#FishEagle: ‘Cowboys’ disrupt the fishing

Beautiful weather and fishing conditions greeted anglers at the beginning of last week.

The week before anglers found almost unfishable sea conditions because of the big winds of the weekend and it took half of the week before the bad seas moderated enough to allow anglers access to fishing again. But anglers found a small and almost flat surf before first light on Monday morning.

Because catches at the weekend were slow in Umhlanga most anglers decided on fishing at Glenashley which had become the latest hot spot. The excellent fishing weather and almost perfect surf conditions lasted for most of the week and this led to good catches of shad every morning, especially in Umhlanga, that did become crowded later in the week as catches in Glenashley waned.

The shad were feeding in the dark and also after first light with most anglers recording catches of two to three fish and some recording limit bag catches of four fish. I was at Durban View in Umhlanga before first light on Wednesday morning and anglers basically hooked into fish just seconds after casting into the water and the fishing was actually quite hectic for a while.

Once the shad moved away the fishing slowed down a little but anglers continued to catch the odd shad.

I spoke to many of the anglers that fish at Umhlanga on a regular basis and they said there were days when the fishing was quiet but the area has produced fish regularly.

Although there have been few problems on the beach, they are now seeing a few “cowboys” as they put it, arriving to fish and catch as many shad as they can. The regular anglers said that these guys cause most of the problems when the shad are running.

Some anglers have also had their fish stolen whilst they are at the water’s edge. On Friday morning, one angler was landed three shad which he kept on the beach behind him while he kept on spinning. When he turned to retrieve his fish and leave the beach, he found that his three shad had disappeared.

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Sardines were netted in the Addington area last Thursday and quickly sold for R30 a dozen. Some were used as bait on Friday morning and proved productive as well.

There are plenty of baitfish around at present and anglers are now beginning to find mackerel on the reefs as well.

In the past I have used mackerel fillets to catch shad and I found this bait to be deadly as long as it is fresh. The shad season officially closes at the end of the month which is only a week away but the question is, will anglers refrain from catching shad during the closed season which is also the spawning season?

I think that many anglers will ignore the ban and carry on fishing as normal because this was exactly what happened last closed season. The sale of shad has been illegal for many years but today it is big business because illicit fish seem to taste better.

I was told last week that there was one angler that left the beach at Glenashley carrying just over 40 small shad. The bag limit is four fish.

The tides will not be ideal for the early morning anglers this week but I still expect shad catches to improve.

The shad hot spots at Ballito should now become really productive especially during the hours of darkness and other species such as stumpnose could be back on the bite now that the north easterly winds are arriving just about every day.

On Friday morning one lucky angler caught a four kilo. brusher on a shad trace whilst fishing at an Umhlanga beach.

The weather bureau has also predicted some bad weather for this week so anglers are advised to make use of any favorable fishing conditions and I would not consider catching shad during the closed season.

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