Blog...

Center Bank Bashing - 25th July 2009

After a long period of no fly fishing, I finally managed to get back into the water, and was more excited than ever. The main reason being that during the week I joined the Natal Fly Fishers Club (NFFC). This means that I now have access to large selection of club waters holding everything from trout, to yellows, to bass. However after all of this I still ended up fishing the salt, and will have to wait a while until I can get out to those waters, since most of August is already booked up for me.

On Saturday morning Nick and I headed down to the harbour with the hopes of picking up a Garrick or two. Low tide was at 12pm, but being springs, it was pulling out quickly so we opted to get down there at 9am. My main concern was that the wind had been blowing hard all week, and on Saturday morning it was a south wester, which is not known for good fishing. None the less we were eager and decided on a new strategy.

After chatting to a local tour operator we organised to be dropped off on the center bank, meaning we could fish a part of the harbour we don't normally have access to. His first boat was only going out at 10am, so we had an hour to kill, and spent part of it throwing a fly by the concrete block. I was in luck and managed to pick up a decent East Coast Sole on my fifth cast. This of course lead to some mocking from Nick, since he claimed I wasn't targeting the game fish, but still, the score was now 1-0.

We then got dropped off on the center bank and got down to some more serious fishing. I flicked my fly out 5 meters in front of me and preceded to strip line into my basket for my first cast. I lifted my rod to cast, and ON DAD!! I couldn't believe it, a nice size Gurnard from at my feet. The score...2-0. Nick was now yelling that bottom feeders don't count.

A few cast later and I was into something else. There was little to no fight, and for a while I thought it was a bag. Then, much to my amazement, I pulled out a large swimming crab, which had actually eaten the fly. And then more mockery from Nick about catching crabs.

We continued fishing as the south wester picked up, eagerly awaiting the tide to swing to a pushing. I managed another Sole and another Gurnard...the score...4-0. Nick was getting a bit agitated at this point, and then finally, he was on. And low and behold, it was a crab. Finally the mockery was reversed.

At this point the tide swung to a pushing and we were hoping to get into some bigger fish. Sadly this wasn't the case and we battled for another hour before calling it quits. I managed one more small gurnard, leaving the final score at 5-0.

After the fishing we had our customary beer and grabbed a quick bite from Casbah which we ate on the beach. All in all a good days fishing, and a new harbour champion!

Bait Fishing Durban Harbour - 12th July2009

After having been out of the water for far too long, I finally managed to wet a line in the harbour. Sadly it wasn't a fly line, but having sat out for a few weeks I was willing to take anything.

Nick picked me up at 7:30 and we headed down to the harbour where we met his brother. We knew high tide was at 6am, but we figured that we'd still be able to pump some cracker. This turned into a more entertaining experience than expected. Lets just say its rather interesting trying to pump cracker in waist deep water. But being the tough guys we are, we managed the deed and soon had our lines in the water.

Standing waste deep in water, close to the drop off, didn't seem like a great idea, so we opted to climb onto the block. This proved to be the second entertaining experience of the day. After a few exciting moments Clinton and I were on the block, and Nick was still waist deep in water. Baha!! However, it turned out the block was providing us with good shelter from the wind...shelter we weren't getting on top of it. But being proud males we sat up there in the howling wind, eating chips, and mocking Nick, who was probably warmer than we were.

Eventually the tide had dropped sufficiently, pluswe'd run out of bait, so we headed down to pump more cracker and fish the bank.

Sadly, a couple of hours later, and we'd landed only one HUGE blassie between the three of us, so we decided to hit the pub for lunch and a beer instead.

All in all a good days fishing. It might have even been labeled as great, had we managed to catch a few fish.

My First Magazine Cover Appearance - 9th July 2009

Well, its been a while since the last blog entry on this site, and this one has a little less to do with fishing, and a little more to do with my new-found celebrity status.

"What?" I hear you asking. Well take a closer look at the magazine cover on the left. Yes, look closer. Recognise that watch? What about the hand? Yes, you've got it, that's me!

Maybe next time the photographer will do a better shot and get my face in too. Tee hee!!

On a more serious note, congratulations to Shaun Futter for his first magazine cover. We had a great day's fishing and this has made it even more memorable. Maybe next time I'll get a cover shot. *fingers crossed* Oh, and no, it wasn't even my fish, I was just the holder. *sigh* If you're a past reader of the blog you'll remember my outing to the Mooi River with Shaun.

