On a recent trip to the Breede with MC Coetzer, Denton Ingham-Brown and Jannie Visser, we were met by really tough conditions. Lots of fresh water run-off after heavy rains.

We were chasing grunter and it was not going well. At dead low Jannie and I spotted a dead fish. It was a nice grunter and recently dead, no rigor mortis yet. We decided to do a bit of a photo session and planned to tell MC and Denton that the fish were thick and Jannie got onlu the one after countless shots at tailing fish. It obviously worked. MC was pissed with not getting  agrunter himself and Denton was furious because we killed a fish (tasted great by the way)

Eventually we told the truth and had a good laugh.

Jannie and I had a good practice session in wich we could take our time and try different angles, some luxury one do not have every day. I like the shot with the bird in the background. Amazing how dead the fish looks!

Not long after that, also very early season, I was on the same flat with Jannie. He spotted a single cruiser, and pinned it on the second cast. Epic work, fish released!

Amzing how the eyes of a live fish differ from taht of a dead one.

This fish eventually made it onto the cover of the Complete Fly Fisherman magazine. Well done Jannie!

I love coming home for any amount of time. Not only are there a ton of surf  spots that crank! There is more fishing than one knows what to do with! With two weeks to kill and a trail run as the only fixed commitment a little planning is not a bad idea. So I thought I’d share my immediate options.

All within 40kms of Mom and Dad’s home. Options, options, options!

Forget the fact that there are Yellowfish down the road and great trout fishing around the Cango Caves area. Forget the estuaries in the Mosselbay area – Hartenbos, Little Brak and Great Brak. I’m thinking closer to home… Knysna. Home. A massive twisting system of channels, mud and sand banks. The options are endless with great catches of Grunter, Leerie, Kob and Steenies being recorded annually. And every now and again throws a surprise out with a Skippie, shark, Mussel Cracker or, more rarely, Dorado!

The Knysna Heads and a corner of the Leisure Isle flats.

Knysna with Pezula in the foreground.

Goukamma is unfortunately closed. May have to prospect for some Kob in the deeper holes but the grunter aren’t going to be too happy without regular push of the tide.

Goukamma Estuary

Same goes for Sedgefield and Swartvlei – again no tides. But Swartvlei provides a interesting experience for those willing to put the time in. BIG Leerie and Kob inhabit this deep lake. This makes me sad because it is by far my favourite challenge. Tailing grunts in crystal clear knee deep water, all as spooky as any Permit!

The Sedgefield River mouth stretching to Swartvlei in the distance.

Grunter playgrounds at Sedgies

A little further down the road is the Touws River system at Wilderness. The Touws itself is well known for its Leerie population but joins up with Island Lake which also has damn big Leerie in it!

Island Lake

The Touws River at Wilderness stretching to The Lakes region (Island Lake, Langevlei, Rondevlei and Swartvlei in the distance) of the Southern Cape. Not to mention all those potential Kob holes along the beach!

From a fresh water perspective, after a few days of winter sun the big Bass of Groenvlei start to move. This natural freshwater lake for a long time held the SA Bass record. Its white sandy bottom and reeded edges also makes it one of the prettiest lakes that one could hope to fish.

Groenvlei

And then there are the Brown’s of the Knysna Forest. These piscatorial delights require some serious exploration, pliable farmers and a 4×4. But an easier option is the Kwaai River at The Outeniqua Trout. Easy to access and full of skittish browns. There is also the Keurbooms itself which has no shortage of Rainbow Trout for a keen fisherman to terrorise. And the Keurbooms is quite unique in that you can catch a Leerie or Grunter in the morning and a trout in the afternoon. The Ultimate Slam – a Leerie, Grunter, Rainbow and Brown from a single river?

Keurbooms

Nothing like a little Brown while Loeries fly overhead and you’re hoping for a sneaky Forest Elephant to come say hello!

Forest brown detail

All in all I don’t think I have problem with options. Although I may well have difficulty picking!

After yesterday’s frustration with murky water, today I headed towards the Heads and fished the flats around the “Grass Atoll” – small mud bank whose sedge grass resembles the shape of a tropical atoll. It’s a spot where we’ve got grunter before and also Steenies on prawns. I’ve been wanting to fish a pushing spring tide here for awhile but timing and weather have been off for the last few seasons!

The view to the Heads from the sand flats with the already arriving weather!

I started on the sand flat across the main channel from Leisure Isle but had no joy. The tide was pushing hard while the wind was humping and I felt I was losing sighting opportunities in the deepening water. I packed up and had a quick paddle across a shallow channel to the grass flats. I found myself in the spot I wanted to be. And I was soon rewarded with tails. Game on!

The grunts were clearly visible in the crystal clear water and consequently were super skittish. I made several presentations which were all denied. I felt the unweighted fly was moving far too quickly in the strong current. The tidal push in this area of the lagoon is particularly strong during the spring cycle. The shallow banks lie directly in the path of the main current that pushes in from the ocean. The water floods the banks at a rate that can be easily be seen minute to minute. This of course means that the fish feeding over the flats move really quickly and your fly and line is hugely affected by drag. My fly was neither getting down quickly enough nor was it behaving like a natural prawn.

I changed to a weighted fly, not unlike Henkie’s Prawn Fly, and started working the current again. While I had no shortage of targets, I felt as though I was spending more time watching my fly line and fly than them! The heavy weather to west was incoming and placed a definite time limit on my sight fishing time!

I decided to move out of the water and take up position in the sedge on the island. Although I worried that I was moving too far from the feeding fish, my choice was vindicated a while later when a shoal of 10 to 15 fish moved along the grass fringe of the ‘atoll’ feeding hard. My position meant that I was able to present very close to the sedge. Most of my leader was on the grass while fly landed in a small eddy created around the grass.  I believe that it was this fortune that allowed the fly get to the bottom without being washed away before the grunts arrived.

The rest was textbook. A fish in of the shoal tailed over the prawn, I tightened up the line slightly, felt a solid weight and allowed the fish to do the rest! Fish On!

