Author Topic: Report: Mtentu - Transkei (Read 23397 times)

glynnkent · « **on:** October 19, 2015, 01:08:06 PM »

Hi All,

I just thought I'd give a bit of feedback as to two recent trips we had down to Mtentu in June and August this year as there doesn't appear to be all that much info available online.

June 2015
We have a cottage down at Mtentu which we try head down to as often as possible. Over the past year or so, the road to the place has been graded which has made getting there much easier. I would go as far as to say that in the drier winter months, one could almost get there with a sedan although you will be limited in terms of your accessibility once there.

We decided that we would head down for the long weekend and we all took the Monday off work.

We arrived early on the Saturday to an absolute pearler of a day. We quickly unpacked the car and were soon in a rush to quickly set up all our rods as there was talk of a "shad frenzy" down at skate bay.

Heading down to the beach, the first glimpse of the rocks can only be described as a "bamboo forest" with a comical amount of rods. It was like a scene from a Durban pier.

We soon got over the crowds and found our own little spot to fish. Without exaggerating, we must have caught about 100 shad between the 4 of us in a 2 hour session. After a while, we got over using spoons and tried all sorts of other techniques such as throwing poppers or saltwater flies. What ever we threw at them, there was a bite within seconds. It was one of the most fun days I have ever had fishing and won't forget it for a long time.

On a rather sad note, people tend to take advantage of these situations. There were a group of about 4 men who had come up for the weekend and were then employing locals to catch shad for them. They provided them with rods and gave them one shad for every four caught by them. It was very sad to witness this, but even more so when we were abused for throwing back shad caught.

The parksboard were soon notified and the illegal fisherman soon scattered. We tried fishing with a few prawns thereafter and got a few nice blacktail on very light tackle which was very enjoyable.

After getting a bit bored of catching fish, my brother and I went to a surf in the bay and had a few awesome waves all to ourselves.

We then headed back to the house and had a terrific fish braai for breakfast.

The following day we awoke and the Westerly was pumping. Skate bay was enormous and was unfishable.

Not to be outdone by the wind, we took the paddle skis to the sikombe estuary. We launched the skis and messed around with a few strike pros and baits. I managed to catch a few perch, but there was nothing of real significance besides a large mullet caught by my friend on his fly rod.

After being a bit disappointed with the Sikombe, we decided to go for a crayfish dive at the rocks close to skate bay as they had look promising. I saw two small crays and got a bit worked by the sea so we decided to call it off for the day.

We had to then head home early on Sunday morning due to an emergency, but we still had a phenomenal 2 days down there.

August 2015

With another long weekend on the cards, we decided to head back down there. We had to pick up a new gas deep freeze for the place in Joburg and ended up leaving Joburg at around 12 on the Friday. We got to Maritzburg at around 5, quickly got organised and changed vehicles and headed for the cottage. As a result of the stop go's outside the Wild Coast Sun, we only ended up arriving at around 12 at night. All in all, it was a pretty long day of travelling, but we didn't really care as we had made it.

We woke up early on Saturday and headed down to Skate bay. I managed to pick up two size shad in about 30 minutes of spinning which we took back for breakie. Great start to the weekend.

My brother and a close friend arrived shortly after with the paddle skis. The North Easterly was blowing very gently and the sea was so flat, so we decided to launch the boats

We ended up launching out of the Sikombe river at about 10 and were going in completely blind as we had never fished off there before. We paddled straight out about 500m offshore till about 8-10m of water, being very conscious of not drifting into the MPA. It is worth mentioning that one of the skis was a makeshift double plastic ski with a leak.

We fished for about an hour an managed to pick up a +/-7kg Black musselcracker, two malabar rockcods and a matahari. All fish were caught on chokka and safely released thereafter. We were so happy with ourselves, but uncertain as if we were just being lucky or if thus was a common occurrence for the place. I'm embarrassed to say that during this period we must have dropped about 4 other decent size fish.

We were all smiles after a successful first foray offshore at Sikombe and decided to head back for lunch and a few beers at the house.

As the tide started to go out (It was still neaps), we decided to go for a cray fish dive at a new spot. Having no idea where the holes were, we were amazed to see an abundance of large crayfish relatively close to the shoreline. We managed to get about 12 crays between the 3 of us in no more than 30 minutes and we thought that would be plenty for a crayfish braai.

All in all, that has to go down as one of my best days ever. I look back and feel privileged to call South Africa home after days like that.

Unfortunately, the wind howled for the rest of the weekend. We went for a paddle up the Mtentu which was truly phenomenal.

We are heading down again in December and plan to drive up to Mnyameni with the skis. We plan to try and drift down back towards Sikombe with a few trap sticks out whilst bottom fishing. Hopefully we can pick up the odd yellow fin tuna or dorado if we very lucky.

Here are a few pics of the trip:

Photo 1: Mtentu River
Photo 2: Sikombe River

glynnkent · « **Reply #1 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:10:37 PM »

Skate Bay

Weedeater · « **Reply #2 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:18:39 PM »

Great report! Thanks for posting. Annoys me no end, the rape of the Shad. It can only be sustained for so long...

glynnkent · « **Reply #3 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:22:48 PM »

Ja, it was a particularly low point for us. Made me very bleak.

Here are some more photos. Wish I could post the high resolution ones as my phone pics don't really do the beauty of the place justice.

Photo 1: Pebble Beach
Photo 2: Sikombe Estuary
Photo 3: Skate Bay

WalkersKiller · « **Reply #4 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:24:07 PM »

Great post!

