Just back from Mozambique, where we had some great fishing as always. While staying at Nyathi Lodge with my good mate Guy Ferguson in the San Sebastian area we had some strong winds that kept us from going out to sea for a day. There is a very productive estuary there, so we had some forced time of light tackle drop shot fishing in the estuary, from the side (which is always nice). There is a deep hole, right in front of Inyathi that holds a number of interesting species and I was actually pretty stoked to get the opportunity to fish it.
We used light tackle, 6lb braid and 1/6 oz jigheads and small soft baits. Mostly Berkley Gulp 3"sandworm, 3"prawn and McCarthy 3" minnows. We must have caught at least a dozen different species that day, with the biggest being a spotted grunter of around 3kg's. Other species included cock grunter, greater barracuda, Indian mirrorfish, longfin pompano, pursemouth, GT's, river snapper, Natal stumponose, brassy kingfish, bartailed gurnard, sand steenbras etc.
Most were caught on a slow retrieve, with the jig making plenty of contact with the bottom between twitches. It was an awesome day, we hardly walked further than 50m the whole day. The slow technical fishing was interesting and constant experimentation with retrieves was rewarded by finally getting the combination right and getting into the fish. I love this kind of fishing and find it such a shame that we cannot do more of it at home (in KZN) as our estuaries are generally in poor shape.