Congratulations Shaun!

Pholela River Blanking - 30th - 31st May 2009

I'm not even sure this is worthy of a report, but if I don't fill it in I know I'll have hundreds of disappointed readers. Ja, whatever?!

So here goes... Over the weekend a few mates and myself camped at Cobham.It was, as expected, f$%^ing cold. But other than this, we had a fantastic time. Anyway, part of the trip involved me taking a friend of mine up the river for a few fly fishing lessons. I must say, he caught on quickly, and certainly had a good chance of picking up any Rainbows that may be around.

Sadly, due to several factors, we didn't manage to pull any fish out of the Pholela. So here's the list of excuses...

• Firstly, all of our fishing took place at around 1pm.
• Secondly, it was the day before the season closed and all the fish were busy bonking, and hence weren't eating.
• Thirdly, we only fished for about an hour and a half.
• And lastly, we fished half of the time into a strong breeze.

But other than not catching the Pholela is a beautiful small stream, and I'm certain under the right conditions you'll pull a few Rainbows out. There are a lot of pools which showed good potential for nymphing, and there are also a lot of pocket waters, runs and riffels which looked as if a dry fly would do well in.

Due to the low level of the river we opted to go the dry fly route, but as I mentioned above, we picked up nothing. I did nymph for a short while, but in reality I spent most of my time helping out my mate.

All in all it was great fun, and may be worth another visit. Having said that, there are better rivers to fish in the area, so choose wisely.

Return To The Harbour - 23rd May 2009

Sadly this blog entry is a bit dismal... There are no photos, and more importantly, no fish.

After having spent a fair amount of time targeting the streams, namely wild browns, over the last month or two, I felt it was time to get back into the salt. So when I had a couple of free hours on Saturday morning I grabbed my fly stick, and hit the harbour. When I got into the water there was a fair breeze pushing in from the South West. Generally this is a bad sign, since most fish come out on a North Easterly wind. Anyway, I was there so I got a fly into the water. At the very least I thought I'd pick up a Gurnard.

My spirits quickly lifted when I started spotting all the action going on around me. There was a lot of surface action going on, with some fish jumping clean out of the water. Yeehaa!! I also saw a bait fisherman pull out what looked like a fair sized spotted grunter.

Sadly, after about an hour and a half's fishing, I'd landed nothing. Oh well, its always good to be out there. Maybe next time I must hit the rocks again, instead of always defaulting to the harbour.

Near Death And Fly Tying - 8th - 17th May 2009

As some of you may have noticed, its been a slow period of fishing for me. In fact, since my trip to the Mooi river over 2 weeks ago, I haven't had a fly in the water at all.

Sadly the reason for this wasn't a pleasant one...I landed myself, thanks to Sharon, a bad strain of the flu, and as a result was man down for just over a week. But I suppose the glass is never half empty, and everything happens for a reason...So while I was unable to get out of the house and into the water, I decided it was time to get out the old (and rusted) fly tying vice, and get to work.

Step 1: Acquire some literature: After doing a bit of research on the web, and browsing a few of the local book shops, I was fairly undecided about a good book to learn from. Shaun to the rescue...Thanks to a very kind fellow fly fisherman, living remarkably close to me, I had soon looked through a few books, and borrowed a book the looked good for beginners. This led me onto step 2...

Step 2: Acquiring the materials: Having the book was great, and it really got me excited, but this serves little purpose when one doesn't have any of the necessary tying materials. Shaun had prepared me for this by warning me that most of the local shops (of which there are only 2) had very limited stock. In fact, limited doesn't begin to describe it. Anyway, fingers crossed I headed down to the bigger of the two shops and filled my basket with a few of the items I deemed necessary. This turned out to be a rather expensive exercise*gulp* But I suppose from this point in I'll only have to buy a little at a time.

On to step 3...

Step 3: Tying a fly: So after the week of preparation I was finally sitting in front of my vice, which had a hook neatly clamped in the rusted tip. I hope fish can't smell rust, or I'm in shit. The hook of course looked too small, and the materials lying in front of me looked nothing like the pattern I was hoping to build. But with a little faith I got going. After 30 odd minutes, a lot of reading, and having confused my hands several time, I had a (fairly good looking) wooly bugger in my vice. Tying it off was another story, but we'll get there eventually.