It’s been a long time since I got a Grunt in this lagoon. I was thoroughly stoked! Time to get a photo! I popped the grunt into the bottom of the canoe and splashed enough water over the gunwales for it to be able to pump water though its gills. I’ve taken to carrying a tripod when fishing on my own simply because it makes taking decent selfies possible (although there is still a little guesswork and lots of frustrations). I set it up and got off few selftimer shots.

Yes, I’m happy. The Knysna Grunts have been eluding me for a quite a while now!

I wanted to get a release shot along the fish’s back with the Heads in the distance but as I removed my camera from the tripod, it took a glorious swan dive into the lagoon!

It happened so quickly! As I released the camera from the tripod, the now revived Grunt took off between my legs – I lost grip on the strap while trying to not break my favourite #7. The following seconds must have looked ridiculous to anybody watching from shore! I was swinging the camera around my head to get water out of the lens while hopping and jumping over line and rod!

A costly grunt. But the camera is working (got to love those tough Nikons) although there is salt in all the joints and buttons. It’ll need a service. My lens isn’t so happy. Needless to say I got no more photos today!

By the time I had sorted this debacle out the rain had arrived. I changed to a mini NYAP and while working the channel dropoff I managed to pick up two juvenile Garrick before heading home.

What a day!

Beautiful sunset with the dropping tide

By Leonard Flemming

Striped mullet has been on my list for a very long time. Billy De Jong and I tried to catch them years ago and although we nailed hundreds of southern mullet and Cape moonies by tossing bread flies in the chum line we created, we didn’t come right with the big stripers/turquoise tails/springers, whichever name you know them by.

During my saltwater fishing trips in the past year, I observed shoals of striped mullet “tailing” on eel grass flats in a tidal lagoon near Arniston. After I chucked carefully selected flies at the big turquoise tails (hence the nickname) with no success I realised that these fish were not so easy to target with rod and reel. In the Guide to Common Sea Fishes of Southern Africa, it is mentioned that these fish prefer feeding on microscopic algae, which is also the most likely food particles they were after on the eel grass flats.

I visited Philip Meyer’s fly shop, Winelands Fly Fishing, on Friday and had a brief chat about these fish. I believe Philip was one of the pioneers in cracking the code to consistently catch these fish on fly in the Western Cape estuaries. Philip revealed interesting tips in the conversation:

Tip no. 1 – chum with large pieces of bread

Tip no. 2 – add some anchovy oil to the mix

Tip no. 3 – Use a big hook, #4 (stainless to prevent corrosion), in the “bread” fly

Tip no. 4 – wave your stick at the sea gulls to chase them away from the chum line

Hungry Cape francolin were also keen on the bread

So off I went on Saturday to scout for saltwater species on the flats and have a crack at these mullets. The day was a disaster. When you are presented with a window period of approx. three hours to fish for kob, grunter, garrick, steenbras, stumpnose and finally mullet, you end up wasting most of the time on tailing grunter.

I was in time to observe a very big striped mullet inhale my large chartreuse strike indicator before the murky and cold river water passed over the eel grass flat on the outgoing tide. I drew a blank and drove home feeling sick. I was sick of fussy grunter, sick of not coming right with striped mullet and sick of the smell of anchovy oil on my hands.

The Sunday morning my wife, Michelle, had a good chuckle in bed after I told her my depressing story. Then she asked me inquisitively about the rising mullets. I told her how insane it looked when the shoals of fish came to the surface to gobble up the bread and how one of them swallowed a strike indicator the size of a match box. She insisted tying some flies for me and that we return to give the mullet another shot in the afternoon.

Our timing was good and we arrived as the first blue water pushed into the mouth of the lagoon. I begged her for a shot at the grunter first and she agreed. As on the previous day, grunter were tailing aggressively over the sand flats, but they were not eating the fly. One fish followed the prawn imitation to my feet and only spooked when it finally saw my wading shoes. This time, having a woman to run the schedule, the grunter fishing was cut short and we headed off to target the mullets.

I created a chum line and the gulls were the first to show up. The tide was still pushing hard and it swept the bread away and into the middle of the river channel. I kept the gulls at a distance with my 9 wt and continued to chum close to the bank. About ten minutes into the chumming procedure, the mullets started boiling between the floating bread crusts that were furthest away from us. It was too far for Michelle to reach with her 6 wt, but I managed to reach the distance with my 9 wt and a weight forward floating line.

My first striped mullet

The big yarn fly landed in the frenzy of mullets sucking and slurping at the bread and a fish ate it straight away. The fight was not much to write home about, but at last I had my striped mullet in hand. We continued fishing for them and caught several more before the muddy river water passed us on the outgoing tide. Some of the mullet pulled really hard with their large torpedo bodies and wide caudal fins. About half the fish we hooked pulled a few dirty tricks on us by digging head first into the weed and managing to free themselves. We finally left the place with a brace of mullet for the grill.

A brace of mullet for the grill

Evening landscape of the lagoon mouth

Ps – you can be sure that I will inspect the stomach contents thoroughly when gutting these fish!

Success is a cool concept. No matter where you find it, success brings a smile and happiness. Tim sent me these photos of Dave – the junior fly tier from my Part 4 Post – fighting and landing a tasty Rainbow that he caught on one of the creations he came up with while behind my vice. He’s now begging for a kit for his birthday! Haha! Love it!

Today I planned to spend the push on the flats and chase a few more Grunter. I arrived just before the dead low and immediately saw a brace of fish on the edge of a channel. There was no reaction to the fly, they didn’t seem to be feeding and swam happily into the depths after two more presentations. A thin layer of high altitude cloud had moved in which, when coupled with a light breeze, reduces visible area on the flats around you. I felt like I was hacking – I saw two more individual fish but both saw me first.

Clear water and wide open space!

Fresh blow hole – the fish were there, I was just struggling to see them!

And then I found a dead grunter. Its gills and guts had been torn out.

This typical behaviour of the resident Cape Fur Seal in the lagoon. He’s lazy and it’s not the first time we’ve seen his handiwork. My folks once saw him catch and gut seven big grunter in 15 minutes up at the Red Bridge. Damn seal, it was nice grunt too!

