Blood Sports

Blood Sports

Fly Fishing, Salt Water
[caption id="attachment_116" align="alignleft" width="300"] Small Pickhandle Barracuda[/caption]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.…
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Exploring Inanda Dam

Bass, Fly Fishing, Fresh Water
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…
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Springer Action (Just Not For Me)

Springer Action (Just Not For Me)

Fly Fishing, Salt Water
[caption id="attachment_110" align="alignleft" width="225"] Springer On Dropshot[/caption]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…
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More Harbour, Less Bashing

More Harbour, Less Bashing

Fly Fishing, Salt Water
[caption id="attachment_106" align="alignright" width="225"] Nick Playing Silly Buggers[/caption] 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…
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Valentines Bashing

Fly Fishing, Salt Water
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,…
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Gurney Bashing

Gurney Bashing

Fly Fishing, Salt Water
[caption id="attachment_95" align="alignleft" width="300"] The Durban Harbour[/caption] 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…
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Amanzimtoti

Amanzimtoti

Fly Fishing, Salt Water
[caption id="attachment_91" align="alignright" width="300"] Amanzimtoti[/caption] 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…
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Kamberg

Kamberg

Fly Fishing, Fresh Water, Trout
[caption id="attachment_86" align="alignleft" width="300"] Warren With A Kamberg Rainbow[/caption] 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…
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