South African Fishing

And what an experiance it was! The weeks leading up to the trip was quite nerve wracking.  Have you got the right tackle? Have you got enough tackle? Is it going to be hot or cold?  What should you take or leave at home?

Madness, different people having experienced the trip to Flamingo Camp at differant times of the year all giving you the advice they think to be the best. So I decided to make the decision to follow my own mind and hope for the best.

The trip starts at Cape Town International Airport at 6 am meeting all the guys from the Cape Town area and quite a few from Hermanus as well.  Getting your baggage on to the plane goes smoothly, but there is always one guy that wants to do things his own way.  Sorry, sir, NO HOOKS IN YOUR HAND LUGGAGE, he was travelling with us and was told in advance to remove all the hooks, but he just thought he would take a chance, Don’t, you are making life hard for yourself and your fishing buddies before the trip has even started.

The trip to Windhoek airport is a quick 2 hours then the wait for the connecting flight to Lubango Airport which lasted just over 2 hours.  Luckily the pub had lots of cold beers so the time was taken to meet our fellow anglers.  Needless to say the trip to Lubango felt very long with the onboard loo being well utillized.  The Lubango airport in Angola is a total abortion, but this is Africa and was it not for Amber and Warren from the Flamingo Camp who were to be our hosts for our 5 day stay we would most probably still be at the airport trying to get into the country.

Amber speaks a fair amount of Portuguese and was accustomed to the official mess at the airport by now.  She collects a new party at the airport every Friday.  Of the 20 odd fishermen only one guy lost his cool box with some tackle that never made it to the baggage hall, the locals must have thought it contained food.

The trip from the airport to Flamingo took another 5 hours in four Toyota Landcruisers which were to be our fishing vehicles for the duration of the week.  Amber made sure we had lots of cold beers for the long trip so it was over before we knew it.

We got to the camp late in the evening very tired but ready to do some serious fishing in the next few days.  Two of the guys got some chokka bait from Rico and Amber and managed to get 2 nice cob before going to bed at about 11 pm, mad buggers.

That evening after a lovely supper we all starting getting our tackle together for the big onslaught on the cob and leeries that had been on the bite for weeks now.  Rico the owner of Flamingo Camp had told us that there had been numerous huge bait balls coming past the camp with huge cob leaping right out of the water after the baitfish, cob leaping out of the water? Surely this could not be - I had never heard of cob doing this before.

On day one we were all up at dawn, no time for breakfast, maybe later.  The moment it got light enough to see properly one was amazed at how flat the sea was, then out of know where the baitballs started to rise all over the place.  What a sight!  The baitballs were mostly some distance out but came within meters of the shore at times.  Henry from Swakopmund area was first into a fish on a keel spinner, this leerie weighed in at 24 kgs and was the biggest one caught for the week, what a fight, the fish was tagged and returned unharmed to fight another day.

The most exciting fishing ever, the jig and drop?  A trace with a sinker and a treble hook cast into the baitball, jig the sardine, drop to the bottom and hold your breath.  The cob and leeries take so hard when fished for in this way it’s unbelievable, some very nice cob and leeries were taken, the biggest cob in our group weighed in at just over 16kgs.  The other groups had taken a few kob in the region of 25kgs.

We were all using 11 and 12 foot bait casting rods, don’t even bother taking any other bigger rods unless you want to target the huge bronzies swimming at your feet, these sharks are everywhere, you see them swimming in the waves with their tails and dorsal fins sticking out.

The guys from Kokstad were well prepared for the Bronzies and actually had lots of fun on the quieter days, landing some fair sized sharks.  It’s amazing how easily a 30 kg Bronzie will swallow a 2 kg Elf that was put out on a slider, with the bigger bronzies actually stripping the guys reels.  At first this was very funny but after two days the tackle supplies got less and less and the sharks seemed to be winning more of these battles than they lost. 

Rico and Amber decided to have a sushi evening for the guys.   I think this is a standing rule each week with the new groups coming in.  They put on quite a spread, cob, leerie, elf, black mussels, calamarie, oysters all of this being fresh from our daily catch.  Some of the food was fried for the more sensitive guys, but what a feast.  I have never seen an oyster being opened with a chisel and 4 pound hammer before, these were huge, enough flesh in one oyster for 4 people.  These I preferred fried, they were just too big and rich to eat fresh.

The area called the river mouth was by far the most productive area to fish in the early morning and again from about 4 o’clock.  The mouth is also not very rocky so the minimum tackle was lost in this area.  The leeries were taken on spinners as well as poppers with the odd cob taking a spinner.

Fishing for leeries with these poppers was really exiting, you could actually see the leerie breaking the surface behind your lure as it chases it down, it really gets your nerves going.  The retrieve must be just right, too fast and you get a chase without a take, too slow the same thing happens.  It takes many casts to get the hang of it, then suddenly you start getting hook-ups and the games begin.  Like any thing a little practice will make you a master soon enough, soon all the over-winds seem to have been worth it.

The best thing I found to do when you do throw an overwind is to reel in immediately before your spoon hits the bottom, 9 out of ten times it would mean a spoon lost.  Walk a little to one side and cast it out on the sand, this way you save lots of money and the time it takes to make up new traces.

The one cast I made at a rocky ledge made a really bad overwind with my spoon ending up on the bottom before I could react to wind in, after about 5 minutes of struggling I managed to get the line spooled properly again and decided to just give it one hard pull and reel for all I was worth.  What do you know Stuck, suddenly the line was moving, after a 10 minute fight I led a beautiful 15 kg kob into the shallows, just shows you there is some luck involved, thank you!

The overall tally for the five days was 180 fish between 6 of us, not a bad average, 36 fish a day, 6 each.  Obviously some of the guys had a much higher success rate, landing many more fish.  Henry our mate from Swakopmund by far out-fished us on most days.  He is a professional fisherman, and actually does it for a living, taking people out on his ski boat and for trips down the beach every day of his life.  I am yet to see a more dedicated fisherman than Henry, he just never gets tired of fishing.  I managed to learn so much from him, simple things like knots and traces that you would not believe what a difference it makes in your catch rate.

On the last day of our trip we decided to fish with fresh sardines that Henry went to catch for us early that morning while we were having breakfast.  The water was very clear so our hook-up rate had gone right down the previous day, with the bait balls being just out of casting range.

Now instead of doing the jig and drop we were casting whole fresh pilchards.  The leeries went mad, we were getting takes on every cast with a lot of fish being missed on the strike.  Henry of course was hooking and landing 9 out of 10 of his fish standing right next to me??

Being the nice guy he was he quickly showed us the trace he was using and bam, fish on.  I think Henry caught and released 25 leeries against my 6, when you’re good you good!

A lot of new friends were made during our short stay, hopefully I will meet up with these guys again.  I will make a point of looking up Henry when next I am in Namibia, who knows I might still get my big Bronzi after all?

The next morning it was up at 2pm for the long trip back to Lubango Airport with Amber as fresh as ever organizing everything in the professional manner she started our trip with, what an asset she is to Rico, lets hope he holds on to her.

My Plan is to put aside some money to go back to Flamingo Camp in the not too distant future and show my son what real fishing is.  Now if that’s not something to look forward to, what is?