The Fishing Finnemore: December Fishing

My December fishing eased off in mid-month with the arrival of the visitors who now stand in lines on the beach, trying for kob but catching mostly sand sharks. They are a friendly lot of experts in their field, many with bigger pot-bellies than me; so I hang around with them. The fishermen at Flat Rock have enjoyed more success, especially my new friend, Marcel, from Lydenberg. He has a house nearby and fishes only at Flat Rock, on all tides and at different times. Usually with a beer and his two dogs. Yesterday at 12h30 on the turn of the tide he started the scramble for elf, after a streepie that he had caught was bitten off. Half a dozen anglers got their quotas of elf between 30 and 50 cm.

Steve and I were on the beach at the time foraging on the low tide rocks (and where I was getting blisters trying for sole; no luck yet). He grabbed his speargun and jumped in and saw quite a lot of elf. We were very envious but not sufficiently motivated to climb the steps back up to Sixth Ave to fetch the rods from the car. There were also mullet in the shallows and off the rock but again we did not want the trek up for the throw net.

Marcel has taken a cracker or two (4 kg) on red crab from the beach next to Flat Rock and a kob on seacat just after dark on a pushing tide. He also got a big (25+ kg) sand shark from Flat Rock. A similar fate befell Jaques, a prominent local resident, who got a biggie at night off the NSRI beach and was left so stiff that he could neither cough nor laugh for a few days afterwards! Jaques does not work out.

Today, 31 December, the coffee grinders and red bait were catching small dassies at low tide off Flat Rock. I went against the flow and fished live mullet, which I caught in the surf with my net, without any luck. An up-country angler who had been on the rock since 05h00 arrived at the top of the stairs with three elf just as Connie and I were going down.

Rob and Steve have gone deep sea today. I declined as I didn't think my back would hold out or I might embarrassingly throw up. A few weeks ago Rob was told by an all-night fisherman, whom he spoke to at the garage the morning afterwards when this guy was on his way to work, that he had picked up an 11 kg, gutted weight, white steenbras at 03h00 off PW se Bank in the lagoon on prawn and a pushing tide. What else goes on while we sleep?

As clear as daylight however, is the recent success of this unknown specialist leerie angler on Swartvlei. Thanks to Adin for the pic which he had on his Blackberry.

21kg leerie, Swartvlei, Sedgefield

December started off with a good flood in the Touw river, Wilderness, which opened the mouth after it had been closed by big seas a month earlier. Rob was the first at the estuary with his throw net, followed a little later by myself and Steve. Rob got amongst the spotted grunters which were schooling in the shallows as the first flood waters broke into the sea. It was a little deeper and murkier by the time Steve took his first blind throw and got three smallish grunters. Later on he got a nice 65cm fish. My own wading in deeper water got me five grunter in one blind throw. I knew, when I pulled on the net, that I had really caught something, such was the strength of the wriggling and weight coming up the rope! I released four and kept the biggest of 60cm and then went home to fix the net which is not made for this type of fishing.

A week earlier I enjoyed spectacular, simultaneous, success from my kayak on Island Lake, Wilderness, on a cloudy, windy evening. Alone on the lake I hooked a very nice grunter of 61 cm and was fully engaged in bringing this fish to the net when a good leerie took my drifting mullet. It was a big mullet so I knew I had a good fish. After playing both fish, one rod under each arm, I decided to first deal with the grunter, which I had not yet identified, but suspected to be a white steenbras given the strength of the take of the prawn and the first run. After netting the fish and shoving it between my legs in the cramped sit-in kayak, I turned to the leerie which I got alongside after 20 minutes. It was clearly too big for my net so I hauled it out by the gills and shoved it, with the hook in it's mouth between my legs next to the grunter, which was also still attached to the other rod; and paddled like crazy for the launching spot. The leerie weighed 7.5 kg. I could not revive either fish and gave them to Steve who produced an instant high quality dinner.