Tugela Mouth Report June 2014
Tugela Mouth. One of my favourite spots – not just for the fishing, but for the nostalgia. I have been going there with the family ever since I was a child. I rounded up the boys for a weekend of fishing over the 27
th -29
th June 2014 weekend. We stayed at the Tugela Mouth Resort as per usual.
We arrived on Friday afternoon at 2pm, and when I asked at the reception how the fishing had been, I was told that it hadn’t been very good because of this thing called the “equinox”. Unperturbed, we quickly got our stuff together and went out for an afternoon angling session. We were greeted by massive seas. The pictures do not really give it justice, but notice how the waves are smashing right up to the base of the dune “cliffs”. That’s particularly high. And rough.
We walked behind the dunes to the river mouth and it was wide open. I like fishing this river in winter because usually there has not been much rain and the water is calm and pleasant (as opposed to chocolate brown and pumping). The water was pushing in nicely. It was threatening to rain any moment but held off the whole time except for the odd 1 minute very light drizzle.
So we set up our rods with some nice kob baits – foam, covered by hammered chokka with “tentacles”, covered by sardine belly. No action! We sat and waited until about an hour after dark (6pm-ish) but then headed back to let some of the other guys who had arrived late in to the resort.
The next day we were up early and the sea was just as massive. 7ounce grapple sinkers were not sitting properly, so we went back to our spot at the mouth. We put a variety of baits out to see what would happen. I had some big baits out hoping for a kob or even some kind of inedible. While waiting for the big bite we played around with some light tackle and landed and released quite a few of these - please identify at will:
Lively one:
Slimy little buggers:
Alas no big bites and we were getting hungry so we headed back for some lunch and a rest. On our way back along the beach (tide was a bit lower by now) we saw 2 gentlemen on the rocks cleaning 6 massive shad! Much to our annoyance we sorted out tackle quickly and had a throw. The crazy thing is the shad were leaping out of the water! Taunting us! They weren’t interested in any of the lures (plugs, iron candies, silver spoons) or the baits we tried. So we gave up and headed back for lunch. We decided we would come back to this spot and try again later and the next morning (Sunday) – it seemed we had missed our window of opportunity. I asked the security guard how they caught the shad (the other guys weren’t very chatty lol!) and he had said they got them on spoons. Very useful info I thought. Couldn’t wait to come back!
We came back Saturday afternoon and gave it a bash but no luck. Still they leapt free of the water going mad. After a couple frustration hours we decided we were over these games and headed to the mouth again to try for that kob in the late afternoon / early eveing. One of the guys managed 2 perch – both released. We sat till 7pm but nothing else came out. We were trying hard. We had great baits that were completely untouched, and after chatting to some of the other guys at the resort – they all had similar experiences.
The last morning (Sunday) the old alarm clock goes off early and I am raring to go. Everyone else was lazy as can be and just moaned at me when I tried to rally the troops (one too many dops perhaps). So I headed off with only my spinning gear to go get those shad. I was on the beach before first light and witnessed a beautiful sunrise.
Once again the shad were prolific. Jumping out of the water, smashing turns in the waves. The water had changed colour slightly and had a more greenish tinge to it with less visibility – better conditions in my opinion. I had a few chases on the chartreuse iron candy couta caster. Agonising to see them there going crazy, following the lure but no hook ups. I didn’t see anyone pull anything out that morning.
An exciting weekend with great experience gained, even though no fish were braai’d, we’ll get em nice time.
