My group of fishing buddies caught our first grunter of the season (post September) while on a trip a few days ago.

Mike Gradidge, Jannie Visser and I decided to hit the two estuaries most accessible to Cape Town in search of our spotted quarry. Mike decided to stop at the smaller estuary en route to the big estuary and fish the incoming. He was greeted with text book cruising grunter on the sand flats and pinned a grunter on his second cast! He presented to two fish cruising on the edge of the flat and they both rushed over to  inspect the fly. The one grunter simply tipped on the fly and ate it.

The bigger estuary proved a lot more difficult. There were very few grunter on the mud flats and they were not tailing hard at all. Fins breaking the surface quickly before disappearing. A completely different kettle of fish compared to last year this time. Even the kob were not committing to our flies on the dusk and dawn sessions.

On The second day we were fishing the main sand flat in overcast weather. This made spotting cruising fish quite difficult. Luckily there were som aggressive tailers and Jannie caught a good fish after it tailed close to him. Excellent catch as the fish on the sand are much more difficult in this particular estuary.

On Our last day we decided to hit the small estuary on our way back to Cape Town. After a fruitless session targeting kob in the surf, we were on the flats as the tide started moving. There were plenty of fish around, all cruising and very few tails. Very difficult to spot as a SW’ter was blowing and heavy cloud, making spotting impossible. All three of us had multiple shots at cruising fish when the lights did go on when the sun came out sporadically. Again it was Jannies session, landing a 62cm fish after the first one to take popped him off. Mike was off home early and Jannie and I fished for another hour, but by then the fish seemed to have dispersed.

My grunter account for the season is still closed, but I will be back soon to rectify the situation.