Then, out in the channel, all hell erupted! A Garrick tore into a shoal of mullet. And then again. And again. I tried in vain to reach them a cast. No ways! They were too far out and I was in peril of flooding my waders. So begrudgingly I grabbed my light spinning rod (which is carried for times like these) and tossed out a surface walker. Boom! Fish on.

Over the next two hours I landed 9 Garrick and lost a several more – one of which totally smoked me!

So, as Pete said later, I am now – 9 Garrick on fly for this trip. Well, actually – 8, counting the one a couple of days ago. So I’ve delayed my trip back to CT by a morning and hopefully I can get that number down a bit!

It was at a time that I was scrambling for a formula that worked for Garden Route Grunter, long before I realised there were many formulas, for many situations.

Id been up every weekend for a year, walking, wishing & working.  A process that I enjoy far more than any other aspect of the sport.  The grass banks in Sedgefield had moved and a big tide had laid them flat.  This isn’t like turtle grass.  Think soft pine needles.

Id watched these fish tail on the dropping tide and had tried the usual trick of casting to tailing fish, but with a closing mouth it had become harder and harder to predict this behaviour.  I had a nap in the grass and then noticed something.  Thousands of tiny crown crabs on the lagoon banks.  I didn’t know it at the time, but id stumbled accross a hatch.  To make matters worse (or better for the fish), was that the grass cover had all washed away.  Could they be eating these?

It called for a new approach, kneeling on the grass and adjusting my eyes to pick colour rather than contrast over the dark grass.  I only had one crab fly, a little Turneffe crab that was left over from a Seychelles trip in dark brown.

A group of 3 small fish was cruising on the grass, pectorals splayed and relaxed.  What happened next seemed ridiculous, particularly after a year of presenting in the same lagoon thousands of times with no result.  The lead fish just swam up and sucked it in.  I was so shocked I struggled to react, and eventually did a half ass hook set.  I pulled the fish straight to my feet before it came off.  The fly was now destroyed, so I returned to friends house and tied 5 or 6 different variations after taking pictures of the tiny hatch crabs.

The next morning was perfect, and yielded a perfect result.  The first fish that swam by sucked up, I pinned it and the hook pulled.  I turned to see a tail out proudly behind me, and without needing to cast dropped the fly almost too close.  It slid down the tail of the fish and the reaction was priceless. I didn’t even need to strip it was sucked in so deep.  I had to head back to Cape Town, and somehow managed another little guy before hitting the road.

I thought Id cracked the code.  Nope.  Id cracked “a” code, but it was a great feeling while it lasted.  Ill be up there this year, looking for those little crabs.

While scrolling through my most recent photo folders I realised that the winter of 2014 was a tough fishing season. Besides a few fat striped mullet, some sand sharks, stillwater trout and the odd winter carp, there weren’t personal catches to rave about.

All the spectacular fishing action happened on companion’s rod & lines. This past weekend was one of those outings where I had the privilege to watch other guys make the fish pay their dues to entertain us. It started late Friday night at the Breede River mouth when Chase Nicholson hooked a grunter on a kob fly. I got very excited about the whole thing because Chase had shown me the fly earlier in the evening and I discovered a big glass rattler inside it. The first thought that came to my mind was that the grunter picked up the noise in the dark, which was likely the key in inducing the strike, but when I questioned Chase about it he mentioned that the rattler broke soon after he started fishing and that it wasn’t present when he hooked the grunter. What was even more mind boggling was that the grunter was hooked with a silicone deceiver in front of an eye socket. It took us all (Chase, myself, Richard Wale and Nick van Rensburg) a while to let go of the puzzling event and we congratulated Chase on his wonderful catch.

We didn’t get much sleep that night and were up and out on the Breede mud flats early the next morning. After a nail-biting session with grunter tailing as close as 4 meters from our feet in the morning (without any luck of course), Chase, Nick and I headed back to the mouth in the afternoon to fish the channels with streamers in search of garrick. It didn’t take Chase long to cast a paddle tail out on spinning gear and he hooked up with a lovely leerie. High fives were handed out during the fight and then I got my camera ready for the mug shot.

I strolled closer to the water edge to tail his catch. As I grabbed the fish by the tail I noticed that his lure was right next to my hand. The fish was never hooked, Chase’s line lassoed its tail and he managed to pull the garrick in without the hook ever penetrating the flesh of the fish. I captured some images of the remarkable catch and mentioned how lucky he was to land both the grunter and the leerie. Chase replied and said: “I’d like to see you do that”. There wasn’t much more to say, he was right, there was no chance in hell that I’d ever pull that off.

The other memorable outing was a trip to Langebaan with Richard Wale and Matt Rich. Their introduction to sand shark fishing wasn’t great. We spent hours wading over the shark-infested flats and casting to cruising guitarfish, but the sharks were incredibly spooky and neither tiddlers nor mothers. After Matt and Rich broke their sand shark virginities we finally left the exposed flats on the peak low to search for other species in the surf zone beyond Club Mykonos.

It didn’t take Matt and Richard long to catch a blacktail each in the waves. The greedy fish took # 1/0 pink Charlies and both were hooked well in the mouth. Richard’s was the fish of the day and I could tell he was feeling the joy when he couldn’t hold it still for a photograph. Then something amazing happened. Just after Richard released his blacktail, a steenbras of over 10 kg tailed right next to us. Before either of us could fling a fly in its direction, it swam off the shallow sand bar where it hunted prawns and into deeper water beyond our reach.

It was barely half an hour later when two kob of more than a meter in length swam past us. They swam straight to the rocky outcrop we were fishing from and nonchalantly stared at us from the clear deep water. At this point we couldn’t contain ourselves any more. Rods were flung back and forth and flies travelled past our heads and dangerously close to our ears as we attempted to get a shot at the fish. The kob swam straight past my streamer and into deeper water where we lost sight of them. Although we landed some good fish that day, it was quiet in the car on the drive home. Perhaps it was just me, but it’s possible that all three of us felt a little done in after the effort we put into the day and seeing what was out there.

