ULTIMATE ANGLING - the Ultimate SA Fishing website
General Angling Topics => Saltwater Lure Angling => Topic started by: Tommo on March 30, 2011, 07:18:26 PM
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(http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4529.0;attach=24533;image)
About ten years ago I was fishing in the upper reaches of a Transkei estuary with a small surface lure. I twitched it slowly over a shallow mudprawn bank and was rewarded with a swirl in the water below the lure. This happened numerous times, before I finally hooked a fish and on landing it was surprised to see that it was a spotted grunter.
I figured that it was a bit of a fluke and didn't give it too much thought ater that.
Recently a good mate of mine, Chris Schoultz, who lives down in PE told me he is regularly catching spotted grunter on surface lures in the Swartkops river. I decided that I wanted to check it out, so got a cameraman and wnet down to PE for a few days. We had some amazing fishing, catching around a dozen grunter all on surface lures.
I was interested to note that the grunter were all caught over areas where they were feeding on mudprawn, blowing into the mud to expose the prawn and eject them from their tunnels. Generally in pretty shallow water. The grunter obviously keep a lookout for mudprawn swimming slowly on the surface in areas where they are blowing, and hit them quite aggressively when they see them. The lure needs to be worked extremely slowly, with tiny twitches and pauses in between. The grunter fight hard and are great fun to catch on surface lures. Kudos to Chris for taking the time and effort to figure out how to regularly catch these shy fish on the surface. The programme will be aired on supersport at some stage, so definitely look out for that if you are interested in catching unusual species in unusual ways...
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Nice little report Tommo, I was wondering when you were going to post something about your recent Swartkops trip :resp: . My buddy xtc has caught 60+ grunter on surface lure on Swartkops in the last 6 months or so. If you've got the technique right, as you said very slow with twitches and pauses, they'll give you a solid rev on the light stuff when they smash it, especially the 50cm+ meneers. Will be great to see my home territory on your show, so please be sure to keep us posted on when the episode airs. :ult:
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Simply amazing. Thanks Tommo.
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Thanks for another great report. Last weekend when I was busy stalking mullet on the mud flats I noticed a couple of good sized Grunters tailing/feeding and wondered how I should go about targeting them since I have read numerous posts that stated it is impossible to catch them while they are tailing. I think the Knysna lagoon would be perfect for this kind of fishing and I will definitely try it this weekend. :corrct: :win:
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Hermann I am sure that you will have success. Just make sure that you are fishing over spotties feeding on mudprawn and not sandprawn. When they are feeding on sandprawn they seem much less aggressive. I think the mudprawn obviously swim more on the surface than sandprawn do. Also move your lure very slowly with some longish pauses in between. Try not to cast the lure directly over the feeding fish if possible, rather let the wind/current drift your lure over them. It does take a lot of patience, bnut it is awesome!
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Hi Tyrell, will let you know. You guys have a great river there!
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Thank you for the advice. What colour and size lures should I use? You should come down to Knysna sometime, I would love to wet a line with you and buy you a beer for all your help you are giving me. :hehe: :tkx: Have some more cred.
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Hey Hermann, gold or orange seem to work really well. The smaller ones are often hit more. I would say around 7cm to 9cm a lure that floats quite well, so that if it dives when you twitch it, it pops up again quickly onto the surface. It helps a lot if you can see the lure yourself, even when the water is a bit ruffled by wind. Thanks for the invite, maybe I will come that way sometime!
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Great report...
(clap) (clap) (clap)
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:thmsup" :happ:
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Tommo awesome stuff :tkx:
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Hey Hermann, gold or orange seem to work really well. The smaller ones are often hit more. I would say around 7cm to 9cm a lure that floats quite well, so that if it dives when you twitch it, it pops up again quickly onto the surface. It helps a lot if you can see the lure yourself, even when the water is a bit ruffled by wind. Thanks for the invite, maybe I will come that way sometime!
I have never heard this or seen it but I am already making plans to give it a go. Let me know if you do plan a trip to Knysna because I can give you a place to stay.
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Yes I have heard of Grunter down in the Southern Estuaries getting caught on Topwater lures, specifically stick bait type lures.
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That looks like awesome fun,going to the Breede river in 3 weeks time for 10 days,defenitly gonna give this a go. (clap)
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Thanks Tommo. Great stuff, i love fishing estuaries and posts like these just make me wanna pack up and move to the coast.
The way things are going you will one of these days have more cred than posts.
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Tommo what a sweet report. Thanx for posting.
I do know that Swartkops is a sought after place to target Grunter on fly. Usually the guys will use Crazy Charlies,etc. and they do hook them, but I won't say that the success rate is that good. What you have experienced is fantastic, cause now the possibility of hooking them on Poppers and flies just underneath the surface is most definitely on the cards and is something I will look into myself for that matter.
Thanx yet again for sharing :resp: (clap)
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Awesome report and session Tommo, i'v had them swirl around my mirro s7 but they don't want to eat it, just got to get some of those raps and twitch away!
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(clap) Tommo as usual .... :win:
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Nice report, still want to try this (clap)
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Hey vismal,
did u have any success at the breede on topwater. I have waited the whole of winter to go give it a try when the fish are a little more active. let me know coz im goin to head out that way for a good spinning session in two weekends time.
