Glossy, durable, flexible and perfect for fly tying. In Pattex 100% Platon Trakoshis believes he has found the ultimate fly tying glue for building baitfish heads Glue. It’s always such a big question and discussion with fly tiers. “What did you glue the eyes on with? How did you make that head? What are you [...]
….When you know it’s time to go. The research of Dr Paul Cowley and his team from SAIAB has shown that spotted grunter travel far less than previously thought. Or, at least, in modern times don’t migrate as they may have in the past. Results from one particular study showed that 95% of all recaptured [...]
It’s the first of a three-morning stretch of epic grunter fishing and I don’t even know it yet. All I know is that two weeks prior I had a small taste of things to come. A new fly pattern in hand, I knew I’d dialled their number. Now I wanted an answer.
What’s the saltwater equivalent of a trout bum? Whatever it is, Henkie Altena of Karoolskraal Fly Fishing Camp, a living, walking legend of the Karoo and Overberg fly fishing scenes fit the description. We caught up with him for our issue 18 Lifer profile. The first fish I can remember catching on fly, was a [...]
Over the past decade I’ve had the privilege of working with some of South Africa’s finest action- and adventure-sports athletes. Seriously bad ass cats who make a living from their respective sports. Surfers, rally drivers, climbers, BASE jumpers, FMX dudes, triathletes and trail runners. Among others. While they’re all characters in their own right and [...]
Neil Rowe and I were discussing grunter at dinner on Alphonse Island when he mentioned that he’d (for many years) had quite good success fishing tandem prawn fly rigs in the Breede River. He described the ‘top’ fly as a standard floating prawn-type fly, such as the foam-backed prawn flipper or the deerhair prawns, with [...]
This short piece on catch and release fly fishing in our estuaries was published on the Red Bull website: While studying the giant mud prawn Ewan had a premonition of imminent chaos, that a spotted grunter would eat his Clouser Minnow. I agreed that his olive Clouser could be mistaken for the prawn by a hungry [...]
Everyone has heard of the great Wildebeest Migration through Tanzania’s Serengeti and up into Kenya. This spectacular phenomenon is actually more than ‘just’ a wildebeest migration as includes (in far lesser numbers) zebra, as well as Thompson's and Grant's gazelles follow the trek for better grazing and water. As spectacular as it is in sheer [...]
There's something about waking up in dark to head out fishing. Launching the boat with nothing but a dim haze over the eastern horizon. The crisp air as it cuts, even in midsummer, through your layers as the boat plains over a mirror of water. The day is full of potential and all you really [...]
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 [...]
