Grunter Flies

[fish]

Any ideas on which flies have the small possibility of fooling a grunter this coming season?

[KevinC]

any fly which is tied sparsely enough to allow you to thread a sand prawn over it...

[Herman Jooste]

LOL I here that spotted grunter are the Nemesis of fly fishermen

[fish]

Hi Herman,

I've been trying to catch one on fly for years, not two, just the first one. I know of quite a few fly fishers who had caught grunter, there just seem to be very little consistency in numbers. MC Coetzer had a very good season fooling the buggers a few years back.

In my opinion if you see the fish feeding all around you, there should be a way catching them much more consistently than what is currently the case. Guys targeting Permit seem to have a challenge, maybe they should experience a mud flat with grunter tails everywhere.

To all grunters outthere, be aware this season "I'll be back" and the hooks are super sharp.

[KevinC]

hear hear!

[Chris Shelton]

Hi Philip

I caught one years ago at Witsands, but it was on the outgoing tide and the water was discoloured and I was casting blind. Was on a olive crazy Charly. I have never had success by casting to Grunter that I could see. Had the luck of hooking into a 8 pound bullnose mullet whist trying for Grunter at Die mond one day. Now that was a rev! 100 metres of backing disappeared off my reel in a blink of an eye!

[KevinC]

I was speaking to an uncle of mine recently who lives in Hermanus . He used to fly fish for grunters at De Mond alot in the past and couldn't believe that I have yet to catch one on fly!

A tip he gave me- and maybe alot of the grunter hunters out there do this- is not to make a cast at a fish at all. In fact- he was saying that sight fishing to a specific grunter is almost a waste of time!

Very briefly, the way he has targeted them is to find a bank that is "working"- i.e. with the grunters tailing all over the place. He would then slowly position himself about 20 odd meters above them up current, and then strip fly line off his reel and "feed" it down the current into the zone. Once through the zone (and if he didnt get a take) he would very slowly figure of eight the fly back through the zone- repeating this process all the time.

He was of the opinion that a cast is like a four letter word when it comes to grunter fishing- with the fish being way too nervous to handle the sight of a flyline/ fly slapping down on the water (no matter how delicate).

Thoughts???

[cptfly]

kevin thats a very interesting approach to grunter. I personally just do not try to catch them, it keeps me sane

[Chris Shelton]

I was speaking to an uncle of mine recently who lives in Hermanus . He used to fly fish for grunters at De Mond alot in the past and couldn't believe that I have yet to catch one on fly!

A tip he gave me- and maybe alot of the grunter hunters out there do this- is not to make a cast at a fish at all. In fact- he was saying that sight fishing to a specific grunter is almost a waste of time!

Very briefly, the way he has targeted them is to find a bank that is "working"- i.e. with the grunters tailing all over the place. He would then slowly position himself about 20 odd meters above them up current, and then strip fly line off his reel and "feed" it down the current into the zone. Once through the zone (and if he didnt get a take) he would very slowly figure of eight the fly back through the zone- repeating this process all the time.

He was of the opinion that a cast is like a four letter word when it comes to grunter fishing- with the fish being way too nervous to handle the sight of a flyline/ fly slapping down on the water (no matter how delicate).

Thoughts???

I'll bow to that Kevin. I would hazard a guess that he was using a sinking line too? This could be where all the guys are going wrong, the fish seeing the line snaking down from the surface. Rather have it lying on the bottom, far less obtrusive! Thoughts?

[Chris Shelton]

Applying further thought to the grunter on fly problem I think the following account could give rise for a similar approach with fly.

I was fishing the area in the immediate vicinity of the mouth of a popular small estuary one day. My intention was to fish what I recognised as a hot spot, basically a narrow little channel which was the main feeder for a huge exposed prawn flat. Sitting and waiting for the tide to come in eventually got the better of me, so I took a stroll to the mouth to see how far the tide was pushing up the estuary. This was about 2 hours after low tide. The side walls of the channel were starting to collapse in places and I could see little shoals of bait fish steadily working their way into the estuary along the fringes. The blue water was about 50 metres in at this stage. I had my little 5ft grunter rod with it's 1:1 ratio Elvey with me, light ball sinker, 1.0 hook with prawn attached. Anyway, flicking the light ball sinker into the middle of the channel, I noticed that the current was coming in pretty strongly, my prawn and sinker quickly being taken to the side, upstream of me. I thought, ok, time to get back into position and started to walk back to my spot, but not without having another cast first, but this time I walked at the same speed as the current. The ball sinker was skipping and rolling along in the current but stayed in the middle of the channel as I kept pace with it. I wasnt expecting much in the fast moving water and was anxious to get back to my spot. What happened next caught me completely by surprise. My rod was nearly pulled out of my hands as a fish grabbed my prawn and took flight. It turned out to be one of the best spotties that I had caught to date, a lovely fish of 4kgs. I could not believe it, but thinking I could be onto a good thing, briskly walked back to the mouth and repeated the procedure, once again walking alongside my sinker as it skipped along the bottom. I caught 4 fish on the trot, doing exactly the same thing over and over, all in the space of half an hour! As *** is my witness, this really happened guys.

I was fishing with prawns on my light grunter rod only and did not have the fly rod with me. But since the subject has come up of how difficult they are on fly, could this not possibly be the way to do it?