That looks like awesome fun,going to the Breede river in 3 weeks time for 10 days,defenitly gonna give this a go. (clap)
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:welc: Bushbuck...
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Hey Bushbuck.......nee wat broer,die weer so sleg oor paasnaweek ons het nie veel in die rivier gevang nie,paar mooi Vaalhaaie en elwe by die punt gevang aan Infanta se kant,stywe lyne.
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Tommo, I really enjoyed the show. What rods are you using for this? The poppers tend to be really light and difficult to cast far...
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Hi Unkredible, I use the Shimano Cumara 7'2" MH rod and a Sustain 2500 with 8lb power pro braid for this type of fishing. That is my main estuary outfit for the light tackle and it is excellent in that application!
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It is amazing how many e-mails I have received since the show on catching grunter on topwater lures was on air, from guys who have tried it out and come right. I got a mail from a guy yesterday who has been in Stillbay for the last week and he has caught grunter on surface lures every day, getting 9 on his last evening.
The follow up show on the Swartkops with some more info and more grunter on surface lure will be shown this monday evening at 7pm. There are also Garrick and springer caught on the show.
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:tkx: for informing us (clap)
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Great post Tommo has anyone tried this in durban harbour and been successful
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Awesome stuff Tommo , I still have a Stywe lyne from waaay back with articles about Grunter on surfuce lures .
Have taken the odd couple in the Western cape , Bitou , Breede , Gourits . We have had great success on baby Flukes too , [Zoom Bass worm for the guys that dont know ] Gold , oranges also hand down took most fish , We fished them weightless , with a bass hook , slowly twitching pausing .
The Grunters seemed to be just to keen to suck the flukes up .I really loved stalking them , on the banks of rivers , with light sticks . We have been amazed just how close to the banks some fish fed , keeping a low profile is very important .
have some great Tommo :+ cred:
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Very interesting Craig.
I spent a lot of time chasing them on fly in the Western Cape and now have finally caught them on the long rod in the Breede, De Mond, Swartvlei and Little Brak. i spent this last season trying to catch cruising fish. All my fly caught ones have been actively feeding at the time of hook up.
Mid decemeber I found a group milling around on a sand flat, pretty relaxed and i thought this would be the perfect time for some experimentation. if you got a prawn fly close enough they would have a look and would often follow a clouser closely but would not commit. Then I changed to a deerhair prawn (floating). That changed thing a bit. They would charge the fly from far out and would dart under the fly. Sometimes with the top fin completely out the water. An awesome sight in clear water. But they wouldnt commit. They would roll so close that sometimes the fly would actually be pulled under in the hydraulic left by the fish.
I did this for some time and then eventually moved on. That night I returned thinking about Mr Shoultz' exploits. This time with a Charlies Pole Dancer (a fly that mimics the action of the spook). Harder to present carefully but on three occasions I had fish grab the tail feathers and pull the fly down. With a trailing hook I would have been ON. I did try this but it destroyed the action.
Now my theory was this- Divers have told me they are extremely inquisitive and acquarium keepers will tell you that they are highly aggressive. If you go to EL aquarium have a look at the little spotties chasing the kob and steenies away. Now I think surface lures prey on these two characteristics of the fish. What was happening with the Pole Dancer was that the fish would follow right on (as they did the deerhair). the difference was that the side by side action made it hard for the fish to follow and on the turn towards the fish they would strike. Possible defensive?
I stopped pursuing this method as I found the ulitmate code crack. But still no cruising grunts on fly. Here are some of the flies I developed and tried:
Pole Dancer:
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OBbi5ZEggpw/T08OFSeqh0I/AAAAAAAABjE/UAWyL5Pox50/s1600/ishot-1203010739441.jpg)
Deer hair prawn:
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HnGqiOq9oDQ/T08OM-IAcgI/AAAAAAAABjs/Svo9GKhPyPc/s1600/ishot-1203010743541.jpg)
Gurglers (note trailing hook)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hehVn-WWsgk/T08OHPMvyPI/AAAAAAAABjM/zK9qp28Jg0A/s1600/ishot-1203010739541.jpg)
Jam Fly
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2d83Sfa_tNg/T08OJtM9WvI/AAAAAAAABjc/NOEWpeF6RyY/s1600/ishot-1203010740051.jpg)
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Nice Peter, its great fun figuring something out and I am sure you will crack those grunter on the top if you stay at it. That Pole Dancer fly looks awesome, I would love to see what it can do in the estuaries for perch and river snapper.
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:shre:
Beautiful Grunters tommo
:happ:
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Great post Tommo has anyone tried this in durban harbour and been successful
Anyone? Also what are crackers- mud or sand prawn? Thanks
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Hi Mrzipo, I haven'e heard of anyone trying for grunter on surface lures in Durban Harbour, I haven't fished there myself for years. It would be interesting to hear if anyone has given it a go. It does seem to be the case that the grunter are more likely to feed on surface lures over mudprawn beds, than over cracker (sandprawn)beds. Durban harbour has mainly sandprawn as far as I remember, though there may be some mud prawn in the mangroves.
Crackers are the pinkinsh, yellowish prawns that live in burrows in the sand on the banks. Guys pump them out of their burows using a hand pump. Mudprawn are a greenish, grey colour and live in burrows in dense mud, such as that found near mangrove trees. They are also pumped using the same method.
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yoh , some serious Flies !!
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Thanks for the reply Tommo