Keurbooms and bitou

**dtayl13** · 27-09-13

Hi all
Plett Rage is in about 2 months time and I am not the partying sort and far prefer to spend my time outside doing something than inside getting my eardrums blown by really crap music and getting completely wasted, but by being a designated driver I have managed to get free accomadation on a farm literally on the banks of the Bitou estuary so I plan to do more than just a bit of fishing. I will have a fishing kayak there so will not be limited to the bank. Seeing as it is holidays I am doing all the tying now before finals start so my question is: what should I be tying? I know all of the normal flies; olive over white clousers, flippers and stuff like that but in each river the fish prefer a certain style (at least that is what I have noticed with my very limited experience). In hermanus for example the leeries like smaller flies retrieved slower than at, say, Blakes. Please could anyone who has fished there before help me out a bit. I dont have endless materials so I would like to tie the right things. I will mostly be going after elf, leeries, kob and if they are around then springer. Grunter don't interest me as I enjoy actually catching fish

. What sort of size, colour combanations and style of flies should I be tying? Where should I fish as I don't know the estuary(s) at all. If you don't want to post spots and stuff please send me a PM. I would really be grateful for any info.
Thanks in advance
Dave

**briansflyfishing** · 29-09-13

Hi Dave
Here is a fly I've used with a lot of success for Leeries in Knysna. The sf blend just give it a perfect look in the water. there is a SBS on the forum under Saltwater bait fish imitations.

Head sh.jpg

**dtayl13** · 29-09-13

Thanks will tie a couple

**Davo** · 09-10-13

Howzit Dave.

I've fished the keurbooms and Bitou rivers pretty extensively. Infact I'm heading there tomorrow for the weekend to fish. The river is changing constantly as you may know, so things are pretty dynamic, particularly around the mouth.

I fish with an small size 2 olive/white SF blende minnow alot of the time, but I often change it up with clousers (Sf blende and bucktail) and occasionally poppers, although I've found the river fish can be funny with poppers. Poppers have there place, but the leerie definitely eat more consistently just subsurface in my opinion. I'll try post a pic of 1 or 2 flies I tie that the leerie enjoy.

The mouth of the bitou is no.1. The sand bar at the confluence on the bitou and keurbooms is a good spot. Usually during the pushing tide.. As the tide pushes further, I move a kilometre or so up the bitou to where it crosses under the N2. You will check part of the bitou forms a dead-end channel which terminates against the N2 embankment.

Floating weed is an issue in the river, particularly around springs. So plan you fishing around the tides. Else you will be left very frustrated.

Good luck china.

**Andre** · 10-10-13

I have fished there a lot over the past 10 years or so, and it can blow seriuously hot and cold. Good advice abouve about sub surface flies..ditch the poppers, aunless you try a flipper fly, with a sparesly tied chartreuse deceiver trailing it by about 50cm. This works well, they see the flipper splash, and nail the trailing fly. The blind channel described above is good yes, but don't fish it for too long, the fish there can get spooked quite easily especially when beating the water to a froth. The inland side of Stanley island can be a good spot, but best to fish it from a boat. Further up the Bitou, inland of the N2, there are some good elf spots as well. Good luck, but if the place is busy, and full of boats, it can be difficult. If you get there before all the holiday makers, you can get some fish, but during high season the fishing can be tough.
There used to be a good grunter spot lower down in front of the golf course, but since the huge floods a few years ago, seems that this spot isn't so good anymore.

**Davo** · 16-10-13

Fished the keurbooms and bitou this past weekend. Caught a bunch of leerie on fly and lost what I think was a skippie. It felt like I stripped into a brick wall and he just took off like a rocket. Ran me about 50m into the backing, broke the surface and then threw the fly. It was pretty interesting fishing with the front that passed over. The leerie were manic on Thursday and Friday but the fish just wouldn't eat a fly for the rest of the weekend. It was really frustrating as they would follow follow follow but just wouldn't commit.

I ended up switching over to some conventional surface lures and caught a couple more juvi's.

Some pics and my trusty go-to leerie pattern. Leerie fly.jpg