I met my guests at Shayamoya Game Lodge at around 09h30, and whilst having some coffee on the deck I was looking over Lake Jozini (Pongolapoort Dam) and saw that all the recent rains had brought muddy water from the Pongola River into the dam and the water was badly stained.
To add to this they where also letting water out of the system and this created a current spreading the stained water throughout most of the dam.
This has got to be one of my toughest Tiger Fishing trips at Jozini, and when we launched at around 10h30, there was a heavy NE wind pumping and generating waves up to 1m high and the water surface temperature was averaging 22 deg. C and it was mostly overcast. I could see that the river section was dark brown, and as tiger fish are predominantly visual predators I decided that this section was out of the question. We went straight over to what I call "Hippo point" and low and behold the Hippo's were there on the North side of the point and so we fished on the South end of the point. It was not very long and one of the guys hooked up a Tiger Fish on Top Water of just under a Kg (2.2lbs).
From there we went out to the main dam and fished by "Elephant Point" and then along the western banks until we reached a bay, the water here was also filthy and we got no fish, but we did get to see a herd of elephants by this bay. We then braved the waves and crossed the dam to see if there was cleaner water on the eastern banks and after we got sopping wet we found no fish there either.
I decided to go back to the bays by the launch site as the water there had seemed the cleanest and we found that the muddy water had not gone through the weed beds and the water between the weeds and the bank was cleaner and so we fished this water until 18h30 and managed another 3 Tiger fish all the 1Kg (2.2lb) range, One of the guys and I had each hooked into a huge Tiger in the 3Kg range, but where both broken off when he headed into the weeds, I am sure it as the same fish as the hook ups where 5 minutes apart and from the same spot, unfortunately when you are in the weeds you cannot avoid them. It was a very unproductive afternoons fishing with only 4 fish landed.
It was a disappointing afternoon and I felt bad. Back at the launch site I spoke with a few guys who had caught nothing, and when we went back to Shayamoya Lodge and none of the guys staying there had caught anything I felt a little better.
The dinner was the highlight of the day with Chicken Pie, Lamb Chops and Brazed Steak on the menu.