All in all it was a great exercise, and I've now got the confidence I need to continue, learn, and improve. Thanks again to Shaun for all the literature and advice.

Step4: Improve: Well, that's all for now. I'll keep you all informed as I learn new techniques, and get onto tying smaller, more complicated flies. Hopefully I'll also post some step-by-step guides on my site in the near future.

The Mooi River - 2nd May 2009

Just 2 days after a fantastic morning's fishing on the Lotheni River, I was back in the Berg, this time fishing a section of the Mooi River just below Kamberg nature reserve.

Shaun and I left Plantations at around 5:30am, and after a short stop for coffee, were at the river by 7:30am. We kitted up and started our 5km walk downstream, from where we would fish our way back to the car.

On the way down we fished a few of the pools without much luck. The weather was overcast, with a cold front approaching, and we figured this could've turned the fish off.

Shortly after turning around and heading back to the car, the sky cleared and the sun came out. Immediately there were signs of fish about, and Shaun was soon into a good Brown (seen below). Shortly after landing the fish it clouded over again, and everything went quiet once again.

Half an hour later the sun was out again, and immediately I was into a good sized Brown (just slightly smaller than Shaun's). And then five minutes later Shaun was into another Brown.

Sadly it clouded over again, and that was it for the fish. So it seems that those Brown Trout enjoy the sun.

We fished the river entirely with nymphs, since it consists of a lot of pools and deeper runs. This caught me without too many nymphs in my box, and lots of dries. In fact, the only fish I caught was on a nymph from Shaun's box, which he tied himself.

All the fish were taken on small black nymphs.

Another thing which I learnt on this trip (thank you Shaun), is that bought flies are rubbish. Okay, that's not totally true. But what he showed me is that the beads and weighting they use are not heavy enough, and they take a long time to sink to the bottom, when compared to his home tied flies. This means they take too long to get down to the fish...especially in faster moving water, and when fishing the flow into pools. The moral of the story...tie your own flies. So now I need to learn to tie smaller freshwater flies.

Anyway, shortly after lunch it started pissing with rain, so we headed back to the car and off home. It was a great days fishing on a beautiful stretch of river.

Lotheni - 30th April 2009

After a good trip to the Bushmans River over Easter, I decided I'd give the Lotheni River a bash before the end of the season. So when the offices closed for a week, Sharon and I headed to Lotheni for 3 days.

Of the 3 days we spent there I only fished one morning. I hit the river at about 7:30am, Sharon bravely wading the river behind me in an old pair of takkies. I was hoping she would be able to walk on the bank, but unfortunately she had to cross a few times which isn't ideal without boots.

The fishing itself was more difficult than the Bushmans, and after fishing 2kms of river over 3 hours, I'd landed only 3 small Brown Trout. Since then, I have however spoken to other fisherman, and apparently it was more of a time issue, rather than a river issue.

Having said that, it seems to me that it may be a good idea to nymph the river, rather than fishing it with a dry fly as I did. I say this because there are a lot of VERY deeps pools which looked fantastic for fish, and yet I picked up nothing. Looking at them I suspect they're too deep to fish with a dry, since the fish don't seem to rise to them in the deeper water.

All 3 fish I caught were taken in very shallow water, basically ankle deep. As I mentioned above, nothing came from the pools, but I suspect nymphing them may produce fish.

I starting fishing with an Elk Hair Caddis, but had no luck. I then switched to a DDD again with no luck. I was fishing a very fine 7x tippet, so it had to be because of the fly. Eventually I switched to a #16 RAB and was into a fish almost immediately. And I got another two shortly thereafter. So it seems that the fish were taking smaller flies.

I also noticed that the fish were all sitting in the slower shallower water, rather than in sheltered areas of the main flow.

All in all it was a great trip. When the fisher gets harder, the rewards just get greater. Its a beautiful river and I'll definitely fish it again next season.

Oh, and one last thing. I fished from Cool Pools back to the camp, which according to my GPS was just over 2kms long. It had some good runs, and a lot of deep pools.

Fishing With My Sole - 14th & 17th April 2009

After a good weekends fishing in the berg for Brown Trout, I gave the harbour a couple of flicks with the rod. My trip down on the 14th produced just one small Flathead, so nothing special there.

