…
http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/tigerfish/
http://www.flycastaway.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3&Itemid=5
There are lots of things the make the underwater shots work, and before I go much further, I AM NO EXPERT… and these are not my shots, nor do I take good underwater pictures…
Here are 3.
1.Zach, when are the hats being sent out??? I am have got some great ideas for this… it will be tough to get to that fishing lodge, but I might have to make a plan…
…hopefully we can hookup with Mike in the near future…
Whats that??? You guys coming down to visit and personaly drop off those hats???? Great, can’t wait… I will drag you guys off some Tiggers and Largemouth Yellowfish… the we can head over to the game parks for a Safari and then disapear into the mountains for some small stream stufff… I got it all planned alread… it’s going to be a blast…
😉Mike
OK guys…I gotta throw a flag on the REM conversation.
15 yards, personal foul, for terrible, corny and cheesy music.
Tim, no man, I agree that there are other albums that are pretty shocking, But Automatic for the People, has to be one of the finest albums ever…
So Tim, let me ask you this…
If it were Pink Floyd? or which band would you ask???Mike –
The song is “South Coast of Texas” by Guy Clark and it’s on the Let’s Step Outside album. The Amazon address to buy the album is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Step-Outside-Various-Artists/dp/B000FC2F10
The first Old Crow album I’d buy would be “Old Crow Medicine Show” (their self-titled 2004 album). It’s got “Wagon Wheel” on it, which is most people’s favorite song, but it’s a solid album all the way through.
REM’s gotta be “Automatic for the People” (no brainer). 🙂
Zach
Thanks Zach, I will find a non-i-Tunes down load…
And REM = Auto, correct…
Zach answer me this then…
If I asked you which REM album to buy first, which would it be??
Then which Old Crow medicine Show album do I buy first???
Ummm, now let me see, monthly band width cap = 2gb, when will this months be finished, Sunday…
Cheers Zach, I hope your going to keep it up todate? and on one of the casts, there is a song about a shrimpers off to Mexico… I need that song on my i-Pod… which album is it on???
Remebering, I ain’t got no iTunes account, due to being in SA, and all…
Have to say that pasion like that will take you places…
Loved that one…
Keep nailing them Zach, youre interview process is really good.I am keen to get into this, I have been listing to the music on Zach’s pod casts, but I am still a little lost. So I downloaded a few Bluegrass pod casts, but that didn’t help…
Zach, I love the fishing music that you have, please will you put down the artists that you have on your pod casts.
Please will you guys point me at links that you believe is decent music…
Mike
Ceul
PM me the total costs as soon as you have them and I’ll get signing, the postal adress is in Johannesburg, for getting the postal costs…
Um, Mike, I don’t think I’m that sophisticated, man. I’d love to have like an SSL-encrypted order sheet for you, but I don’t know how to implement it and it *might* be overkill a little bit. 🙂
Zach
OK, so I was “working” while I typed that… trying to get some details into a document out lining what the client needs to do to secure his order…
What I meant is, create PDF or Word doc with your banking details, so we can transfer the cash into your account and a place for us to fill out our name and postal address…
You are probably going to say something about paypal, and that we can use that, but unfortunately us lowly South Africans are not aloud to have paypal accounts, something to do with the way the banks cannot handle the transfers, and I don’t have an international CC, that other moronic thing is that I cannot have an i-Tunes account either… I am slowly tearing my hair out.
… For a reel, I went with the South African Abel, I mean the Shilton 😀 The only thing it’s missing is an outgoing click and about $300 on the price tag. …
Nice choice in reel… (he he)
Great setup, Scott with a Shilton on it…
I agree completely, Shilton 5, will be half the price. I spooled one with 150 yards of 30lbs Sci Angler backing, with a Striped Bass taper and if I had stuck gelspun on; it would have taken 250 to 300 yards. But I recon if a fish pulls more than 150 yards of string, unless it’s a Tarpon, your beat…
The Shilton is a great reels, I have seen a Shilton 6 land a 102cm (fl) Giant Travely (GT), that take some doing…
On the theory that most other guys are professing, I recommend you have a look at them… if you need more info, PM me and I will get the info needed.
So what rod, well the Sages are always going to play, so are the balance of the premiums, Scott have awesome rods, T&T have stunners, Orvis is coming back nicely, and all the others… Also have a look at the TFO’s… If I were to take a general purpose, alround 9’ 9w, it would have to be a Sage TCR, if it were to be a Salt Water stick only, then the Xi2…
