Flyfishing report: Saltwater - Upper South Coast

Good day everyone,   

As I sit here in my new apartment in Doonside on the south coast of Kwazulu Natal overlooking the ocean, the southwest wind is blowing very hard, and sea conditions are rough. Waves are large and it is white water from backline to the shore with strong a current flowing from south to north, not exactly ideal conditions for any kind of fishing never mind fly fishing.

For the last two weeks the swell has been big with the waves churning up a great deal of sand on the sand banks all along the coast and when there is so much sand being churned up the fish will generally not come inshore because the sand gets in their gills and so fishing inshore is very poor.

Previous to the large swells the Shad fishing was very good as well as other fish such as Grunter, Black Tail and Wave Garrick.

There has been the odd day when conditions have been good and on those days Shad and Garrick have been caught however until the sea conditions settle for longer periods fly fishing is going to be a challenge.

I have not heard of any fly fishing on the north side of Durban in the last month and due to moving home I have hardly fished at all, however I have received some very interesting news from a lower south coast fly fisherman which I attach “as is” and which I think our readers will appreciate.

Thank you, Gordon Pieterse.

(Names of rivers or the areas fished are not mentioned to protect the area from overfishing.)

“Morning Roger,

Many thanks for your reply and I 100% agree about overfishing, pollution and the state of our rivers. I used to target flathead, kingies and grunter every year in Mpenjati, but these days it’s a party hotspot for government members over weekends and holidays.

Few years back, early January I went down there for a session and was shocked at what I saw. Being a Parks Board Park, you would think that certain rules apply, not this time. They have set up a bar with gazebo and chairs in the estuary, built in the water probably to have sort of island experience. There were broken bottles and litter everywhere. It took them months to remove the structure, and this was done on one of the main prawn banks.

Anyways, back to fishing. I have attached just a few pics from Friday evening. See below. These were caught around 20h30. Where we have made a mistake in the past is to fish the usual late afternoon, will get a bite or 2 and a fish or 2 and as soon as the light goes pack up and go home.

One afternoon we had a few bites, landed 1 fish and lost a few but the conditions were good, so we kept fishing for a bit as it got dark. There comes a 30 min dead period, and it gets dark then suddenly the fish come thick and fast. Within minutes we were all on, losing fish, breaking tippets and all was mayhem.

From this day we changed our strategy where we would go down at 5pm, fish hard getting one or two fish, sometimes no bites at all but will stick it out till complete darkness. We had only 2 nights with no bites, but we concluded that the tide was all wrong. What we have determined is that the fish eats best close or even in the river mouth. Outgoing tide or as the tide starting to push saltwater into the river mouth. Outgoing tide or as the tide starting to push saltwater into the river where you get the first few surges pushing into the river.

On Friday we had them eating poppers, paddletails (spinning), salty buggers and clousers.

Colour at night makes no difference, the size of fly is important. Nothing more than 2.5 inches in length and not too bulky. Lazer sharp hooks and at least 15lb maxima leader, thicker leaders do affect bites and intermediate to slow sink lines. They will eat throughout the water column all the way to the bottom.

The kob we have had mainly on an outgoing sitting in the river mouth ambushing whatever pass them going out the river. Here I have found a fast sink line, bulky black or olive clouser with heavy eyes to get down as quickly as possible in the fast-flowing water. If you get the fly down fast enough you will get a bite or a fish.

Hope this will give you a bit of gusto to try new things. I know night fishing is risky on the South Coast but it’s worth it as the crowds disappear when it gets dark and the fish tend to feed closer which brings them into fly casting range.”

Photos below show Gordon & his sons with Oxeye tarpon caught at night.