A few months ago I had a good chuckle on Facebook when a friend took a bit of abuse because of an old worn out cap he had on.  His last response was, “..well say what you want, lucky caps catch fish”.

Ray has a lucky buff, I have a lucky hat, and Francois has a lucky shirt.  It worked in St Brandon, It worked in Farquhar, it worked in the Breede.  Not surprisingly it was caught on one of Ian Kitchings lucky segmented deer hair prawns.  He also had lucky charms for breakfast before heading out.  Lucky fish.

Early season grunter fishing can be a serious hit and miss affair, but on a recent trip a few buddies and I scored auspiciously. On our second day, Jannie came across a pod of fish feeding on a sand flat on the edge of a grass bed, in fairly murky rainwater run-off. What made their behavior odd was that this feeding happened quite far into the pushing tide and early on in the falling tide when this part of the sand flat was quite deep. Although there must have been enough water for them to feed in on lower tides, they definitely preferred the deeper stuff. This meant that no tails were ever seen, despite the fact that they were tailing hard.

Mike Gradidge with his firts grunter of the trip

What you had to look for was a boil-like disturbance on the surface of the water, caused by a fish tailing below. Our group referred to these as ‘pancakes’, and we had a blast casting to them whenever the tides were right. Sight fishing to pancakes required quick and accurate casting, and one had to put the fly on the pancake while it was still cooking. If one failed to cover the pancake quick enough, the chances of a hookup became very slim. We only caught fish on JAM flies and all the takes were on the bottom.

grunter at first light

Spotting pancakes in windy conditions proved to be quite a challenge

Glassy conditions, on the other hand, made spotting pancakes a pleasure

All the fish were taken on Jam flies

The best part of this fishing was that the flat was right in front of the house that we were staying in. Many mornings started off with the lazy sipping coffee on the stoep, but quickly turned into a frenzy of climbing into waders, grabbing tackle and rods and sprinting down the bank after someone saw a large concentration of pancakes somewhere on the flat.

Mike with a surprise catch; a good size Cape Stumnose feeding among the grunter

I found that waist deep was the consistent depth and this presented some problems of it’s own. Waist deep meant that the line was washing about in the regular shopping-type stripping baskets, causing all sorts of problems when making quick casts. Luckily I had a waterproof stripping basket, which floated on the surface and made line management a pleasure in deep water. This paid off on one particular morning when the grunter were keeping their distance and slightly longer casts were needed. I felt the advantage and could quickly cover a pancake while it was still cooking and awarded me 5 fish during session, equaling my previous personal best tally.

Jannie with one from the shallow sand

As the trip progressed, the tides changed, and so did the grunters’ behavior. They eventually stopped feeding in the deep-water sand bars, but we then encountered them elsewhere at their regular haunts. One of my most memorable fish was wallowing on a mudflat in mere inches of water when I took a shot at it, standing high and dry on the bank. It picked up my JAM fly and after setting the hook, it proceeded to rooster-tail out of the shallows trying to get to the safety of the deeper water. Jannie concluded the trip by sight casting to cruising fish on the main sandbank and landed two fish in quick succession in the dying minutes of our trip, one being an absolute bus of close to 70 cm.

Jannie with the last fish of the trip

trophy grunter

Saltwater fly-fishing in the western cape can be a very unforgiving affair. Blank days are very common; in fact, it’s part of the parcel. But we all have those days when the river lifts her skirt and everything seems to fall into place. A while ago my buddies and I experienced this bounty. But nothing is a given; one has to be able to adapt and change and I came back with more than a few lessons learned. Mike Gradidge, Stephen Smith and myself spent a few days on our favourite Western Cape estuary two weeks ago. We each had our personal targets. After losing a big kob in October, I was keen to get that meter plus fish that have been eluding me for so long. Stephen Smith, or Twinkle as he is affectionately called, was a grunter virgin, and saying he was desperate for pinning one of these would have been the understatement of the year. Mike, well, let’s just say Mike was keen on catching fish and lots of them, the bigger, the better.

Dusky kob

The highlight of the first day must have been Twinkle losing his grunter virginity. After a few kob at dusk, we concentrated on shallow mud bays for targeting grunter. Conditions were overcast, making spotting cruising grunter difficult on the sand flats that seemed devoid of tailing grunter. We hoped the grunter would reveal their presence through mud clouds and pancakes as they tailed on the mud. Mike and myself were fishing JAM flies to tailing fish. Twinkle was fishing a floating deer-hair prawn imitation, which is primarily fished blind in the vicinity of tailing fish, or fished completely blind. Now most of my buddies and I had a snobbish attitude to the floating prawn. As purists, we considered grunter a species worthy of being sight fished only, and using a floating prawn is considered heathen tactics. This articulated deer hair pattern, being a rather ugly fly, was baptized the turd burger by one of us. No one can remember who named it now, and every one denies naming it now. Mike and myself were silently sneering at Twinkle and his turd burger while scanning the waters surface for signs of grunter, of which there were none. Suddenly Twinkle cried out and we watched in disbelief as line peeled of his reel into his backing. Minutes later, midst lots of whooping and hollering, Twinkle landed his first grunter. And not just any grunter, a fish with a fork length of 69cm and an overall length of over 70. Big stoke all round!

70cm of grunt. Not bad for a first!

But the day had a few more surprises in stall. With the tide going out later that afternoon, we fished yet another mud bay for grunter. A month or so ago, Mike and I had some excellent sight fishing to tailing grunter here, but on this day there were none. What I did notice was several mud prawns swimming high in the water column. I knew then that the fish must have been present in good numbers, why weren’t we seeing them? Just before sunset, another surprise.

Twinkle scores again

While were standing with JAM flies tied on, Twinkle quickly landed two more grunter on the turd burger in quick succession. I was slowly starting to make sense of the great grunter disappearing act.