The trip on the 17th was more planned. A forumite from FlyTalk, who was down from the Freestate, wanted to fish the harbour with me. The plan was to meet him there at around 3:30. We'd wade the banks for a while, and then, when it got darker, would hit the breakwater to go for some kingies. Unfortunately the wind was howling, and so he decided not to give it a fish.

Seeing as I was all packed and ready to go, I decided to give it a try anyway. It turned out to be a good move..although the fishing was tough in the howling wind, and although I only produced 1 fish in about 2 hours, I picked up a new species. So I can now gladly say I've caught a Blackhand Sole on fly. Ok, so it was tiny, but a new species is a new species...and they do only grow to 15cms...

The Prior's Dominate The Bushmans River - 12th April 2009

Over the Easter weekend Sharon and I hit the berg, namely Giant's Castle, with my dad and Cassia. Of the three days we were there, my dad and I spent one day punishing the Bushman's River.

I must admit in advanced, that I really wasn't expecting much. Looking back I'm not really sure why I thought this, because the fishing was absolutely fantastic. If I learnt one thing from this trip, its that I'll be back there in a hurry. I suppose the sad thing is that the rivers get closed from the end of this month. (Everyone go AWWW)

Anyway, on Sunday morning my dad and I took a leisurely strole down to the river. Well, he took a leisurely stroll...just as we got to the river my dad (as parents do) learnt that I hadn't put cream on. This immediately involved me running back to the chalets...not something I wanted to do. Eventually I arrived back, puffing and wheezing. I'm sure this was all just an evil plan to give him the upper hand on the river. Hmmm?

After the cream saga we started fishing the river from the picnic sight, heading up-stream. My dad was into a nice brown on his second or third cast. This meant two things:

• Firstly, the fishing was hopefully going to be good.
• Secondly, his wheezing cream trick had worked, and the pressure was now on me.

Luckily I was into a fish within the next 5 minutes. All was looking good.

We were both fishing small dry flies, on lightweight tippet. Casting up-stream we'd let the flies drift back to us, watching them carefully to ensure a good drift, and to catch any takes.

This proved to be very successful, so we never resorted to nymphing or fishing deeper in some of the larger pools. Having said this, there weren't too many big pools anyway, so we definitely did the right thing.

The morning session was fruitful. I landed 7 browns, and my dad ended up with 4. This wasn't a true reflection of his ability, since he had some equipment failure...(no, not that). He was fishing with old tippet, and lost at least 4 fish due to breakages.

Lesson: Don't fish with old tippet material.

If I hadn't been there to lend him some new tippet material this would've been highly frustrating.

The afternoon session proved to be even more fruitful. We fished the same section of river, and I ended up with 9 fish, and my dad got 7. It was fantastic being on the river in the afternoon. We even had the pleasure of being in the middle of a mayfly hatch...what an experience.

One thing to look out for in the afternoon, is that once the sun goes behind the mountain, the water gets a strange glow to it. This makes it very difficult to see your fly, and hence ensure a good drift. As a result we ended up fishing larger, whiter dry flies. Luckily this didn't seem to have an adverse effect on the fishing, and we continued to pick up browns at a good rate.

All in all it was a great days fishing, with just under 30 Brown Trout being landed. I'd certainly recommend this stretch of river to anyone who loves fishing the streams. I certainly can't wait to get back there...

The Lone Ranger - 8th April 2009

Being on leave I decided to go and give the harbour a quick flick with the old fly rod. When I got down there the wind was blowing good guns, but being as tough as I am, and due to the fact that I'd driven all the way down there, I decided to give it a bash anyway.

I fished the main channel for a while, before deciding to take shelter behind the big concrete block near Wilson's Wharf. This meant fishing the smaller channel, where some of the private fishing charters launch from. There was another fly fisher nearby, who had also elected to fish this spot, so together we flogged the water.

The fishing was tough, and after an hour of so I got into a small Bartail Flathead. The other fly fisherman sadly hadn't had any luck. At this point I decided that, seeing as I'd landed a fish, I could go home, head held high.

Bloodsports - 27th March 2009

Having Friday off has the added bonus of being able to fish without too many other people around. So off I headed to mt local hunting grounds, the Durban Harbour.

Surprisingly, there were more people around than I expected. Clearly I'm not the only one on short time. Either that, or South Africa has a lot of lazy bastards. Hmmm...

