MC Coetzer, captain of the Proteas National Fly Fishing team, accomplished grunter hunter, the “M” in JAM fly and the man your parents warned you to stay away from. movements to get its attention. It will either leave, come back, spook or eat it. Spook is the most likely outcome. Just as you get to know the animals you spend time around (like when you know your dog needs a shit), the more I fish, the better I get at reading a fish’s body language. I have learned to determine the direction in which a fish is cruising in order to lead it sufficiently and not spook it as the fly hits the water. I’ve had to learn how to see fish. A lot of guys miss the fish. They walk past when they should be standing still, waiting a while and looking closely because the signs can be really subtle. Like just the tail tipping up out of the water or a small pancake forming. You need to take time to really look at a piece of water. From knowing when to leave the fly and when to strike, how to lead the fly and where not to cast, a lot of what works in sight fishing for grunter will truly only sink in with on-the-water experience. With a helix of luck, good
karma and hard-earned experience, you too should make some progress. But be warned, it might cost you your sanity and challenge the love you have for fly fishing. You can do everything perfectly and still blank time after time. Every now and then, you get golden days, when the fish are thick (both in numbers and in brain capacity) and in those precious moments, they will chow anything. When there are 20 pancakes all around you, it does not really matter what you’re throwing at them, they will chow. As with most animals, it’s in our nature to anthropomorphise grunter. Like humans, you get cautious fish, hardworking fish and you get lazy fish. The lazy fish cruise along and while other fish will be blowing out the prawns and doing all the work, they just sit there stealing prawns. Somewhere in between the two is the kind of grunter you really want – the gung ho, throwcaution-to-the-wind hungry ones. The truth is – and this is part of the
appeal – I don’t think that anyone will ever figure grunter out entirely. They’re like cats. You can’t predict their behaviour. You will fish a whole weekend, cast beautifully, present beautifully, do everything right and then when you are really gatvol, on your last cast you just lob a fly close to one and he’ll swim over and smash it. They simply don’t play by the rules. A case in point. When we started having success with the JAM fly, everyone wanted to know how we caught grunter and what this fly was. A guy came into MC’s shop and for whatever reason MC told him it was a small black fly with a red ear and a whatwhat-what. With all the confidence of a man who has discovered the silver bullet, the guy went and tied up a couple of those, went to De Mond and caught a grunter. That kind of sums up the mentality of a grunter. MC is still working through blank-day bad karma for that one.
“BE WARNED, IT MIGHT COST YOU YOUR SANITY AND CHALLENGE THE LOVE YOU HAVE FOR FLY FISHING.” W W W. T H E M I S S I O N F LY M A G . C O M
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