Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Southern Africa's signature fly rod fish is the yellowfish, in two main forms: largemouth, a wary predator that reaches about 20 pounds, and smallmouth, which sit in trout-like water in big numbers and rise freely to dry flies. Trout stocked over a century ago fill the mountain regions, and December is the region's summer.
Pieter Snyders is a South African guide and competitive angler who owns Stream and Sea, running hosted and guided fly fishing trips across southern Africa.
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What does southern Africa mean for fly fishing?
Southern Africa as a fishing region covers South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, part of Zambia, Namibia and Botswana. The most popular fly rod targets in that region are the yellowfish species, with tigerfish the other name most visiting anglers know. Trout were introduced to the mountain regions of South Africa more than a hundred years ago and to Lesotho in the 1970s, so there is genuine trout fishing on top of the native species, plus stocked lakes.
What is a yellowfish and how does it fight?
The guest compares yellowfish less to carp than to a North American fallfish or whitefish - more aggressive, and caught on tactics closer to smallmouth bass. Largemouth yellowfish are the bigger of the two, with a trophy around 20 pounds, and they fight in a burst: everything in the first two seconds, then they quit, though they will still snap 15-pound tippet in that first surge. Smallmouth yellowfish do the opposite, running hard enough to reach the backing after a dry fly eat, and the guest's best landed smallmouth yellowfish is nine or ten pounds with fish in the 14 to 15 pound range lost. A big smallmouth stops growing in length and goes deep and broad, with a sharp tail that gives it a bonefish-like run in shallow riffles.
Why are largemouth yellowfish so hard to catch?
Largemouth yellowfish behave more like muskie than trout - if the weather or the moon phase is off, they simply will not eat, and a whole day can pass without a fish while the angler doubts they are even present. Then a morning comes where two casts bring two fish. Largemouth yellowfish will also follow a fly all the way to the rod tip without committing, which is why the guest puts them in permit territory for wariness.
How do you nymph for smallmouth yellowfish?
Smallmouth yellowfish sit in water that looks like trout water but they never hold static - they move in and out of pockets, feed upstream and downstream, and constantly change direction, which makes hook sets hard against their soft mouths. The guest fishes euro nymph tactics with 2- to 5-weight rods, currently experimenting with an 11-foot 2-weight, and uses tippet from 7X up to 3X depending on what he is prepared to hook. Rather than a dead drift, he adds small activations - half-inch lifts marked against a sighter - which imitates rising caddis pupae at certain times of day and helps him detect and set on those fast, dynamic takes.
When do yellowfish rise to dry flies?
Yellowfish switch to the surface in clear water with limited subsurface food and warming temperatures, which is why hosted trips are booked at venues with those conditions rather than at general day-fishing water. In one clear stretch of a big river the guest sight fishes over schools where a fish will peel out of a group of a hundred to eat a drag-free drift. Yellowfish will also compound-rise, tracking a dry downstream like a cutthroat, and the guest has seen them hang vertically in the water column following a fly before eating it. Flies range from size 10 hoppers slapped down hard to size 18 dries when the fish get selective.
What dry fly does the guest use for the last half hour of light?
The guest built his mayfly pattern around the problem that CDC has to be dried and treated after every fish, which wastes the 30 minutes of evening hatch when 10 to 20 fish are possible. He ties a split wing from sculpting fiber or stiff poly yarn on a klinkhamer-style hook so the body hangs in the film and only the wing shows, then adds a little UV dubbing. The poly wing stays visible in low light, sits low like a stuck-in-the-shuck emerger rather than riding high, and can be cleared of slime and water with a single blow before the next cast. The same pattern has worked for him in both mayfly and caddis hatches, and in spinner falls.
How much does a guided fly fishing trip to South Africa cost?
The guest puts guided fishing at roughly 700 to 800 dollars for five or six days, which the exchange rate makes far cheaper than an equivalent US trip. Southern Africa's summer runs opposite to the northern hemisphere - December is high summer at about 86 degrees, and winter is a three-month stretch where a cool day is around 60 degrees - giving roughly nine months of good fishing. Travel days are short enough that a game drive and a river day can sit back to back, and DIY options exist alongside guided days.
Key takeaways
- Yellowfish come in two forms worth knowing: largemouth to about 20 pounds and permit-level wary, and smallmouth in prolific numbers that rise to dries.
- Fish euro nymph tactics for smallmouth yellowfish on a 2- to 5-weight, and add small half-inch activations rather than a pure dead drift.
- Do not fight smallmouth yellowfish hard on light rods - manipulating the rod and refusing to give line works better than pressure that makes them fight back.
- Match tippet to what you might actually hook: a 20-pound catfish or a 30-pound carp can eat a nymph meant for a two-pound yellowfish.
- Poly or sculpting-fiber split wings beat CDC for evening hatches because the fly can be cleared with one blow and put straight back on the water.
- December is high summer in southern Africa at about 86 degrees, and guided fishing runs roughly 700 to 800 dollars for five or six days.