Dawn patrol kobbie

One from the ledges

The next morning started with a bang. While I was going for kob (and landing one) Mike and Twinkle went back to grunter bay. Mike borrowed one of Twinkle’s turd burgers, of which he had two only. I sauntered over after breakfast, just in time to see Mike land the first grunter of the day. For the next few hours it felt like I was running between Mike and Twinkle, photographing their catches. I was waiting for tailing grunter in vain, there were none. I secretly whished I had a turd burger in my fly box, but alas. Eventually Mike felt sorry for me and gave me his turd burger, while he tied on one of Craig Thom’s felt prawns (and caught two more grunter on it). I couldn’t buy a fish. By the end of the session, Twinkle had 6 grunter and a small kob, Mike had 5 grunter and a small kob. That is seriously good tally for grunter on fly!

First for the day

The legend of the turd burger

Twinkle on a roll

Kob on topwater

“Its time for a slam!” I suggested. A Breede river slam is catching grunter, kob and leervis on fly in one day. Twinkle replied that he had to head back home, and trying not to sound too desperate, I asked if I could have his ‘floating prawn’ fly for the rest of the trip. After Twinkle left, it was nearly high tide, Mike and I decided to go for leervis off the main sandbank. I was hoping Mike would get some leeries, this would make him the first person to catch a slam that I have witnessed. And being a leervis machine, Mike did not disappoint and soon we were both tucking into stripping basket size leeries. Packs of leeries were chasing down and slamming the flippers we were fishing; I really enjoyed this and have forgotten how much fun and adrenalin leerie fishing was. At some point some big grunter cruising around on the flat behind us distracted me, but they were spooky as hell and there was no joy.

Pushing tide on the main bank

Mike kept slaying the leeries on the spit until the tide was in, signaling time for a few cold ones and a siesta. ‘Why don’t you go for a slam too?’ Mike asked as the evening session commenced. All I needed was to pin a grunter. Ya sure, have turd burger, go catch grunter, no problem! We waded onto the flat and started laying out casts. Mike remarked that the activity was tapering off, since he’s fished for about 30 minutes without a take. But as the sun was setting I saw him strip set and he went tight on his 6th grunter for the day. As dusk was falling, the prospect of a slam started fading and I suggested to Mike that we go light a fire and down a few bottles of vin rouge. ‘Give it a few more casts’ came the reply. Ok, 5 more casts, I thought. And then, miraculously, on cast number four, I got an aggressive pull and went tight on a feisty grunter. Big stoke, two slams in one day!

The spy who came in from the cold

At the fire that night Mike and I concluded that when the prawns are moving about in the water column, the have no need to root around on the bottom, sucking prawns out of their burrows. They merely have to cruise around sipping up the slow swimming mud prawns in the water column. Because they are not tailing, one cannot cast to sighted fish, and this is an excellent time to pin them on the floating prawn. You can be sure to find a small army of turd burgers in my grunter box when I’m on the river again! Especially if I can tie them as beautifully as Peter Coetzee does…

Tying Jam flies is a laborious and arduous affair. But I would definitely tie a fresh JAM for every grunter I catch, if it was such a guaranteed business. Unfortunately it’s not. Many flies are tied without ever catching a fish; guess it’s the nature of grunter fishing.

Until recently I did not have enough confidence in my own JAM flies, and I had to bribe Jannie Visser every few months to tie me a few. Below is a pic of the last two he tied for me. I took the pic on the dash of his Landcruiser as we drove into Cape Town via Eastern Boulevard.

One of them disappeared out of my fly box; quite a common and inexplicable occurrence with Jam flies, especially if Jannie tied them. The other set a personal best score for me, because it tallied up the highest score of grunter on a single fly. Earlier this season, I managed to catch 9 grunter on this fly. And what makes it even more special is the fact that it was never removed from the tippet.

The last fish was one of the most memorable; the grunt was tailing in inches of water, or at least trying to tail. Wallowing like a piglet was more like it. After it stopped tailing, the fly was presented and drifted into the fish’s zone. When I saw it trying to tail again, I felt some movement on the fly and pulled the leader tight, setting the hook. Then big thrill watching the fish haul ass out of skinny water to make it to the safety of the drop-off. Mike Gradidge, who was fishing with me, dragged himself through the mud to snap a few pics in the evening’s last rays before it was tagged and released.

Maybe I should frame the fly or something. Or maybe I should just tie it on when I hit the grunter flats this weekend …

A few days ago I was targeting grunter with my friend, Beetle Baily. We were both getting few fish and at some point Beetle shouted to me that he has just landed a tagged grunter. I immediately ran over to take a photograph of the fish and tag in order to send the recapture information to the Oceanic Research Institute of South Africa who manages the tagging program. “It might even be one of the fish you tagged recently” was Beetle’s reply. I thought this highly unlikely, since there appeared to be fairly large numbers of feeding grunter where we were fishing, making recaptures an unlikely occurance. When I got home, I looked at my recent tagging data and discovered that I tagged this fish just two days prior to it’s recapture, before being released for a second time. It was free for just over 48 hours. Recaptured in the same spot on the same fly.

Tagged on the 5th of January 2016

For me, alarm bells was going off and in order to make some sense of this, I asked Paul Cowley of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity in Grahamstown for his opinion:

“Over the past decade we have done lots of tagging with dart tags and acoustic transmitters on estuarine associated fishes. The take home message from this is that juvenile fish remain faithful to their home nursery estuary for the first few years of their lives. So if you reside on or fish a particular estuary it is in your best interests to practice C&R because every fish removed is one less to the local resident population of fish.
As they grow up they lose some fidelity to their home estuary and various species display different patterns. Unlike a white steenbras that basically becomes a marine fish after leaving its nursery, grunter do use estuaries extensively as adults. So they go to sea to spawn but pop in and out of estuaries for the rest of their lives – presumably for food (prawns) and we also suspect to rid themselves of marine parasites. Some grunter exhibit fairly high levels of connectivity with neighbouring estuaries BUT in the W Cape where there are fewer estuaries this level of connectivity is much lower than in the E Cape where they have plenty more options to enter other estuaries. Also when growing up in an estuary they display extreme residency so it is no wonder this fish was caught at the same spot!
A high recapture rate is usually indicative of fairly small population but I must say grunter recapture rates are far lower than juvenile dusky kob and leervis – so grunter populations are bigger.”

