Category: Environment

Port St. Johns Zambezi

It’s not just grunter, kob, shad, garrick and rock salmon to catch in the Umzimvubu down in Port St. Johns – Zambezi Sharks can also lighten up your day. Chuck any sort of live-bait out into that orange water and you don’t have to wait long for a voracious Zambezi pup to come in on the attack. They fight great and are beautiful in their innocent child like form, luckily they head out to sea when they grow up, or do they?

Gavin Naude, fishing on the south bank near the main road bridge, a good few kilometres up the river, threw out a livie a few weeks back – and caught this cute little Zambi before too long. He hollered for a tag and Rob Nettleton did the honours – it weighed in at 65cm fork length, and was released with a nice little yellow tag to remember Gavin by.

But then the next day, nearer the river mouth, someone got a 2m guy! It was a proper mean 2m shark and was also safely returned to the river. Evidently, it’s not just big momma’s coming into the river to give birth, but her teenage kids aswell?!

You can fish for sharks year round in the Port St. Johns river mouth area, specialised trips are offered by Offshore Africa Port St. Johns.  Speak to Rob Nettleton, if you feel like hunting down Zambezi’s and sticking tags in them. Rob works closely with ORItag and has tagged many fish for them, over the years. Fishing with live-bait in the Umzimvubu obviously also puts you in line for big fish, like kob. Gavin also recently called Rob over to tag an estimated 60kg kob, photo below…