Angling Report – 28 February 2014

At the beginning of last week it certainly seemed as if anglers would be in for a tough time because of bad weather, but as it turned out, both Wednesday and Thursday were perfect days with calm, clean seas and no wind. A strong southerly wind brought with it some heavy rain on Friday but things cleared up again for the rest of the weekend.
A friend and keen angler told me that he has been fishing between Salmon Bay to Sweetwaters for a time now with a good success rate. He said that he found two hours before and two hours after high tide the most productive periods. Although he had been using many different baits, baby squid seemed to yield the best results. He caught numerous edible and inedible species including small and large skates, pompano and stumpies. Apparently the best edible fish that he caught recently was a pompano of six kilos and he lost a big stumpie on Thursday morning in the dark after the fish straightened the hook heading for backline.
Anglers targeting big summer flatfish have found that almost any bait will produce a pull, but you have to be patient. Sandy beaches and the time just before first light proved to be the most productive for fisherman looking for a tussle with these fish. One angler fought a large diamond skate at the wreck just south of Eastmore on Thursday, but lost the fish in the shoredump after a struggle of forty five minutes.
Apparently, a few small stumpies were caught in the Umhlanga area last week and one or two nice pompano were also landed by anglers using ghost crab as bait. Anglers spinning in this area did not have much luck and one of the anglers said that he had had a couple of decent knocks on spoon, but had not hooked anything. Apparently the late afternoons are the best times to fish in this area.
Those lucky enough to be able to put to sea last Wednesday and Thursday had some of the best fishing conditions going for some time. Anglers were basically able to stay at sea for the entire day and those that persevered managed to boat a couple of fish. One would think that with perfect fishing conditions the fish would just jump onto the hooks, but this is often not the case. The billfish anglers are apparently doing quite well and several marlin and sailfish have been hooked. The guys that fished the inshore reefs found a couple of couta off Peace Cottage in the vicinity of the Umhlanga river mouth and one or two couta were also caught in the Umdloti area. I heard that a couple of big tunny were found in the waters off the Bluff and one very nice wahoo was caught amongst the ships anchored off Durban.
Everyone was watching the big tropical storm in the Mozambique channel that was moving slowly southwards. The weather guys were warning of the possibility of a large swell moving down the coast and the surfers were massing in the water beyond the backline as early as Thursday. It did not arrive however, but it could still have an effect in the week to come.
Rain is predicted for the beginning of next week, but hopefully the water will remain clean. We are also fast approaching that time of the year when we have the best weather so anglers should be able to spend some good time on the beach.
Sealice