Eastern Cape Saltwater Fly Fishing
Flying Through The Eastern Cape – Fly Fishing, That Is!
Fly fishing has always been one of my favourite facets of angling and most of the freshwater fishing I do is just on fly. When you start fly fishing in the saltwater, however, it is a totally different experience! The adrenaline pumps through your veins like nothing else, especially when your fly gets hit out of nowhere!
Last month (February 2014) I was accompanied on a short trip to the
beautiful Eastern Cape by my brother, Sean and my great mate Gavin. Our
plan was to target as many fish as possible on all sorts of facets, but
focus a bit more on the fly fishing side. We were hoping to get some
Leeries and
Grunter (Which would be our main target), but we were also
hoping to pick up some “by catch” (Hopefully), such as
Stumpies,
Moonies,
Kob,
Skipjack and anything we could lure into taking a fly; and
this is how it went...
We arrived at our base, a house in Kenton-on-sea and got straight
into sorting out our tackle. Various rods between 5 and 9 weights,
intermediate, floating and sinking lines, different breaking strain
fluorocarbon leaders and of course the flies, a wide selection: Clousers,
Lefty’s Deceivers, Crazy Charlies, Salty Buggers, Zonkers, Streamers,
Poppers, and Caddis, Worm, Crab and Prawn imitations. The anticipation
and excitement was so high, we had to go fish right away!
A huge downside to this trip was the red tide which was still in full force when we arrived and continued through our short stay. We fly fished the Kariega and Bushman's Rivers to no avail, fishing was very tough and there was a lack of fish present. So we had a new plan; to fish the various blind rivers in the area: Boknes, Kasouga and the 2 Kleinemonde Rivers.
We had some success here, and were very chuffed with the end results.
When we first arrived at the blind rivers our main target was Leeries.
We had so many chases and knocks but the juvenile Leeries just wouldn’t
commit. We managed to get some Leeries out on surface lure and bucktail
jig variations, but they were eluding us on fly. When frustration set in
we would target other fish with 4 weight rods, floating lines and
smaller flies. We absolutely hammered the Cape Moonies in certain spots,
they particularly liked a White Fritz fished either very quickly close
to the top of the water, or extremely slowly as close to the bottom as
possible. These fish were extremely aggressive and hit the White Fritz
pattern hard, nearly every cast. They ranged in sizes, but nothing too
big, it’s all about the enjoyment of catching
saltwater fish on fly, and
the perseverance to get the presentation of the fly perfect.
On the search for more Leeries in the Kasouga River we were targeting
Stumpies and Mullet when out of nowhere a decent sized Blue Kurper hit
the fly. It fell to a Gold Ribbed Hares Ear that was fished very slowly,
what a catch! We came to the conclusion that it ate the GRHE because of
all the algae where it was lurking, a great spot for insects to hatch
and the Kurper mainly eat algae and smaller insects that hatch or occur
around it.
As the final day came around we once again tried to land that elusive
Leerie or Skipjack, the open rivers were a reddish-brown colour so we
decided to make the most of our day and head to the Kleinemonde
Rivers... As luck would have it, the day started out raining but we
didn’t have a choice, we were going to get some fish out! Braving the
conditions turned out positively in our favour. Lots of fish were coming
out on artificial, but fly was proving to be difficult once more.
After an hour or so, my White Fritz was hit very hard, it went
through my mind at the time, I thought it was a Leerie, but a split
second later I was proved wrong, a Cape Moony had eaten the fly. A few
more Moonies and I was enjoying myself on the light tackle when, out of
nowhere, I was hit hard, the fish turned and then I knew it, FINALLY, a
Leerie, and on the 4 weight fly rod with 6lb tippet. Not a big fish by
all means, but a Leerie on fly. I was pumped and then our luck changed,
the fly seemed to work and a small school of Garrick moved in on the
area where we were fishing, we each managed a few fish, and it was
almost a fairytale ending to our trip. The conditions were poor to say
the least, but our target was reached! Fly fishing the salt is
amazing...