I waded the banks and was quickly into a gurnard which I landed without much trouble. Shortly after that I was into another. Gurnards never let you down. At this point I decided to try an area I had targeted too much in the past...

What a great decision! On my second cast I was into a small Pickhandle Barracuda; A first for me. After landing it I noticed that the fly was in its throat. This left my in a bit of a quandary, since I didn't have my pliers on me. Stupid. Thinking I was smart, I wedged its mouth open with one finger, and stuck other fingers into its mouth to remove the fly. KAK IDEA!!

Turns out they can still close their mouths. And they have sharper teeth than small puppies.

So there I stood, blood pouring from my fingers, cursing the stupid fish, but smiling at the same time. I'm "glad" to say that the fish survived the whole ordeal. Sadly however, my days fishing was cut short as I had to go find some way to stop the bleeding, and to disinfect the cut.

Still, it was a great mornings fishing!

Exploring Inanada Dam - 21st March 2009

This week I decided I'd explore some of the local water, rather than hitting the salt. So when Saturday morning arrived I grabbed my 5 weight, and headed down to Inanada Dam to try and pick up a few Bass.

I'd fished the dam once before with Nick, and we'd managed to pull out a few Bass, so I figured I had a good starting point. WRONG! Since the dam is now full (and clearly wasn't when we last fished it), the area we'd been successful in was now completely underwater. I didn't let this deter me, and headed off on foot into the unknown. There was a bit of a path, but it got more vague the farther I went. Eventually I was just bashing my way through the bush, getting covered in spider webs, my legs as itchy as a fly covered camels ass.

2kms later I had hit the fence, and had found no fishable water. Grrr. I need a fly rod that doesn't require a back cast...wait a second, those exist...they're normal Bass rods. I never said that.

Anyway, back to the car I trudged, where I flicked the rod a few times from the picnic spot. This proved to just be dangerous, since there were kids running around. So I called it a day and headed home.

So for all off you planning to fish Inanada, it either needs to be low, or you need a float tube. There was a lot of activity around, so there are definitely fish there...Its just not accessible with a fly rod. Now I know for next time...

Springer Action..Just Not For Me - 13th March 2009

Another weekend, and another trip to the harbour. I should probably try and toss a fly elsewhere, but its just so convenient. Plus fishing some of the beaches on a Friday evening just isn't safe. Added to this is of course the fact that fish have been coming out there, and the beer.

I arrived at the harbour around 5:30, and was in the water shortly after that. It was still a tad early, but you can't catch without a fly in the water. High tide was at 7pm, so I fished an incoming tide, followed by and outgoing.

As the sun started to set suddenly the water came alive. Although I've only fished the harbour a handful of times in the last 2 years, I have fished it hundreds of times in the past. And this was the most action I've ever seen on the surface. Glassies were being bashed left, right, and center.

Sadly however, no luck for me, yet again. I was fishing intermediate, with mostly glassy like patterns, and slow retrieves. I did try a few bait fish patterns, and faster retrieves, but nothing produced.

There were a few drop shot fishermen around, as well as a guy fishing with live bait. Nothing came out the water on live bait, but one of the drop shot guys pulled out a size Springer. Congratulations Cox!

Well, that's it for this weeks report. Lets hope my luck turns soon...

More Harbour, Less Bashing - 6th March 2009

Due to a very busy weekend, it was going to be tough to try and fit in a trip to the salt. As a result Nick and I braved what were far from perfect conditions, and fished after work on Friday.

I picked Nick up at 5pm, and we headed straight for the harbour. We arrived at 5:30 and had our lines in the water by 5:45. Low tide was at 7 so we fished a pulling tide in the last remaining light, and then a slight pushing tide in the dark. We had decided not to brave the Durban Harbour sand banks at night (apparently there are a lot of sharks around) so we fished off the jetty by the yaght club.

There was very little visible action, and not many baitfish around. Nick was fishing a floating line with poppers and flippers, while I tried an intermediate line with small baitfish and prawn immitations. After trying every conceavable fly and retrieve, we had to admit defeat and head for the Pirate's Arms for a few beers. Nick was a bit luckier and had one take on a flipper. Sadly he missed the opportunity and didn't land the fish.

I suppose its worth mentioning that one small Skad came out on dropshop.

Not our best outing, but its always great fun to have a fly in the water, and a beer in the belly.

