Harbour
brown trout streams. The Midlands got
properly showered early last week in a very
typical (albeit rather late – but we’ll take it,
Thank You) summer thunderstorm : rainfall
in excess of 50mm was reported in
Nottingham Road and 70+mm towards the
‘Berg. With the dearth of rain over March,
and this month till yesterday, dam levels
have remained pretty constant over the last
while – Midmar and Spring Grove hovering
around the 75% and 85% marks respectively.
A tad on the low side for this time of year as
we head into the dry winter period, but way
better than this time last year. The Bass
anglers have been quiet this side, although
some anglers report that the Bass are still
around, some heavy with eggs – perhaps
confused by the run of late summer weather.
The flooded margins should still be providing
some sport with the Bass feeding in the
shallows, before the waters cool too much
more. The cold snap over the Easter
weekend was a result of a light dusting of
snow over the ‘Berg – as the waters work
their way off the mountains, this will send
water temps plummeting – and send the
Trout into high spawning gear. As the still -
waters cool and clear, we can look forward to
some great winter sigh fishing. Thanks Jan
Korrubel, from The Fish Eagle in
Pietermaritzburg for this update.
The fishing in the harbour has unexpectedly
been very good for the guys fishing in the
deeper water in bait as well as artificial baits.
Some big Kob have been landed the past
week in the channels of the harbour fishing
with live Mullet, big paddle tails and buck
tail jigs. The guys fishing with Cracker have
been getting some nice size Grunter in the
shallower water, mainly at night. Fishing
during the day has slowed down a lot as the
ice cold wind seems to be chasing the fish as
well as our anglers away. A few Kingies have
also been coming out at night on poppers,
size depending on the wind, stronger the
wind, bigger the popper.
Freshwater
With the weather and water playing ball, it’s
been a cracking run in The Midlands over the
last couple of weeks, with some stunning
Trout coming to hand in both the Mooi and
Bushman’s Rivers. After the recent drought,
we suspected that we might have a slow
autumn, but the quality of the fish coming to
hand has been phenomenal; these are quite
clearly South Africa’s premier wild spawn
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