Kob is arguably the most commonly found game fish in South Africa. This tasty table fish is heavily caught in rivers, surf and deep sea. Despite this the Kob numbers are on the rise, mainly due to the vehicle beach ban and the conservation efforts of like-minded individuals in the “new fishing fraternity”.
My dad, brother and I love to catch Kob and our favourite place to fish for them is in rivers.
Depending on the time of the year and what size Kob we want to catch we employ different fishing techniques using artificial lures.
When using these lures, we decide on what size to use depending on the season.
In general we use our drop shots, lead heads and small Halco trolling lures in the summer months and most of the fish are caught by fishing the drop offs at the edges of holes in various sections of a river. These can easily be identified if you have a depth sounder otherwise you need to fish the river on a spring low to make out the different drop offs in the area you wish to fish. On the first Fish Africa DVD you saw a prime example of what water to fish on the Gamtoos river. That structure is common to nearly all South African rivers and is always found fairly close to the mouth. In general, it would be a sand bank that almost crosses the entire river with a small channel on either side. When fishing this type of structure close to the mouth you want to fish on a hard pushing spring tide as this forces all of the bait fish off the shallow sand bank and into the hole and because the Kob is an expert at ambush tactics this sort of structure is right up his feeding alley.
If you keep in mind the following simple rules for most tidal rivers, your chances of catching will be greatly increased:
Kob often feed as the barometer is dropping (check your barometer).
A spring tide is always necessary with the tide being high from between 3pm and 6pm. You will find that the fish prefer the late afternoon tide because they will feed up as dusk approaches. They feed very aggressively on spring tide because the bait fish get pushed over the drop off’s as they can’t swim against the quick current.
The best tackle to catch these fish on is a 6 foot 6, medium heavy, Sensation Passion Stick matched with a 2500 size reel and Viro braid.
Make sure you use a good quality lead head or drop shot in the half ounce range.
The majority of fish caught in this type of structure range between 1 and 10kg and the numbers are usually very good on spring tides.
Up until a couple of years ago we were catching only the smaller Kob in the rivers between 1 and 10kg in large numbers. We have since developed a technique of targeting the bigger fish in the winter months with the advent of deep diving lures, in particular the Halco range. I can remember the first time we went targeting big Kob on the Sundays River. We decided to troll the lures as close to the bottom as possible in the deep holes and the results were unbelievable. The first fish was 60 pounds which we thought was huge! We followed up a further 4, all above 50 pounds with the biggest being 90 pounds. During the first few years of this trolling we landed and released a hundreds of fish all above 50 pounds – the biggest being 120 pounds on 4kg tackle. Unfortunately many people started to target and kill them for trophies and for selling to fish shops. Fortunately, with conservation being high on the list of most new anglers and conservation rules being much stricter, the big Kob that we were used to catching in these rivers are making a good comeback. The reason I tell you this with confidence is because the Fish Africa team has just done a season of trolling and the results were spectacular. They aren’t the 100 pound fish we were looking for but there were plenty in the 30 to 50 pound range.
We have just been shooting some footage on the Wild Coast and we are basically going to show people that know nothing about fishing how to target Kob the easy way which is not by using bait, but lures. If you have a boat of any size we show you how to target the fish using Halco trolling lures. There is a huge variety and the way to choose the lure is to know how deep the river is that you are fishing. For example, if you know there is a sandbank near a river mouth and a channel runs along the cliff side of the bank for approximately 500m, this is an excellent place to start your trolling. You don’t want to troll from the start to the end of the river, this is a very unproductive way of trolling. You want to choose your spot and the troll must not be more than 500m from start to end. Once chosen, you must troll up and down in the same channel a couple of times. If you don’t catch during that period you need to choose another spot and troll that same spot a couple of times up and down. Eventually you will find the right pattern and so begins your Kob catching.
We have just finished filming the Kob section of the second DVD and we used Halco lures between 5 and 12cm and they performed excellently. We caught stacks of Kob in the 1 – 7kg range on a slow troll, mainly fishing in 3m of water. Per hour we generally caught 6 to 8 fish, sometimes more, sometimes less. We were most successful on early morning trolls on a strong pushing spring tide in mostly overcast conditions. Once the tide was pushing hard we then changed to leadheads and drifted the holes, being very successful with fish between 5 and 12kg. Our best lead head for this type of fishing is the olive and white leadhead.
You can also target Kob in our river mouths using spoons like the “Slim Spoon”. You would need to throw onto a sandbank with the tide pushing over it quite strongly, letting your slim spoon sink to the bottom and then retrieving it ultra slowly.
It doesn’t matter if your spoon is hitting the bottom because as soon as you pull it off the sandbank and into the drop off that is where the strike will be. The best time to fish the river mouths in the Transkei is on a half pushing spring tide and I like to fish from the rocky to the sandy side with you obviously increasing your speed when you get close to the rocks so you don’t get hooked up. Often you get a Leerie take when you increase your speed so its not a wasted retrieve.
Once you have worked out a pattern for Kob for that year’s fishing season they usually become very predictable. But the nice thing about fishing is that sandbanks change, currents change and structure changes continuously and then you have to find the new structure to find the Kob and this is what excites fishermen – trying to outwit the Kob. Remember, Kob numbers are on the increase and that is where we would like to keep them, s please do your bit for conservation and release as many as you can.
Happy Fishing!!
The Fish Africa Team
If you purchase Fish Africa DVD's 1, 2, 3 & 4, you receive 11% off the total purchase price. You also receive a FREE copy of "Fly Fishing Mozambique"