SPARODON · « **Reply #5 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:41:08 PM »

lovely report thanks!

just a quick question. is skate bay the bay in front of the lodge? basically the bay formed by the sandbank on mtentu mouth north bank, or is it the first bay if you walking north from the lodge?

glynnkent · « **Reply #6 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:47:37 PM »

Hi Sparodon,

It's the first bay up from the lodge.

I made this little map from google maps with a few labels a while ago to help my family know where to go when we are not there.

Hope it helps.

SPARODON · « **Reply #7 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:55:18 PM »

just what i was after. only been there once and the weather wasnt kind. just love the place though. going back in january for 8 days.

have some.....

CRANKMAN · « **Reply #8 on:** October 19, 2015, 01:58:11 PM »

Great report, thanks.

Grayfish · « **Reply #9 on:** October 19, 2015, 02:55:36 PM »

Thanks for the report. I last fished Mtentu waaaaaaaay..... back when you could still camp on the high red dunes above Sikhombe near the hiking huts. Jeez, what good fishing we had then!!! I last fished there years back when some fly fishing consortium(Ufudu?) ran the place where, I think, the present Mtentu Lodge is currently situated. Apart from the lodge is/are there any cottages available for rent that can accommodate an average sized family of 4/5? I have pointed out the turn off and purposefully(?) defaced sign to Emnyameni to my wife so many times when travelling on our way to Mkhmbathi/Msikaba and environs that she often quizzically asks why I have never take her there and just insist on telling tall stories about the place and the fishing we had in the "old days" - absolute heaven right on our doorstep and no photos to boot!!. An inhibiting factor I must add was the horrendous state of the road due to the numerous "wash-aways" after heavy rains. Its nice to know that there is still a semblance of good fishing in my haunts of yesteryear....
Regards
Grayfish

glynnkent · « **Reply #10 on:** October 19, 2015, 03:12:54 PM »

Hi Grayfish,

That is so great to hear. I must say that Mtentu is very different from other places we have been to on the Transkei. However, there are still so many places which we haven't even explored yet. There are literally an infinite number of spots to fish at any given day. My uncle has told tell me stories of him and his mates camping on the beach in the Mkhambati for two weeks on end back in the 80s. The pics of fish they caught back then are truly mind blowing.

There are only about 3/4 cottages in the area that I am aware of and a few others situated behind the dunes on the Sikombe river.

I'm not sure if any of these are ever rented out to people. We know all the cottage owners down there as most have had their places for a very long time like us. Send me a PM with your details and I will ask if anyone would be interested.

griff · « **Reply #11 on:** October 19, 2015, 03:43:35 PM »

Great report boet! Hope you get that

or

Waars_die_Vis · « **Reply #12 on:** October 19, 2015, 04:03:36 PM »

Net soos ek gedink het, om vis te van is mos maklik :)

Big B · « **Reply #13 on:** October 19, 2015, 09:06:12 PM »

Wow, awesome report.
Looks like paradise.

Grayfish · « **Reply #14 on:** October 20, 2015, 07:07:20 AM »

Glynn

, just go for it boet!!!. I have a feeling that you might come right with a bus or two or more off you fishing skis out deep . Red fish that belong in the way blue yonder were once caught off the rocks just north of the Sikhombe estuary(looking in the direction of Emnyameni) by my friends and I and at the time we thought that it was a genuine fluke. However just to prove that it may not have been a once off occurrence, this yellowfin tuna was later caught by a guy called Tim a while back off the shore at “Sicombe”(?) – I am convinced that it was Sikhombe because the “camping dunes” with the beginning of the rocks(stretching southwards) are clearly visible in the background ??? .

[font=]Caught at Sicombe Point in the Transkei on a stella 5000 and assassin Amia.[font=]Attached Image (viewed 527 times)[/font][font=]:

Description: photo 4.JPG

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Grayfish · « **Reply #15 on:** October 20, 2015, 07:09:29 AM »

Arhhhhhh, the photo didn't "come out"!!!!

glynnkent · « **Reply #16 on:** October 20, 2015, 09:13:56 AM »

That photo was one of the main reasons why we thought it may be worthwhile to take the skis down and make an effort offshore.

I had read up on another forum of guys launching at Mnyameni a couple of years ago and just trolling a couple of clark spoons behind backline. I think they only managed a few bottoms on that occasion, but were going in blind as they had no sounders or waypoints to work off.

Here are a few more pics of the tuna caught of Sikombe taken from the Mtentu Lodge Facebook page. Apparently it was around 12,3kg.

MIKE PIKE · « **Reply #17 on:** October 20, 2015, 03:50:26 PM »

Great report , those pics bring back memories , mate and myself walked from Wild Coast Sun down to the Mtentu river and back in the early 80's , was great sports swimming the rivers and camping almost on the beach , took a small telescopic rod with and a grinder had great fun catching supper every night , pebble beach is awesome gazillions of perfectly smooth and rounded pebbles , awesome part of the coastline to explore for a week or more .

Smiddi · « **Reply #18 on:** October 07, 2020, 12:52:29 PM »

Quote from: glynnkent on October 19, 2015, 01:47:37 PM

Hi Sparodon,

It's the first bay up from the lodge.

I made this little map from google maps with a few labels a while ago to help my family know where to go when we are not there.

Hope it helps.

Hi Glynn,
Any chance you still have your map of the Mtentu area?
We headed up there for a week later this year and I am new to the area. Would really like to get some surf and estuary fishing in with limited time.

Many thanks in advance!

glynnkent · « **Reply #19 on:** October 08, 2020, 08:26:59 AM »

Here is a pretty crude map of the area.

One spot I haven't marked off on the map is Salmon Rock. Its close to the lodge on the Northern Bank of the Mtentu river. Have had some success there. If you are prepared to walk, there are also some nice ledges a few kms North of the Sikombe River.

Hope that helps.