Spotted Grunter on surface lures

[Tommo]

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...   

[tyrrell]

Nice little report Tommo, I was wondering when you were going to post something about your recent Swartkops trip  . 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. 

[PH]

Simply amazing. Thanks Tommo.

[SAfish]

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.   

[Tommo]

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!

[Tommo]

Hi Tyrell, will let you know. You guys have a great river there!

[SAfish]

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.    Have some more cred.

[Tommo]

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!

[J-Rock]

Great report...
 

[SAfish]

  

[WalkersKiller]

Tommo awesome stuff 

[woerman]

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.

[Capt. Hook]

Yes I have heard of Grunter down in the Southern Estuaries getting caught on Topwater lures, specifically stick bait type lures.

[vismal]

That looks like awesome fun,going to the Breede river in 3 weeks time for 10 days,defenitly gonna give this a go.

[Zetti]

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.

[E.T.]

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

[Nightfox]

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!

[Kumz]

  Tommo as usual .... 

[SUNSHINE]

Nice report, still want to try this

[Bushbuck2]

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.