Fish Eagle – October 25, 2013

I saw a really interesting photograph in a daily newspaper last week that showed 15 people holding up a huge 5,4 meter oarfish that had been found floating just under the surface of the water close to California coast. The huge snake-like fish was found by a marine science instructor whilst she was snorkelling and experts are calling the fish a find of a lifetime – mainly because the last specimen collected was only 91,4 cm long and sightings of these fish are very rare. One of the scientists said that these oarfish dive down to a depth of more than 914 meters and can grow up to 15 meters or more in length. Very little is known about these strange ocean giants. They are the largest of the bony fish species and are thought to have inspired the legends of sea serpents.
Last week was windy and rainy but the surf remained good until the “poison” south easterly wind began blowing, bringing with it lots of rain. Sea conditions were not good at all over the weekend with a fresh north easterly blowing and the water becoming dirty because of all the rain. More rain is predicted for this week, which means that things could be rather quiet on the fishing side.
Some of my fishing friends on the North Coast informed me that there had been some activity recently in the Amatikulu area. Anglers have caught a few skates, one or two big sandies in the surf and the odd big shark. The light tackle guys fishing in the estuary also seem to have had some action with nice perch, smaller salmon and  a really nice rock salmon coming out a little up-stream. A couple of sizeable grunter have been caught in the surf right at the mouth as well.
One of my friends said that he had reliably heard that that decent grunter had been caught in the Mapelane area. He also said that a few larger flatfish had come out, but bad weather conditions  meant that anglers had to wait for long periods for the surf to settle.
Anglers fishing in the Umgeni mouth area are still catching the odd garrick on live bait, but it is not advisable to fish this area at present because of all  the vehicles that have been vandalised or stolen.
Locally the fishing has been best in the rocky gullies where a variety of fish have been caught on light tackle. One angler caught a really nice spotted rock-cod of 3kg in the high rock area at Tinley Manor. The same angler also managed to snare a couple of sizeable stone bream. The rocky areas of Salt Rock are still popular as well  and blacktail have been on the bite along with the odd stumpie.
Sealice