Oh, and in case you're wondering...Nick is seen here performing his version of pole dancing...WTF?!

Olympus 1030SW Review - 2nd March 2009

I spent the last week on business in the UK. While this meant no fishing, it also meant I managed to pick up a fantastic new toy.

So for all of you who offered input into my camera selection...thank you once again. As I said, I was originally planning to get an Olympus 850SW, but ended up with the bigger (and hopefully better) Olympus 1030SW.

I did look at the Olympus "Tough" range, but I couldn't work out the benefits? They were more expensive than the 1030, and only waterproof to 3m, and not 10m. They were also more vunerable to drops. But they did come in pretty colours...ooooh, aaaah.

My initial impression of the camera is that its fantastic (for what it is). It certainly doesn't compare to my digital SLR, but we all knew it wouldn't.
Its quick and easy to use, and takes reasonable pics. The startup time is fast, and you can operate it with one hand. All very important when taking a photo while waist deep in water.

I found that the pictures are not 100% sharp, but they are perfect for snapshots, and a little post processing in photoshop (sharpening, levels, etc) certainly sorted that out. Otherwise the in camera processing is very good, with no visible colour casts, good contrast, brightness and saturation.

All in all I love the camera. I would've liked some aperture and shutter speed control rather than picture modes, but I knew I wasn't getting that. And there were no options that did offer me those.

I also liked the fact that you can get a waterproof housing to 40 meters, if I ever get around to doing my open water course.

Another feature I loved (and seems to work well, although I need more time to experiment with) is the in-camera panorama feature. Basically you take a photo, more the camera in the chosen direction, and when the next photo is lined up, it automatically takes the next picture. It does this for 3 photos, and then stiches them together in camera. So you no longer need to do this on the PC. And it does a good job...granted I only tried 2 or 3 times.

For a camera of this size and functionality, I don't think you'll do better.

Now I need to test the underwater feature...but this involves me first catching a few fish. Wish me luck!!

Valentines Bashing - 14th February 2009

Valetines day...the day to spend with the ones you love...so I went fishing. My original plan was to try the rocks around Umhlanga, but when I arrived the sea was HUGE. After walking up and down the coast for a while I decided it wasn't going to be worth it, so I headed to the one place I knew would be protected from the big seas...Durban harbour.

It turns out this was a good plan, well, almost. The tide was pulling hard so I snuck out onto the jetty by the yacht mole. There were hundreds of fish around, so things were looking good. There were a lot of mullet, as well as glassies all around the pier. But the really good news is that there were some small springer, as well as some kingies. Every minute that passed showed more action on the surface...so I began fishing frantically.

Sadly however, I just couldn't produce. I tried everything from Clousers to Deceivers, from Charlies to Salty Buggers, from Flippers to Poppers, but nothing. As you can imagine this was rather frustrating. So once the tide got low enough I left the jetty and waded the banks.

This was, as always, very productive. The gurney's never let you down. Within an hour I had landed 3, and lost one.

Now all I need to do is to learn how to catch mullet. They were so immune to my flies that I could cast over them, and then retrieve it so the fly actually bumped into them. And they would just swim off slowly. Grrr...

One day...one day... *sigh*

Gurney Bashing - 8th February 2009

With another week behind us it meant it was time to get a fly into the water again. An old fishing buddy of mine, Nick "the Badge" Nortje, joined me and we headed to Amanzintoti to hit some of the spots there. I was adamant I was going to nail the fish that I had lost there last weekend.

Sadly however this was not to be. We fished the area for about 2 hours on an outgoing tide with no luck. Both of us got a small knock, but no fish were landed.

As most fishermen know, when the fishing is bad, the beer drinking is good...so we decided to kill two birds with one stone, and headed to the harbour. It was spring low by now so we decided to do some Gurnard bashing on the banks, followed by lunch and a beer at Pirates Arms.

How do you know you're a pirate? You just AAaarghhh!!

We got onto the banks at about 9am and waded them on a now pushing tide. As with last week, there was a lot of surface activity, and so we tried for some small kingies and/or springer with a few baitfish imitations, flippers, poppers, etc.

This didn't produce so much as a follow, so we eventually stuck on the deadly grunter charlie and proceeded to pull them in slowly over the prawn beds. As expected we were soon both into fish. I managed to land two Bartailed Flatheads (Sand Gurnards), one of which was a reasonable size. Nick also pulled in two Gurnards, with the added bonus of landing a small Pickhandled Barracuda. There were also a lot of sizeable mullet around, but catching one of these proved once again to be my nemesis.

