Taste of fly fishing in Africa

So while i wait for heaters to take the chill off the shop, i thought i would share this video with the fisherman on here.

My new Canadian sent me this link to a trip he took to Lesotho before leaving South Africa to come live in Canada.

Frankly it made me homesick. As much as i love Canada once u have had a taste of Africa it never leaves u.

For those not good on geography Lesotho is a small mountainous country within the borders of South Africa. Its a kingdom with a Parliament and a Monarch. Famous for the Basotho pony a very sure footed animal that is the primary means of villagers getting around. Video will show u state of roads within the Kingdom.

The guys are fishing yellow fish, i never knew that one could catch them on fly they bottom feeders normally so not nice to eat in my opinion but these guys all do catch and release.

Video explains the rest.....enjoy a taste of true Africa without crap of violence crime and poverty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9bZQ9XI_Ks

Alright, I need to get up to the lake and do some fishing again. That just looks so relaxing.

I have to say Rob that the countryside looks very similar to big chunks of the North American West Coast except the fish tend to be edible

Pretty neat looking country alright, but you can tell its also fairly lean and dry up in those mountains.

Funny, We call those carp around here. Although I do know there is a growing interest in fly fishing them. I spent my youth fishing for lunker carp and catfish around Lansing mi. I took a European guy fishing in the U.P. a few years ago and when I mentioned a passing carp as a "junk Fish" he got quite excitable and incensed. Claimed they were a trophy fish to catch back in the home country. They do put up a great fight. We also spent a lot of time bow fishing them and my largest was somewhere around 35#. We used them for fertilizer and I also smoked a bunch a few times for bear bait.

I really don't care what kind of fish I get hooked up with, the ensuing battle is what is fun. Right now I am going a little crazy knowing the steelhead trout are running in the local streams. I am going to play hooky one of these days and go soak a line.

Very cool video, Rob. Great camera and editing work. Those yellowfish appear to be some type of carp. I can imagine they're not good eating at all, based on my one brief experience trying to eat carp back when I was a kid. (I had caught a large one, so my grandpa decided to show me why they're usually not eaten here, lol.)

Glad ya all enjoyed the video, just to set the record straight these fish are not carp. Yes they look very similar, and in SA there are carp and in fact there are carp and yellow fish in some of the same rivers.
Both are non edible in my view.
Carp have a darker edge to their scale and it their back ends up being darker. Easy to mistake one for the other.

What makes matters worse in the tastes stakes is the fact that most Southern African rivers run muddy when they do run.
The video is shot in the Lesotho highlands which provides similar river to what we get in NA as its snow melt that provides the water.

The rest are more a case of rainfall runoff with fair amount of soil erosion making them muddy.

Even the non indigenous trout can taste like mud, and the stocked ones not much better.

Paul i am planning on going Steelhead fishing some time soon just this weather is causing issues with water levels in our rivers.

Well Rob, I suspected those fish weren't really carp, I did notice a few anatomical differences, like the mouth. We have several varieties in our state and lots of different kinds of suckers. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a slight dig. A guy has to fish, and if there isn't much choice you make do with what is there. I am blessed to live in the state surrounded by the Great Lakes and there is almost unlimited choices. I do plan trips to the ocean, more often in my mind, as that kind of fishing is great fun.

As far as the mud thing, I do know folks that catch fish and transfer them to either a bathtub or some other holding tank with water running into it constantly. The fish are held there sometimes for several months and fed and allowed to clean out. The mud taste will allegedly go away after a time. The other "trick" I employ with virtually all the fish I eat is to soak the filleted and skinned meat in water with baking soda, about a tablespoon per gallon. This will clean off any of the bad tasting slime one gets on the meat when cleaning, and greatly improve the taste. I have taken river caught Smallmouth Bass and Summer caught Largemouth Bass and had folks think it was walleye. Really. Converted non fish eaters with this trick.