In my previous post on this subject, Edward Truter gave some valuable advice and tips for Gabon, having spent a lot of time there. The first pattern he recommends is a Dahlberg diver:
1. Dahlberg Diver – long, heavy zonker strip tail and beefed-up diving head 4/0s to 8/0s. Fished on a sink-tip or up to Di5 line off the beach. Very good on the cubera. Clipped deerhair has a lot more fish-catching magic than foam.
The deerhair might be better and more chewable, but I’m a lazy tier, so I ordered shipment of diver heads and bass pops that arrived today. These diver heads looks fantastic and I cannot wait to test them on kob. The great thing about these slider heads is that they come in different sizes, allowing one to tie large patterns on 6/0 hooks.

My original Spongebod, tied with golden olive hackles, olive bucktail and bronzeback SF Blend on a 4/0 hook. I always tie these as long as the hackles allow.

Another version of the Spongebob replaces the hackles with bucktail. First I tie a long tuft of bucktail onto 100lb mono stalk. This is then tied on the hook-bend of a 4/0 hook and given shoulders of darker bucktail to complete the transition between tail and shoulders. The SF blend collar completes the tie before the head is stuck on, resulting in a large (16cm) streamer.

My latest version of the Spongebob, using a large Slider head,tan schlappen, bucktail and a 6/0 Gamakatsu SL12. If you can find good quality Schlappen Hackle, you will be able to tie a very big streamer. Ideal for targeting trophy size African Threadfin ….
If you are looking for these, and cannot find them, look no further. They are stocked by Craig Thom at Stream X in a large variety of colours.
Nice Conna…. those heads look fantastic!
That Threadfin??!!! :-0