Angling Report – 13 December 2013

Most anglers are fishing for the shad at the moment and the trick is to find the areas that are consistently producing fish.
Everyone has their favourite fishing spots where they have done well. At present mine is at Umhlanga just south of the lighthouse. I have been watching this area very carefully over the past couple of weeks and the fishing has been good throughout, with a number of big shad coming out. A shad of over 4kg was caught in this area on Saturday morning and on Sunday morning anglers caught bag limits of decent sized fish.
I went down to Westbrook beach early on Monday, but found the surf  to be rough with a strong wash and saw just one very small shad landed. Sometimes it is difficult to fish at Westbrook beach because there is only a very limited area where anglers are allowed and it can quickly become very congested. I was talking to some of the local fishermen at Westbrook beach last week about other spots in the area where they are able to fish. They mentioned that south of Westbrook is not a good area as there is shelf rock all the way down to Casuarina beach, where there is a channel suitable for fishing, but the area is classed as dangerous. There are apparently a couple of fishing areas in the other direction, but you must be prepared to walk.
One of the anglers that I was having a word with said that he had caught a nice brusher of 7,5kg in the Westbrook area on the Sunday before last, using a live crab as bait. He said that he had caught the fish at around lunchtime and was the only angler on the beach at the time but had waited a long time for a bite. I also heard of two other brusher caught last week at Salt Rock and sweetwaters just south of Ballito.
Although the water is nice and warm, the big summer flatfish have still not arrived in numbers, but a few smaller skates and some decent sized sharks have been caught recently. Umdloti seems to be the place for anglers looking for the sharks, with the late afternoon producing the best results.
I had a word with a surf-ski angler on Sunday and he said that he had caught two very nice snoek of around 9kg the day before off Westbook. I also heard that there has been a few snoek off the Durban North beaches and the guys that have managed to travel to the deeper water have found some dorado on the bite as well. Apparently the tunny are all over the place but are not always feeding frustrating anglers. I heard a rumour that a couple of couta were caught off Umdhloti before the water became dirty, so the inshore fishing seems to be picking up.
I was watching a documentary the other day about the tuna and it was interesting to learn that most of the tuna that one can purchase in a can is of the skipjack variety, which are plentiful during the summer period in local waters.
Sealice