Feeling a lot better about ourselves now, we headed back to the car, grabbed our wallets and headed for the trusty Pirates Arms. For those of you who haven't been there before, I would certainly recommend it. It has a unique atmosphere, cheap food, big portions, and it tastes fantastic. Give the fish and chips a try, but keep away from the pork pie.

That's it for now...hopefully I'll get a line into the water next weekend.

Amanzimtoti - 30th January 2009

Due to some unforeseen circumstances I only managed to get to the water at 9am, a bit later than the 5:30am I was hoping for. Although I had been tempted to head for Christmas Bay, in the end I decided it was too far and headed for Chain Rocks at Amamzintoti.

The tide was pulling out and I fished off the rocks into the deeper water and around any structure I could find. I fished with clousers, maxi dog's breakfasts, salty buggers, crazy charlies and a few home tied flies with no luck.

Eventually at about 10:30 I hooked into something with a white salty bugger. Sadly after about 20 seconds and a good run it came off. It wasn't a large fish but enough to give me some fun.

In rushing to get another cast out I managed to create the largest tangle I've ever seen in a fly line. Grrrr... After stupidly trying to rip it apart to get another cast in, I only made it worse. Eventually I had to go sit on the beach and untangle the line. After that no more takes.

While I was untangling my line I discovered that the shank of the hook had actually broken. I'm no scientist but I'm guessing this is why I lost the fish. There's a lesson to be learned here...CHECK YOUR KIT. Oh, and don't fish with a 2 year old salt water fly.

I then headed (out of interests sake) to the Durban harbour to see what its like since I last fished there 2 years ago. I see they've fenced off the concrete pier next to Point Yacht Club. We used to get some good fish off of there.

Anyway, it was 1pm and I decided to wade the banks since it was low tide. I wasn't expecting anything, and did it more out of interests sake than anything else. Much to my surprise there was a lot of action going on, with some of the bait fish being chased. I'm not sure what was chasing them, but they weren't interested in my fly. After giving up on them I tried with a brown prawn imitation for some sand gurnards, again with no luck. Lastly I tried to target some of the large mullet I could see in the shallows. I was sight casting to them but had no luck at all. Not even a follow. Damn those mullet.

So at the end of the day I sat down at Pirates Arm's, had a few beers, and watched the last 5 overs of South Africa thrashing Australia. At least something good came of the day

Anyway, I'll be back in the salt next weekend, and will hopefully land something this time

Kamberg - 24th - 25th January 2009

My first fishing outing of the year was a weekend trip to the Kamberg Nature Reserve, which is located in the Drakensberg.

Kamberg has 4 fishable dams, although I think they claim to have 6, and a good stretch of the Mooi River. It's easy to fish, with most of the dams being mown around the edges. The dams are also relatively small, with grass and wood jettys, and are fishable all the way around.

When I first fished Kamberg many years ago I landed 11 trout in one morning. Things have changed since then, and the fishing seems to have gotten a lot harder. I think this may be due to the hatchery closing down, and the dams therefore getting stocked less often. I did chat to a guide and he mentioned that they stocked once a month, but I find this hard to believe since, looking at the catch report, all fish being caught are in the region of 800g, which is larger than a fingerling.

On to my fishing...I arrived at 7am on Saturday and got a line into the water instantly. There was a little surface activity around which was more frustrating than anything else since I wasn't landing fish.

Eventually, at about 9am, I managed to land a decent 900g Rainbow Trout on a Red Mrs Simpson. I carried on for another 2 hours with no more luck. Sadly the afternoon and evening weren't fishable due to a sizeable 'berg storm.

On to Sunday...I was in the water by 5:45am and fished for an hour before landing a 700g Rainbow, this time on a black bead headed nymph. I did have a few more knocks and things were looking a bit better, but sadly this was to be my last fish of the morning. There were 5 other fly fishermen on the water with me, none of whom managed to land a fish, so maybe I must consider myself lucky.

Looking at the catch report also revealed very few fish caught in January. So my report...the fishing is not what it was, but perseverance will get you a fish or two.

The river was looking inviting but sadly I wasn't able to get a line into it. Maybe next time...