Angling Report – 7 March 2014

The rock and surf anglers did not have much luck with the sea conditions last week and it was only at the end of the weekend that conditions became a little more favourable. The week started off with rough surf on Monday morning followed by a gale force south westerly on Tuesday and Wednesday. The resulting big swell basically lasted all week. The big backline and lines of broken water rolling into the beach would have made trying to keep a bait out almost impossible impossible.
I was in Durban on Friday and on the way into town, I had a look at several of the popular angling
beaches. Only a few die hearts braved the conditions and even though I was there for a substantial amount of time I did not see even one fish landed. Guys were saying the fishing had gone quiet even before the weather soured.
I believe a few edibles had been on the bite in the lighthouse area, but the main action had been further south along the sandy beaches where the summer flatfish were feeding. The three main beaches that has been producing the flatfish were in front of the new parking at the old Durban View hotel, Eastmore and the Glenashley. Apparently, a couple of big skates and one or two large sandies came out during the day with the smaller skates feeding later on in the afternoons and the early mornings. Some anglers informed me that they had managed to catch a few decent river snapper but they would not disclose where. From my experience though I would say that it could only have been at or near a river mouth.
Although local anglers are generally in agreement that fishing is pretty hard work at the moment, there are some rocky areas and deep water points that is still producing good results. An angler fishing at Chaka’s Rock and Salt Rock caught a couple of nice stumpies and a pompano of around seven kilos. Another local fisherman that has been fishing the rocky areas for many years made the observation that many of these areas seems to have have sanded up a bit of late. This could explain why the fishing has been a tad on the quiet side.
The experienced local anglers all have their favourite fishing spots and these guys know what species to target during the month of March and which baits and tackle to use. Many of them will say that pompano is the species to fish for, but there are other edibles around at this time of the year as well, such as shoal salmon that normally feed during the early evening periods. Then there are the inedible species that are still plentiful. I have found that sharks normally move closer inshore when the water is calmer.
The sea looked clean at the weekend but on closer inspection the water was green. Gamefish normally do not like the green water but one of my friends said that they had caught a couple of very nice couta during the weekend. These fish were caught in the Peace Cottage and outer anchorage areas. Apparently some snoek were caught in the Umhlanga river mouth area as well at first light but these fish did not feed for long.
Sealice