Recaptured on the 7th of January

In my opinion, the grunter of the Breede River estuary are under a lot of angling pressure, especially over holiday season. At certain times we could count 30 boats on the water, all catching and keeping grunter. Today spotted grunter are the primary species targeted since the demise of dusky kob that the Breede River were once famous for. Very few anglers practice CAR and then there’s also the taxman (bull sharks) that take fish before the catch limits of the day is reached.
Low recapture rates of tagged fish indicate a healthy fishery. This recapture indicates that there are far fewer fish than would appear. Sometimes we see tailing fish every 5 or 10 minutes and think that there must be a small school of fish feeding, but this could in fact be a single fish.
While the grunter stocks may appear healthy now, I fear that these magnificent fish might suffer the same fate as species such as the dusky kob, if we as anglers don’t take a more responsible approach and only keep fish for immediate use.

A few months ago I discovered a technique that is absolutely deadly on spotted grunter. I was trying to catch a Breede river slam, and time was running out (see Twinkle, Two Slams and the Legend of the Turd Burger). I was fishing with my buddy Mike and needed to catch a grunter in order to get the slam. The sun was setting fast. I suggested to Mike that we call it a day, he persuaded me to stay. “OK, five more casts”, I replied. I got the grunter on the fourth cast.

Since then I have caught quite a few grunter on the five cast technique. I cannot say why, but grunter respond exceptionally well to this method. Perhaps it’s because grunter suddenly feel the tables are turned on them; usually they will blatantly give you the middle finger, now suddenly they have to deal with rejection and abandonment issues when the five casts are up. Believe me, it works. They will eat that fly like a mielie. Typically, this technique has no effect whatsoever on any other species.

My pb grunt recently fell to the five cast marvel

It is particularly effective when grunter that’s been tailing hard a few minutes ago, have suddenly stopped and you can see loads of grunter tailing a few hundred meter down the flat. Don’t fall for this trick; the grunts are still there, but merely fucking with your head. Now is the time to show mental dominance and throw that five cast dice.

Effective even in rainy weather …

Here are a few points to consider while employing this technique. Never start a session or walk onto the flat with the intention of doing five more casts when you’re done. The grunts are not that stupid and will smell a fraud a mile away. You have to surprise yourself; “Come on man, just five more casts!” Also, when you go for five more casts, make those five casts. No more, no less, even if you miss a hard take on the fifth cast. Grunter are like elephants man, they never forget. You don’t wanna jinx it.

I always get my fish on the fourth cast. You may find that your takes occur at a different cast, event the fifth. Or it could be completely random.

Two weeks ago, I made quite a breakthrough when I discovered a variation on the five cast technique. I was fishing with Mike and we promised our holiday going spouses that we’d be home before sunset. It was late, and I was still fishless. Plenty of missed takes and I found it very difficult to pack up and leave without having pinned a grunt. What was worse was that the fish seemed to have stopped tailing. My chances were slim. I told myself that if I could make 5 casts without seeing a tailing grunter, I would call it a day. If you see a fish tailing, you start counting from cast one. One can only leave when the fifth cast is retrieved. The effect on the grunter was unbelievable! Fish started tailing with remarkable consistency! It was only much later that Mike and I managed to get off the water, each managing to pin a fish at number 99. It was while we were driving home, discussing the day’s fishing; when we both realized the utterly futility of attempting to explain the five cast phenomenon to an angry wife.

It’s not everyday that student becomes tutor, but last year I had the pleasure of treating my brother Harry to some grunter fishing with my buddy Mike and me. Harry was my fly fishing mentor, and whenever we go fishing together, I’m the one who raids his fly-boxes and rips him for tips and advice. Not that I was much of a tutor. It was more a case of me, the salty, giving him, the sweet water man, a fly or two and tippet recommendations. He even opted for his trusty 5wt instead of one of my fast action 7wt. When we tackled up in the parking area at the first morning, I told Mike that it would really make my day if Harry got a grunter on his first outing to catch one. Just one. At this particular point in time we noticed good numbers of mud prawns moving about the water column, so deer-hair prawns was the obvious route.

Whipping grunter ass with a 5wt

We couldn’t have been fishing for 10 minutes when Mike came tight to a good fish and a few minutes later Harry was up next, landing his first grunter on fly. Or first grunter ever, for that matter. I could see the thrill and awe in Harry’s face as he held that first fish as it was being photographed, pure awe and stoke…

The whooping, hollering and shouting after the grunt was released, was something to behold. I could see that Mike was a bit blown away, ‘Your brother will scare away all the fish in the bloody river!’ Unfortunately for Mike the ruckus continued, it wasn’t long before Harry had his second grunter pulling the shit out of his little 5wt rod. The afternoon turned into a very satisfying session, with Harry and Mike each landing two and myself one grunter.

On the way back another session was planned and a few days later we were back on the river. What can I say; Harry kicked both our butts, by landing no less than 5 grunter in a short session! At some point I looked at Mike as Harry hooked yet another grunter while hollered with joy like madman. ‘It helps that your brother knows a thing or two when it comes to fly fishing, dude!’

Here are some pics of from some of these grunter sessions. Enjoy.

High fives, brotherman!

Ready, get set …

GO!!!

Happy days!

Mike with the kick-off grunt

Putting the new Tibor Bonefish through it’s paces

More 5wt fun

Grunter have a incredible ability to miss a surface fly on the take. But it all comes together when it’s down the gullet.

Decent grunter on a five weigh

Everyone has heard of the great Wildebeest Migration through Tanzania’s Serengeti and up into Kenya. This spectacular phenomenon is actually more than ‘just’ a wildebeest migration as includes (in far lesser numbers) zebra, as well as Thompson’s and Grant’s gazelles follow the trek for better grazing and water. As spectacular as it is in sheer size, it is fairly predictable, if rain dependant (not unlike the sardine run, but lets not confuse things). Typically by now (August to October) the herds are massing in far northern Tanzania and preparing to move into Kenya, where they will graze in the Maasai Mara reserve until October before heading south once more.

