Angling Report – December 6, 2013

It was another mixed bag of weather conditions last week with strong winds from the north-east and the south-west bringing some heavy rainfalls. Many anglers were watching the forecast for the weekend very closely because of the opening of the shad season on Sunday morning.
I was up early on Sunday, with the rain that had started the previous day still falling and a light south-westerly blowing. Getting to the beach at around 4am, I was expecting to see a number of anglers with lines in the water, but this was not the case. Although more guys arrived after first light, I only saw one decent sized shad being landed. It will now be a case of finding where the shad are feeding because it is nearly the end of the run and usually the time when the small shad go on the bite. Anglers fishing the productive areas have apparently caught some decent sized shad and there might still be a window before the smaller fish move in. It is good to remember that the bag limit is four shad and the minimum size is 300mm. Anglers looking for the larger shad should use a wire trace without a bung and a nice fresh fillet bait. A strip of foam can add a bit of floatation and some movement to the bait.
A couple of decent grunter have been caught in the Durban area at night and the fish have been taking a variety of baits including sardine strips, sealice and cracker shrimp. A running trace is recommended as the fish feed right on the bottom. It was also nice to hear that a couple of kingfish were caught recently, weighing in at around 10kg. These fish have been caught in the rocky gullies or near the rocks so it seems that the summer season is now well under way. Catches of flatfish have improved with quite a few skates being caught along the sandy beaches. These summer fish will feed on a variety of baits such as sardine, squid, sealice, crab and prawn.
I was talking to a few anglers at several of the popular angling beaches and learned that there are still a few decent sized stumpies, weighing up to 5kg, being caught. One or two big brusher have also been hooked and lost when anglers have been cut off on the rocks. The rock anglers are still fishing for copper bream with a fair amount of success. Tindly Manor and Salt Rock seem to be popular areas for the rock anglers. It certainly seems as if there are quite a variety of edible fish around at present.
Deep sea anglers had to put up with bumpy seas again last week, but I did hear that a couple of nice daga salmon, some decent reds and rockcod were caught on the bottom. Anglers fishing the deeper water found a few dorado and yellowfin tuna, plus there are quite a few shoals of bonito around. It looks like the blue, warm water is moving in nicely, so the summer gamefish should move into the local hunting grounds pretty soon.
Sealice