Sardines caught by fly-anglers at Mzamba
It is most unusual to catch sardines with a normal fly-fishing outfit in the surf.
Seven members of South Coast Fly Anglers had a lucky break, when they caught over 20 sardines while fly fishing the surf on the Mzamba Beach just over a week ago.
This will certainly go down as a red-letter day in the history of the club.
The club had arranged a salt water outing to the Mzamba Estuary and seven members arrived at the beach shortly after 07:00.
They rigged their rods, grateful that hordes of rock and surf anglers were not present.
After a short while of little action, except for a couple of small wave garrick that were caught and released, a large flock of terns was seen to be swooping and diving behind the backline.
The birds gradually came closer to the beach and it became evident that they were diving for sardines, which had split up into small pockets, that were slowly moving into the shallows, 10 to 20 metres from the beach.
Some of the ever-hopeful fly-anglers quickly tied on larger flies, in the hope of catching any predatory fish that were chasing the sardines. Alas, there were no takers.
This train of thought was put on the back burner, when a sardine was hooked by one of the anglers using a small Surf Puff fly.
This fish had been hooked fairly and squarely in the mouth, which is quite amazing, as sardines are filter feeders, plankton being their main diet.
By now, word had spread and sardine hunters, armed with cast nets, crates and baskets of all descriptions, as well as a seine netting boat and crew, were arriving.
The boat was fortunately launched some way north of the small pockets, where a much larger shoal had been spotted.
All in all, over 20 sardines were caught on Surf Puff, Crazy Charlie and Surf Candy flies. All of these fish were hooked in or around the mouth, showing that they were actively trying to eat the flies that were being presented.
Sabiki rigs, which consist of a cluster of six to eight ‘flies’ are regularly used to catch bait fish off boats and piers in deep water, but it is most unusual to catch sardines with a normal fly-fishing outfit in the surf.
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