Mud prawns (Upogebia Africana) – that favourite food of our beloved Spotted Grunter, among others – also migrate, in big numbers. But that, very unfortunately, is where the similarity ends. Tied to variables uncountable, you simply cannot predict, time or pinpoint the mythical ‘prawn walk’.

Lemming-like behaviour, some have called this mass ‘up-and-swim-away,’ but is it?

Obliviously ignorant, I witnessed my first ‘walk’ at age 16 on the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape. What I saw that day near two decades ago now is with me still. A regretful memory, but so we learn.

We were – five fairly proficient bait fisherman – teenage school boys on a camping and fishing trip, way more intent on getting into the (long since warm) beers we’d manage to swindle (and then muggle out of sight of our parents) into the overnight gear.

It was mid-tide on the flood, a few days after Springs and we needed bait, so, armed with pumps and buckets we hurriedly boarded our trusty craft – a racing-style pontoon rubber duck – and sped off for the mud flats near the mouth. The water was muddy brown, not uncommon for this river.

As we neared our target bank (raced up to, would be an apt description) an older gentleman with light stick in hand off the back of his cabin boat, motioned for us to slow down. It wasn’t grumpy gesture, but as we got right up near he put his finger to his mouth, school prefect-style directing us to be quiet. ‘What did this old ballie know?’  We thought, ‘he didn’t own the river, what was he doing fishing so shallow anyway?’

A regretful memory, as I mentioned.

Old Man River then proceeded to lift what must’ve been at least six kilograms of river slab – one of the biggest Spotted Grunts I’d seen up until then. Biggest still, perhaps.

Coming in to the bank like cowboys and jumping off around knee deep I immediately noticed the prawns swimming around in the water column – just below the surface, everywhere! We proceeded to pump, scoop and grab a bucket or two worth before whirl-winding back off the bank and further up river where (we thought we knew) the big Cob, Steenies and Grunter lurked. Our departure was much to the old man’s relief, I’m sure. And he most probably boated a few more similar-sized specimens. (If you’re out there sir, our humblest apologies. We simply knew no better).

Will they stay or will they go now

I do know now – at least I know what that was. The ‘prawn walk’ – as far as the smart okes in lab coats can tell us – is a mini migration in search of a better place to live. There have been scant few studies on mud prawns, let alone on their migration habits (in fact, during extended and extensive searching I’ve yet to come across any).

From what I’ve pulled together from various resources (including a few legit old-man-river-like characters) is that they bug out in search of a new bank to setup home when a particular bank becomes too crowded, the mud the wrong texture, consistency or make-up, a reduction in food source, water quality, tidal flow…etc etc. It is that simple and that complicated all at the same time.

In the Hermanus of my youth there was a sign on the way out of town (just past the caravan park) toward the Klein River estuary that read ‘Prawn Flats.’ Back then I imagined it not in the terms of a ‘flat’ as we think of it now, rather in terms of a block of flats, as in apartments. I still kind of like that analogy, and I imagine them (the prawns) getting fed up with the landlord because he’s refused to fix the plumbing or something and just upping and moving out to find a new ‘block of flats’.

In terms of timing it happens (usually) in early Spring (August – October) – the cycle we’re heading into now. However, with all the mentioned variables and environmental elements at play, it simply is impossible to predict – when, on what particular bank and even on what river it may take place is anyone’s guess. Ian Kitching and Peter Coetzee have experienced first-hand the bonanza it can be when it comes off here in the Southern Cape.

If we could predict it, I imagine it to create a similar phenomenon to the ‘Salmon Fly’ hatch on the Deschutes or the Barbel run in the Okavango. Ja, better then perhaps it remains such a mystery.

I will forever continue to make (a very amateur) study of their cycles on estuary systems I frequent, hoping to crack a pattern. Or just luck into a walk…

Demystified, okay, not quite, but meanwhile, in Tanzania, the Wildebeest trudge on.

*Hit this for a cool animated model showing the Migration.

And, learn more about the humble mud prawn here and here.

Any thoughts or findings of your own?

Many people – mostly those in the full-time employ of someone else – think freelancers are always on holiday. Truth is, when you work for yourself you never really have ‘leave’ in the traditional sense. No graft, no pay. Sometimes then, you just have to disappear. This is a story of one of those days. Actually though, it’s more of a tale of how a doctor caught his first Pomadasys commersonnii on fly:

By random occurrence and some (tenuous at best) mutual connections a Swedish gentleman by the name of Olle Benous had gotten my number. Olle was in SA for the World Masters Squash champs (he finished joint third in the 65-and-over category) and would be spending some time in the Garden Route after.

“Could I take him fishing,” he inquired. He’d read a lot about the estuary fishing in the area and was eager to “…see some beautiful rivers,” he said. “Getting something on the other end of the line would be bonus.”

(Okay, why do people always fib like that, hahaha.)

Anyway. I was thinking in what Thomas McGuane would call ‘defensive terms,’ as you do after a long, dark Winter of discontent. Plus we’d had a fair amount of recent rain so the rivers were still either deep brown or tannin-stained with freshwater runoff. Anyway, the tides looked good for the Wednesday and the forecast fair. It was also the only gap he had in a busy golfing schedule. As you do in these parts.

We were on the water just after lunch, and headed to a happy hunting ground, a spot known (depending on who you talk to) either as Crane Bay – in reference to a breeding pair of Blue Cranes that spend their nesting season there – or ‘three rivers’ for more obvious reasons.

The first thing I noticed when we launched was the temperature of the water. It was much warmer (around 18 degrees Celsius, if not a degree or two more) than it had been in the weeks prior.

The tide was still lowish, but pushing steadily when we reached the flat, a location generously shared a season or two back by the guru, Henkie Altena. (I remain eternally grateful, dankie Henkie).

Olle has caught tarpon in the BVI’s, GT’s off Kenya, bonefish in the Seychelles and fished for trophy river trout in New Zealand. When at home in northern Sweden, he is just 15 minutes away from one of the best trout streams in the country. Discerning, skilled and experienced, he played down my cautionary, not-so-confident vibes about the possibilities of finding feeding grunter. He’d heard that you sight fish for them, but was not too sure what to expect.

