Tag: casting

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Trolling lure for R50 bucks catches everything

MYDO Silver Bullet #1

Trolling lure for R50 bucks catches everything

Trolling lure for R50 bucks catches everything: this rigged and ready easy-to-use trolling and casting lure mimics a fleeing injured baitfish. The bait features a prismatic 1/4 ounce baitswimmer head, and a strong single hook inside of a BruBaits plastic paddletail. All tied together with an ultra-clear leader.

The baitswimmer head transfers a side-to-side motion. This combination of a flashy prismatic light show and erratic swimming action excites every predator fish out there – into striking.

Trolling

The easiest possible way to target gamefish is by trolling lures. Just chuck ’em out the back and head on over the good spots. Going slower will allow the lures to drop down deeper. Cranking up the speed brings the lure to the surface where it performs like a surface plug.

You can set a steady drag (1kg or so) to ensure a solid hookup. Which will always be in the top jaw. A fish hooked in the bottom jaw never survives.

Greenspot Kingfish attack behaviour research in the Umzimkulu Estuary in Port Shepstone
Greenspot Kingfish laying into a trolled MYDO Silver Bullet Baitswimmer fitted with a 3 inch white paddletail in the Umzimkulu Estuary recently.

The above shot is a still frame taken from this video…

In which we capture a shoal of Greenspot Kingfish smashing into that poor little lure. The speed at which it all happens is insane. Luckily for slow-motion and 60fps.

Casting

Casting artificials for gamefish is far more engaging. And there is no feeling better than taking a direct hit from a fired-up fish right in front of your wide-open eyes. By casting, you can variate your retrieve. Directly producing different actions by changing how you crank and twitch. You will get more strikes casting. Especially if there are two or three of you working the same area together.

Sean Calitz 25kg Kob at Port St. Johns with MYDO and BruBaits
Sean Calitz 25kg Kob at Port St. Johns with MYDO and BruBaits

The above fish was hooked on a tiny 3-inch plastic and head combination whilst Sean Calitz was simply casting at the kob from his kayak. Unfortunately, this fish was not able to be released. It was kaput from the very long fight on 6kg line. Must be some kind of record that fish!

If you are fishing for kob and the garrick come past…just crank the lure up on the surface and watch it perform.

Where?

The concept of an injured, fleeing baitfish, applies to every piece of water. Everywhere. This means any and all species that hunt and eat little fish.

From the deep blue ocean where a tuna or bonito will swallow them up. To the surf zone for shad and mackerels. Up the estuary for salmon and snapper. Kingfish. Kob. Perch.

And all the way inland to your favourite bass dam…

A MYDO Baitswimmer caught largemouth bass
A MYDO Baitswimmer caught largemouth bass

Where to get ’em? If you are in South Africa, right here on The Sardine News website. In our fast-growing specialist tackle shop. Use the menu above. For international orders, just pop on over to the MYDO International website. It’s in USD and the lures are despatched from England.

Check out our MYDO Tackle Talk YouTube Channel right HERE. Come and join us here at the Umzimkulu Marina where have self-catering units right on the water. Umzimkulu Adrenalin can take you fishing, birding, surfing or diving.

Share
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Oxe-Eye Tarpon in the Umzimkulu: Reposted

Exploring the Umzimkulu might put you in connection with one of these guys. Ox-eye tarpon are highly sought after trophy gamefish that are spectacular to catch and fight and release of course!

Oxe-Eye Tarpon in the Umzimkulu: Reposted

This is a repost, since the first version was victim to some bugs…

Oxe-Eye Tarpon in the Umzimkulu: Reposted – With a boat full of tourists from Mantis ‘n Moon Backpackers in Umzumbe, we stuck two lures out, a Mydo Luck Shot and a imitation Rapala, by StrikePro, and in the darkening evening the imitation rapala screamed and in the distance we could just make out a violently jumping very fast and acrobatic fish. Garrick was the first guess, until the unmistakable flurry of a tarpon tail walking came clear. Oxe-eye Tarpon. The real deal (Megolops cyprinoides)! We had caught a small one years before, on a jig fly…and heard of a few being caught down under the bridge on flies…but had no idea they got this big in the Umzimkulu at all. And at about 4kg’s, it would have become the new Oxe-eye Tarpon world champion – the current record stands at 2.99kg’s! Anyway, after a magnificent fight we released it healthily after a few photographs and a good bye kiss.

After checking things out a bit further, and finding that although the biggest one weighed officially was 3kg’s, some 18kg specimens have been reported. But this is the crunch line. In Zimbabwe! This raised all sorts of eyebrows, as all of a sudden it dawned upon us, that these tarpon live in the river! They do not go into the sea, they go upriver, and down. They love the brown water, they love fresh water, and they spawn in saltwater! They are very, very hard to catch and to exploit, without nets. They are tough as nails, and aggressively attack anything! They might even survive the holocaust! They can even survive stagnant water by gulping air into their lung-like bladders?! Talk about a superfish. And in Australia it is rated as a higher prize fighter than marlin and barramundi (Australian National Sportfish Association) !!! Right here in the Umzimkulu River. As luck would have it…a camera rolled and the catch was caught on tape…

Oxe-Eye-Tarpon-by-Sean-Lang
The real deal – an Oxe Eye Tarpon, finally on the boat after all these years…and what a fight. The fish cartwheeled and tailwalked and sounded and ran and ran and ran…the first dash must have been 20 metres of jumping and tailwalking madness.

 

To join us for some serious fishing on the Umzimkulu River, call Sean on +27 79 326 9671 or email umzimkulu@gmail.com…or click here for more information. It’s great entertainment, all kids love fishing, it’s safe, it’s fun…the boat is also available for parties, corporate celebrations and team building type activities. We cater with delicious seafood and other Mozambican delicacies from Bela’s Mozambican Restaurant at Spillers Wharf, or we take a braai along.

Share
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Team Tuna 5-0

Launching out of the Umzimkulu River on Saturday – on the hunt for dorado, led my Dad (Brian Lange) and myself past the quiet water line (not a strike or sign of the westerly loving Dollies), out to 55m for a few bottomfish. A Ferdie Kingfish and a few slinger later, the current got up to max speed…despatching us off to Protea Reef for a tuna or two. Ha ha!

The first strike came in three at once…after a minute my hook came out (drag too tight on the strike), the second was bitten off (must have been a couta or wahoo, possible small shark) and the third also shook it’s hook.

Back for another drift, a shoal of tuna broke the surface – threw the plug – taken as it hit the water…a few minutes later and the small fish right next to the boat…I pulled the hooks out – out of practise! These tuna are mean!

Back up to the Northern pinnacle for a last drift…before dark… a few hundred metres away we see some huge yellowfin jumping clear of the water, sailing through the air in arcs. Chumming and spraying water, we get their attention – my rod screams…really screams!!! This time I did it right and soon the fight was on. Or so I thought. With only two of us on the boat, clearing lines was a mission…not that it affected my fish…which just kept going and going against a 5kg drag. After 200m or more line was gone, I reduced to about 3kg’s…the fish just kept going and going. Another 100m of line gone and the TLD 25 was smoking. Down to 2kg’s drag. Then the fish stopped for a few seconds and I won a metre or two, but it then took off again at very high speed. The 60lb line could not cope any longer – bang it was gone. The line had parted, and on analysis was found to be frayed and damaged. The fish most likely swam off the edge of the inside pinnacle and the line scraped the rocks or something!

So, a nice welcome back to Protea Reef for me! Need practise for that place!

Share