Wickhams Country Retreat

The rolling hills of Dullstroom hold many wonders that are waiting for visitors to roam, explore and enjoy. The newly refurbished Wickhams Retreat offers the adventurous spirit the perfect secluded getaway for guests to escape and enjoy the countryside.

Owners, Mitch and Deejay, have drawn inspiration from the Eden project in Cornwall England to bring a Retreat to Wickhams. There; a disused china clay pit, totally sterile 20 years ago is now described as a “cradle of life”. Its scale is beyond comprehension, but its principles, is what Mitch and Deejay have drawn inspiration from for their Retreat.

Wickhams Retreat boasts 12 fly fishing dams fully stocked with Rainbow & Brown Trout. All dams are easily accessible and managed on a catch and release policy only. Please note that Wickhams do not offer day fishing, fishing is only available to guests that are staying with them.

For more information please visit: https://www.wickhamsretreat.co.za/

The Pines Country Cottage

The Mpumalanga Fly Fishing Association was granted access to the two dams close to the Pines Country Cottage at Wickhams Country Retreat – a self catering pet friendly cottage sleeping six. The Pines boast 2 sizeable dams large enough for float tubes. Both dams are fed by a natural spring that runs through the dams creating natural inlets and outlets. Stocking of the dams are managed by John Hunter from the Village Angler and the dams have both rainbow and brown trout.

In a three hour competitive bank session, anglers are split between the dams into two teams of three anglers, the anglers are then further split into specific pre-marked beats and rotate every 45 minutes. We moved our anglers 2 beat places to make sure every angler has equal opportunity and fish most of the available water. This configuration made sure that every angler fished two thirds of both dams eliminating any angler from unfair advantage.

We had six anglers competing in bank sessions at The Pines in three different sessions – in total we had 18 anglers roaming the banks of the Pines searching for that trophy brown.

Due to cold, rainy conditions with thick mist the fishing was really tough but some really nice specimens were taken including three brown trout over the 50cm mark. Some really big fish was lost with a number of anglers being broken by trophy sized specimens. Naturally coloured streamer patterns seemed to do most of the damage but fish were also keen on some small dry flies.