Olle hooked-up, holding, hoping….

Sure enough a few small tails were showing, but spread across the bank (which has a few clearly defined sections, but all told is probably the size of a rugby field) and there wasn’t any prolific feeding. One popping up here, another there. None that seemed of any consequence either.  I handed him an olive-and-tan, articulated deerhair prawn and explained the presentation and retrieve for the big hairy bug.

There was a slight breeze out of the southeast, creating just enough ripple to help with presentation.

On what was effectively his first cast (the second after stretching out his line) Olle landed the fly a metre from the drop-off and about three metres to the right of where a spotty had been tailing some 30 seconds earlier. On the first flick of the retrieve he went tight to a small but violent take. The fish was not on 10 seconds before it threw the fly. It was a tiny punk no doubt, but I couldn’t believe how committed it was, plus, it had pretty much been a blind cast.

Olle put a few more casts over the same spot without any inquiries. By now he was so amped and overeager to get another one on he was stripping way too fast.

At this point things slowed on the flat, with far fewer fish showing. We changed flies and location a few times and hunted here and there.

Then, after a neat shot at a a solid boil. Two gentle flicks saw Olle connected once more. This was a much better fish but again it was dropped after a short tussle.

Perhaps more so than what I’ve experienced on that bank in the past, many of the better inquiries came after a fairly prolonged motionless lie of the fly. Flick, flick, let it lie for five counts, boil…

Then, boom he went tight on another smallish one that smashed the fly with as much commitment as his brother earlier. After a short fight this one came to hand. Just like that Olle had managed to pull-off what many work for, for a frustratingly long time. To say he was elated would begin to describe the stoke on that muddy flat, but, so small was it (about 20cm) we let it go without even a photo.

We were running out of time for his evening engagement and I was pushing for us to surf the tide back upriver to the take out.

He wasn’t done though, he wanted that photo.

His second fish was far more of a plan coming together: he had confidence in the fly (back on the tan-and-olive bug), understood how the grunter were feeding and knew if he could find a proper one tailing, it would be game on.

Once upon a Wednesday

Game on it was. Not a bus by any standards but more-than-decent enough for a photo and eternal memories to take back to Sweden. “Now I have even more reason to come back to this beautiful country,” he said on the paddle back.

Although my fishing mates and I have managed to catch grunter throughout the year in the Western Cape, it’s the early season grunts that I look forward to the most. Why? Well, maybe because you never know what you’re going to get and it might, just might, be shit hot. Like three seasons ago, when the grunter showed up like clockwork on a certain sand flat and allowed us to make pigs of ourselves. Last year was also good and we found fish tailing in deep water on the sand and allowing us to cast at the ‘pancakes’.

Late winter mudbone

This year we were ready for those early season fish, but like all good things, their predictable appearance seemed to have come to an end. This meant that we had to target them on the ‘difficult’ sand flats, casting to singles or pods of cruising fish. Naturally the grunter guru’s, MC Coetzer and Jannie Visser, enjoyed a fair amount of success and even made it look easy on certain sessions. I wasn’t so lucky and got skunked. So much so that I decided not to waste time with sight fishing on the sand flats, but focus on the mud flats instead.

I certainly was not disappointed and the sheer number of fish aggressively having a go at the deer hair prawns made it worthwhile. I will remember some remarkable sessions with several big fish coming to hand. I was happily boasting with my good fortune on the mud, when Leonard Flemming threw a spanner in the works by asking; ‘Yes, but when last did you sight fish and catch a grunter on the sand?’ Being at the water at the time, I looked at the tides and weather and decided to hit he sand the very next day.

And as luck would have it, I had a mid day tide and not a cloud in the sky. When I walked onto a particular sand flat that I was quite familiar with, and with the sun high, I felt hopeful. Not sure why, because I’ve never pinned a grunter on that particular flat before. But there I was, all on my own, with a good amount of anticipation and a bit of optimism to boot. I saw the fish straight away. Somehow they just showed up as darker shapes on this specific day. I knew for sure that this would be difficult, despite the good visibility. The fish seemed to be aware of my presence. They weren’t spooking bat-outta-hell style, but just keeping a distance of 30 to 40 meters between us. What made things worse was the howling South-wester. It meant that I had to present doing reverse casts. I fucking hate that. After a couple of Hail Mary casts, I decided my only decent shot would come if I overtake the main pod sideways and from far away, allowing a normal forward presentation. I really did try to do this as unobtrusively as possible, but the fish were having none of it. They kept outrunning me. After an hour, I was running out of time and space. Luckily I seemed to have herded them into a corner next to an exposed sandbar.Theyseemed to carry on feeding with me about 40 meters away. I took my time and approached ever so slowly. I started making casts. Reverse casts. Which meant that most were off the mark. Then I managed some close ones and I also managed to spook a few. Properly. After a while I got the hang of the reverse presentation. I managed this by not taking my eye off the fish. Not easy.

But the fish seemed to show no interest whatsoever. I had them swim onto the fly. I stripped it into their faces. I threw it on their heads. Nada. I was ready to throw in the towel (this was, after all, a very normal day on the sand, catching fokol) when a fish turned and followed the JAM fly. For quite a distance.

This had me amped. After a few more good shots and refusals, I noticed a rat making its way towards me. The angle was right, and the fly would drift into position perfectly. I made the cast and let the fly settle. The little fucker swam over straight away. On the fly. Yes, eat it! Please! And just when I was sure it was going to happen, it turned away and swam off.

I made a halfhearted cast to its wayward brother without thinking. Can’t really remember the follow but the next thing I know I feel a slight tug and instinctively strip set. And then I saw it; getting the fright of its life and trying to charge off the flat. A brief fight, and I caught myself looking around to see if I can spot any of my mates to share my stoke. I remember that I was alone, but that didn’t take the smile off my face. After a quick fish portrait I released the little guy. Caught myself trying to figure out how to do a high five on my own.

A grunt on the sand. They don’t come easy, but when they do, it’s pure bliss.