Lake[/b] Jozini Fishing Report[/b] – September 2011
Would it be wrong of me to blame the slow fishing on the weather? I think not. The tiger fishing season has begun with a surprisingly slow start this year with our weather playing havoc on the tiger’s activity. We have been experiencing major fluctuations in air pressure on almost a daily basis, bringing with it strong winds and unpleasant fishing conditions. However, with determination and patients a number of good size fish have been from August to present, the biggest, I heard via the grape vine, was a ‘bus’ of 8kg’s, bare in mind the official record for the dam is 8.3kg! Fortunately the date of the water release has been postponed until the end of October due to pedestrian bridge building down stream of the dam wall. They will be releasing 11.6% of the water dropping the dam levels to 62% from its current 74.4%. This delay in the water release will allow a bigger window period to wait for the weather to settle down a little and for the fish activity to pick up reaching its full potential!
The advantage of having a full lodge the last month has given us the opportunity to be out on the water every day, experiencing the various conditions, and investigating the different disciplines involved in tiger fishing.
Spinning[/b]: Spinning is always a blast, when the fish are on the bite, and is possible to boat a large number of fish ranging from little ‘rats’ all the way to the big elusive ‘busses’ that sit in ambush along the weed beds. Most of the success with spinners, and especially spoons, has been in the shallower clearer water on the fringes of the weed beds near the campsite and along the northern shoreline (weed beds to the right in the opening of the mouth). But be sure to get as close to the weeds as possible and even dropping your lure into the weeds along the fringes. Gareth landed a 3kg tiger along the northern shoreline on his first cast with a bass plastic (crimson fluke), as we were taking a slow drift through the weed beds, powered by the morning breeze. This came as a big surprise to both of us, and was a great laugh. Lures and spinners that have been working are the copper effzett spoons, kingfisher cutback (silver) spoon trailing a red mustad single hook, spinners (silver + red, fire tiger pattern, red, yellow, etc.). A suggestion is to change all the treble hooks to single hooks on all your lures (preferable a single red hook) as it makes it much easier to get a solid hook up and it does not rip the little ‘rats’ mouths to shreds. My favorite trolling lure has only one trailing single hook and I have plenty success that way, more than with a treble.
Trolling[/b]: The beginning of the month saw great success with trolling, landing some good fish ranging from 500g all the way up to a 6kg, which was landed on the Shayamanzi Houseboat. Some of the areas to find the bigger fish while trawling is the river section from the Inkwazi Lodge all the way up to the railway bridge, following the right hand bank or the old river bed. Trolling around the weed patches along the northern shoreline has also been producing some good fish; it just becomes really frustrating as you are constantly catching some large size ‘weed fish’. While trolling the old river channel up until the bridge be sure to experiment with different depths. Most of my success especially in the mornings has been between 1,5m and 2,5m deep. As the day progresses try fishing a little deeper. A British angler, David Williams, fishing in the late afternoon with a Halco lure (fire tiger, 3m dive) landed a fish that stretched the boga grip out to 4kg’s! Congratulations to David on your first ever tiger, not to mention first ever fish!
Successful patterns are the fire tiger, red head and white body, and blue and white. Feel free to experiment with different patterns as these are the colours we have been having most of our success on this past month.
Fly fishing[/b]: Recently we have had the privilege to host a group of experienced American fly fishermen, from the company Fishing with Larry. Unfortunately our efforts were curbed by the howling afternoon winds, restricting us to only a handful of spots. We did however manage to land some good fish, Bruce Cole landing the biggest being a 4,5kg whilst fishing in the shallow water under the railway bridge using a blue and white whistler. Another successful technique is drifting over the shallow weed beds of the northern shoreline, or adjacent weed beds. It is always good to drift with the wind or use a stalking motor while exploring the weed beds as you cover much more ground than you would while anchored. This also allows you to get right in between the weed beds giving you better angles on the weed fringes.
The patterns you should consider adding to your inventory are clousers, deceivers, bait fish imitations, and whistlers, coloured red/yellow/(black), red/orange/(black), red/white, blue/white, green/white, red/black, yellow/black, olive/yellow/red.
Bait[/b]: As most of our fishermen have been lure or fly fishermen we have unfortunately not taken much time to fish bait. However, news from neighboring guides indicates that there has been considerable response while fishing live bait, as well as sardine and chicken, landing fish up to 5.5kgs. Earlier in the mornings the bigger fish have been sitting shallower and as the day progresses the bigger breeding females can be found much deeper along the old river channel.
Really really really would love to fish Barotse... Some amazing tigerfishing on those flood plains.