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Another Zambezi Shark aka Bull Shark catch and release in the Umzimkulu Estuary

Another Zambezi Shark aka Bull Shark catch and release in the Umzimkulu Estuary: As the season draws to a rainy close, the crew on Happy Daze have been putting in the hard yards. Fishing through wind and rain, demonstrates the commitment it takes to get fish like these guys do.

Another Zambezi Shark aka Bull Shark catch and release in the Umzimkulu Estuary. On the happy ship Happy Daze with Greg Milward being the happy angler.

Fishing techniques

The neat little boat Happy Daze can take a few passengers. Right through the season, every afternoon after work, she can be seen trolling the channels. Or casting surface plugs. In all directions. And for miles. They cover so much water with this technique. And the surface strikes are what life is all about. Greenspot kingfish – so rare and hard to catch, are in full-pack attack mode this time of the year here.

Trolling produces kob, perch and kingfish. But it’s that surface strike that keeps us all coming back.

Lures vs Bait

Lures by far. A helluva lot more effort for sure, but if you want to catch decent fish, quit your bait habit. Aside from being stinky and dirty, there needs to be some consideration for sticking a big hook through a live bait just for your own pleasure and fun.

The surface strike is epic and I hope all of you get to experience an angry rock salmon come smashing your popper right in front of your disbelieving eyes. You’d better tackle up if you think you can argue with these fish. Check Matt Wainright’s epic struggle with a BIG one recently right HERE.

And down deep…the river has a few 10m holes…perfect for that Dirty Prawn bucktail especially built for and named after the river – the Umzimkulu Special, will have you bending too. This bucktail has a streak of orange built into its belly. And I think this is what does all the magic.

You can drop a plastic paddletail or jerktail down there too. And if you use a MYDO Silver Bullet as the jighead, you can merrily troll this rig out the back for kob and things.

You can kit out for estuary fishing like this right on The Sardine News website at https://thesardine.co.za/mydo. Or use the menu bar at the top of this page.

The Zambezi aka Bull Shark was caught on the troll this time. He came into that spread all excited, made a few charges, and got hooked in the tail! Obviously, the Happy Daze crew have built up an effective estuary spread design. That even gets a little pup Zambezi all excited.

Every fish caught on Happy Daze is released. Including this baby bull shark. Some seasons are better than others. But an average is way over 50 kingfish per season. With the other species bringing up the score to around a 100. Sometimes double that number in the better and longer seasons.

Umzimkulu Special Bucktail by Dirty Prawn

This is what the bull sharks are here to eat...juvenile all-sorts... — Umzimkulu Special Bucktail by Dirty Prawn

Seasonal

Yip, this is totally seasonal. And the rain that has been pouring here at the Umzimkulu Marina in Port Shepstone recently, is a sign of things wrapping up for this year 2023. When the river comes down with strong rainfall soon enough – it becomes unfishable.

Except for barbels and eels! However, it’s not all lost. The perch and rock salmon stay behind in the brown. And down by the river mouth, the grunter persevere too. Some species of fish must have some serious night vision to be able to operate, let alone hunt, in that brown water. Luckily, in the very depths of the river, and down by the deep mouth area, there will still be salt water down below the fresh that’s on top.

During the odd year, the brown flushes out with a stop in the rain late October and November. As of today, the sun has just come out. The river is brown. But it wasn’t anything like a flood so we should be ok in about a week or so again.

With these first summer rains, the water has gone brown...and this is now real bull shark water at the Umzimkulu Marina. — With these first summer rains, the water has gone brown…and this is now real bull shark water at the Umzimkulu Marina.

Once the rains stop after April or so, the blue water from the ocean comes inside the river again and the tides dominate the flow, we are back in the game.

We are taking bookings for next year so if this is your kind of fishing, I am ready to help you with your ultimate KZN or Transkei Wild Coast estuary fishing holiday experience. Call me or WhatsApp +27793269671 anytime!

You can read and learn all about the MYDO Fishing and Lures right here. We can get you onto the perfect boat and out to sea or upriver with Umzimkulu Adrenalin. And you can stay with us here at The Umzimkulu Marina.

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Zambezi Shark taken on Rapala – the video…

The story as it leads up to the video…

We do these boat trips on our 28ft retired commercial cat with roof and chairs – as often as possible, and have a long time working relationship some of the backpacker establishments around the southern KZN. They had called double agent Ryan Poisson up, to fetch a willing bunch of worldly young representatives, all amped for the seafood feast and afternoon cruise on the Umzimkulu River, in Port Shepstone. No-one guessed at a Zambezi Shark taken on Rapala.

And so we found ourselves strumming along with two Strike Pro Rapala imitation lures (we have run out of MYDO Luck Shots but there is a new batch in the oven), on two rods borrowed off the Niteshift, rigged for Snoek (Queen Mackeral) with long wire traces (luckily, as it turns out). Conversation always turns to sharks on the boat eventually, and today was no different with the Swedes showing lots of interest in the stories we always start telling at this stage. After years and years of speculation and random but few sightings, it was long though that the sharks were long gone from their old haunt of the 20th century when locals could shoot at marauding bull sharks (Zambezi) and Hammerheads from off of the old combined railway/road bridge that crossed at modern day Spiller’s Wharf.

Then local guide on the river, Marius Awcamp got his beautiful little baby Zambezi fishing off the wharf at Spiller’s, in March this year. Click here for that story… This was the first confirmed shark catch in the river for many, many years. Others had been hooked and just bit through the trace each time, or snapped the line after a long fight.
But after an hour or so of trolling, food was ready and with no strikes but plenty chirps from the United Nations of Fishing Experts, food got collected from the delicious Bela’s Mozambican Restaurant, right on the water at Spillers Wharf, and we headed up to the deep hole underneath Royston’s Hall. Touching up the mud bank we could cast right into the hole and work it’s edges, in the hope of an angry Rock Salmon, determined Kob or stupid Flagtail or just something. Conversation was fairly centred on our fishing abilities and then shark stories…and we were being offered all sorts of advice and even rewards if a fish got caught, least of all a shark. But it was a fantastic afternoon and the sighting of a huge Oxe-Eye Tarpon, a metre long, tailwalking right in front of us, that kept the lures going. We were motivated, Elvis Wabody (Mozambique) and I combined to throw 100 times until eventually – THUD – something substantial, turning out to be the first Zambezi I have caught on a lure, struck.

A fantastic fight, and the fish soon showed itself to be a healthy little Bull Shark pup, and submitted for a clean and entertaining release…

Sharks RULE!