Largemouth Yellowfish The Expert Approach: Part II

For most anglers, our most iconic and sought-after indigenous species, the largemouth yellowfish, is both mysterious and elusive. In Part II of the series, TCFF Editor PJ JacoBS tracks Marius Rousseau’s path to his success with the species.

I first met Marius Rousseau in the late Eighties/early Nineties; the exact timing escapes me for it was such a long time ago. Pete Immelman, Wayne Haselau and I were at Sodwana Bay hoping to catch some tropical game fish on fly, something almost unheard of in those days. We had to get up very early to try to beat the ski-boat crowd that churned up the bay early morning – the best time for casting to fish close inshore. Comments such as, “There are no trout in the sea, " . % 2,” and other snide remarks were common and followed us around wherever we dared put a fly in the water, but served as no deterrent. Quite the contrary, we were dead set on proving that fly rods were indeed effective in the salt, although our knowledge and experience was limited at the time.

Unknown as salt water fly fishing was in those days, we were not the only fly fishermen plying our trade on that particular trip. Much to our delight and surprise, we met up with a bloke who had just managed to land a beautiful largemouth queenfish of around 20lb (if memory serves correctly). This no doubt silenced some of the disbelievers, as did a nice oxeye tarpon of around 15lb, which I was lucky enough to hook and fight in front of a rather large crowd that had gathered in the bay. The crowd was excited and even started clapping in applause as the fish was beached, many having probably put odds against me landing the fish. I was thrilled, but secretly knew that Marius Rousseau’s queenfish was much more of an achievement.