WATCH - KZN garrick fishing
Trout anglers braving the colder and wetter weather are really coming off well with big catches in most of our dams here in KZN. There are some smaller browns and rainbows coming out in the streams around the Underberg area.
These fish are getting very feisty around this time of the year taking smaller nymphs. In the early morning most reports are coming back of fish taking on static dry fly. For those lucky enough to have a float tube or kick-boat getting to the deeper parts of the dams and fishing a fast sinking line with a big wet fly will yield the best results for catching trophy fish. Often these bigger fish lie right on the bottom of the dams, away from the heat and open areas. You can often find them hiding in the reeds. These fish are more alert and if you are fishing in a popular dam, these bigger fish have most likely been caught before. This adds a more challenging aspect to hooking up and landing these fish.
Bass anglers fishing Albert Falls have found that there are plenty of smaller fish around in the shallower areas of the dam, with the recent rains most of our dams have raised slightly. This has opened up new areas for these smaller fish to hide away in and deepened a lot of structure around the area. This is also allowing fishing grounds that have not been fished in a while to be fished again.
Inanda is producing some nice fish from the side, but unfortunately due to the closure of many of the slipways, anglers have been shying away from this dam. There have been recordings of 3kg + bass over the past week, but the weather have also put a lot of anglers off. When fishing these dams and you find nothing seems to be working, change up your retrieval style. Often anglers fishing off the edges get frustrated with not catching fish on a slow retrieve and bring their lure in fast to change it. This quick movement is something different that the fish in that area have not seen from that lure and this may trigger an enquiry. Our advice to any angler is to first try change up styles of retrieve before changing lure or location, because you may use a fast surface retrieve, when the big bass may want a slow bottom retrieve.
There have been good reports from Jozini recently with some decent tigerfish coming out on spoon, artificials and bait. Most success as usual coming from the bait, but guys are throwing their arms off to catch these beautiful fish on artificial. Braid is the way to go when targeting these fish using the directness and no stretch to set the hook. These fish have incredibly hard plates in their mouths and catching them can prove difficult without the correct tackle. A fast action stiff rod would need to be used and a 15 to 20lb braid for our tigerfish here. The directness of the braid is very important as you lose no power from the strike to the nylon, and all the energy is transferred to the point of the hook. The hook of choice would be the Mustad Tarpon 6/0. This hook is incredibly strong and sharp, and this will allow for the best possible hook up with a third of the damage to the fish’s mouth that the conventional treble will do.
The carp fishing at Albert Falls has been good over the past few days with plenty of anglers reporting lots of catches in the 6-8 kg range. Anglers are having most luck on a high protein sort of ground feed such as the Super Cast SVB and any sweet flavour seems to be catching the fish. At this time of the year Inanda Dam has a lot of the smaller carp around as there is not as many barbel in this dam. Barbel often target smaller carp as a source of food, as there are not that many in Inanda, these smaller carp are left alone to play havoc with anglers lines, often just picking up the bait and running in before dropping it again, not allowing a hook-up.
Bass anglers fishing Albert Falls have found that there are plenty of smaller fish around in the shallower areas of the dam, with the recent rains most of our dams have raised slightly. This has opened up new areas for these smaller fish to hide away in and deepened a lot of structure around the area. This is also allowing fishing grounds that have not been fished in a while to be fished again.
Inanda is producing some nice fish from the side, but unfortunately due to the closure of many of the slipways, anglers have been shying away from this dam. There have been recordings of 3kg + bass over the past week, but the weather have also put a lot of anglers off. When fishing these dams and you find nothing seems to be working, change up your retrieval style. Often anglers fishing off the edges get frustrated with not catching fish on a slow retrieve and bring their lure in fast to change it. This quick movement is something different that the fish in that area have not seen from that lure and this may trigger an enquiry. Our advice to any angler is to first try change up styles of retrieve before changing lure or location, because you may use a fast surface retrieve, when the big bass may want a slow bottom retrieve.
There have been good reports from Jozini recently with some decent tigerfish coming out on spoon, artificials and bait. Most success as usual coming from the bait, but guys are throwing their arms off to catch these beautiful fish on artificial. Braid is the way to go when targeting these fish using the directness and no stretch to set the hook. These fish have incredibly hard plates in their mouths and catching them can prove difficult without the correct tackle. A fast action stiff rod would need to be used and a 15 to 20lb braid for our tigerfish here. The directness of the braid is very important as you lose no power from the strike to the nylon, and all the energy is transferred to the point of the hook. The hook of choice would be the Mustad Tarpon 6/0. This hook is incredibly strong and sharp, and this will allow for the best possible hook up with a third of the damage to the fish’s mouth that the conventional treble will do.
The carp fishing at Albert Falls has been good over the past few days with plenty of anglers reporting lots of catches in the 6-8 kg range. Anglers are having most luck on a high protein sort of ground feed such as the Super Cast SVB and any sweet flavour seems to be catching the fish. At this time of the year Inanda Dam has a lot of the smaller carp around as there is not as many barbel in this dam. Barbel often target smaller carp as a source of food, as there are not that many in Inanda, these smaller carp are left alone to play havoc with anglers lines, often just picking up the bait and running in before dropping it again, not allowing a hook-up.
Our fishing footage today was shot at Orange Rocks near Uvongo on the KZN south coast.