Just as everyone thought the sardine run was over, the small fish appeared again along much of the South Coast and into the Transkei.

Netting took place early last week at Shelley Beach and Amanzimtoti but no further netting news was received for the rest of the week.

On Friday afternoon at Eastmore in the Umhlanga Rocks area pockets of sardines were spread over a wide area, constantly being harassed by gamefish. On Sunday morning netters ended up with empty nets.

The freezing cold weather for a couple of days last week meant only hardy regular rock and surf anglers persevered during the early mornings.

High rock proved to be a popular venue as the shad arrived in numbers at first light but the fish did not feed for long before disappearing.

This is sometimes the norm, especially if there are predatory fish in the area such as garrick that feed on the shad.

Shad were also caught along the Durban North stretch, as well as along the South Coast beaches.

Anglers say garrick are “thick” again this winter and good catches were recorded.

Live baits are producing bites every throw but lures are also producing a fair number of fish.

In the Durban area, Blue Lagoon and Glenashley have produced a number of garrick so far.

The best venues to catch garrick are the Tongaat River mouth plus High Rock at Chaka’s Rock. Once the sardines have disappeared, garick will begin to hunt along the backline in numbers.

Salmon were feeding at night in some areas last week, though most were caught down south.

Anglers targeting salmon have been rewarded with nice-sized stumpies as well and local surf angling is normally at its best during the dark at this time of the year.

Word is that the rocky gullies have been a little quiet recently, but this should change soon.

Apparently there are plenty of big karranteen and big blacktail feeding at the moment. A few copper bream have been caught but not in the numbers of recent seasons. Stone bream seem to be scarce but a few nice lantern bream were caught.

Offshore anglers are still finding snoek and now amberjack seem to be becoming more numerous along with yellowtail at Umdloti.

The odd couta can be found among the pockets of sardines but on the bottom there are plenty of salmon, including daga salmon, half kob, geelbek at times shoalies and snapper salmon.

Rockcod and red fish species are still fairly plentiful but currents at sea have been a problem at times, hampering the guys fishing on the bottom.

There is another cold front moving up the coast this week and the windy conditions will surely stir up the sea again, so hopefully not too much rain will fall flooding the rivers.

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