Steenbras fishing in Namibia
The cool breeze rolls in from the Atlantic ocean, tempering the heat of the desert warming your back. A pelican stomps noisily around, looking for scraps of bait and off in the distance a sneaky jackal slips away almost unnoticed. A smooth cast puts the bait right out onto the foaming white water perhaps 100 yards away from where you are standing with the cold water lapping around your ankles. Tighten up the slack to anchor the gripper to the sandy bottom, check the drag on the multiplier and grasp the beachcaster with anticipation. Just what was that monster being dragged out of the surf some sixty yards up the beach by a couple of local anglers ? Swing your head around for a closer look and suddenly your rod tip loses all tension; glance back round, panic, everything has gone horribly slack. Reel like mad to try and pick it all up, but the fish keeps on coming, keep reeling, go for a strike just for the (you’ve missed it already !!) hell of it, and strike at nothing more than warm air. Concentration……

Reel in, re-bait, try to hide the shame at such ineptitude, cast out again, this time we’re going to concentrate no matter what. The gripper hasn’t even settled and the rod tip just goes over, the unmissable bite, strike, line starts to peel from the reel, the heart starts thumping, this is how fishing should be, this is fishing for steenbras, African style.

I know that plenty of you have heard about the quite incredible beach fishing for sharks on Namibia’s wild Skeleton Coast, and perhaps a number of you have jetted off to Africa to give it a go yourself. But how many anglers realise just how much other world class surf fishing there is in Namibia, for species of fish that carry similarities to some of our own, yet grow far larger and fight so much harder. Take the steenbras for example……

Have you ever fished for black bream and wished, as many of us do, that wouldn’t it be great if they grew larger ? Hook them on balanced tackle and they are fine fish to catch, but what if you could fish for a similar fish, from the beach, that grows to over 40 lbs ??!! No heading out to sea on horribly expensive game boats, no need for any seriously top end trolling rods and vast lever-drag multipliers, just some of the purest, most natural surf fishing to be found on this planet. But watch out, Namibia’s Skeleton Coast can exert a strong hold over visiting anglers; chances are that if you go there you will find yourself back home and saving up for a return trip.

I am sure that most of the locals in Namibia think we are perfectly mad, travelling thousands of miles as increasing numbers of us do to fish mainly for the big sharks. The vast majority of the local anglers fish for “edible” species and would not dream of putting themselves through the (wonderful) pain of catching a shark; instead they tend to cast their baits for species such as the steenbras and kabeljou (called kob locally, a bit like much bigger bass).

I have been part of some big kob catches and it is quite incredible fishing, but I had never really got the chance to properly target the steenbras until recently. You will see some caught when targeting the kob, but if your guide offers you the chance to properly chase these overgrown black bream, then it would be stupid to ignore local advice would it not ?

I guarantee that if you ever fish the Namibian beaches with a good angling guide then you will never look at your home stretch of beach in the same light again, and by this I am not actually referring to the actual size and numbers of fish over there. What I am in fact talking about is “reading” a beach. What may look to us like a tumbling mass of water is often in fact a fish holding gully or sandbank; I suppose the closest we come to this kind of beach work over here is touch ledgering for bass on west facing storm beaches.

If you fish with a decent local guide then all fishing tackle and bait will be provided, but for these “smaller” species I like to take my own gear so that I can do everything myself. If you want to do the same, its very easy : leave all your rigs at home and just take some swivels and hooks. Tie your shockleader to one end of the swivel, and tie your trace and lead to the other end; yes, I know its fantastically easy. 80 lb clear traces will do, with a good strong 4/0 for the business end. But again, its all provided for you if required.

Most of our more powerful beachcasters will work for the edibles, but its up to you whether you want to carry them in rod tubes through airports. I have taken the Ron Thompson Axellerator rods the last couple of times I have been out and they are more than up to the job; I choose to pair them with SLOSH 30s and 25lb Ultima Red Ice.

Steenbras are present all year, but the best times to have a serious go for the larger specimens are from November to April and this actually is when we tend to go anyway; good temperatures, good weather and most fish/sharks. These overgrown black bream have been caught to over 45 lbs, a quite staggering size, and I have seen them to over 30 lbs. Believe me, when you see that kind of fish (remember, fish, not shark) charging around in front of you in the surf, your legs will simply turn to jelly. Just look at the smiles in the pictures to see how much these fish meant to our group.

Your guide will be looking for even, rolling breakers washing over sandbanks with nice white water and not too much side wash and suspended sand swilling around. Steenbras can be caught from as far as we can cast to right in front of you, depending where the sandbanks are. Expect to see some kob as well from these places, but the bigger kob tend to feed harder when there is more colour to the water.

The most essential thing for us to learn here is how to PLAY our fish, something we are just not that used to. The majority of what we catch from UK shore marks can simply be wound in on a tight drag, that is the nature of our fishing. Fish in Namibia and you will get very quickly used to fish taking line off you against a drag that has been properly set; playing fish is not hard, but you may just have to get used to it. As I said earlier, this is highly addictive stuff; one hard fight from anything out there and you may just want some more !!

Henry

If you'd like to ask Henry a question about this trip you can Email him here - henrygilbey@anglinglines.com