Angling Report – 28 March 2014

The Equinox long weekend is over and I am sure that people had a good time on the beach and in the water as the weather was great, especially in the mornings from first light, up until lunchtime. I was on the beach early on Friday morning and offshore anglers and surfers were already enjoying the excellent sea and weather conditions. Unfortunately, the North East pushed in the afternoon and this spoiled the sea conditions somewhat.
At the beginning of the week the sea water was cleaning up quite nicely and I expected the gamefish anglers to be on the water early the next day. On Tuesday I had a word with a few surf ski anglers in La Mercy and that only a few small snoek were caught but they expected better fishing the next morning. That did not happen as the Tongaat river came down in flood and the dirty water spread both North and South. Fortunately, a fresh South Westerly wind picked up on Wednesday and cleaned the sea up a bit.
On Friday morning offshore anglers were catching snoek and although the majority were small, there were a couple weighing around 8kg caught. Apparently there were a couple of couta around 11kg that were caught by boat anglers but because the water was not crystal clear, sharks remained a problem. One angler told me that the sharks took quite a few couta in Umdloti. I also heard that billfish have been seen in Westbrook with one ski angler losing a sailie just off the nets and a big marlin was sighted near Stud Rock deep.
I spoke to a deep sea fishing friend of mine in Durban on Sunday morning who said they were still catching a few dorado at times but snoek have been thick between Umgeni and Glenashley. He also said that fishing at Number 1, which is the outer anchorage area, has been pretty good at times and some nice wahoo and the odd big couta have been caught. The beauty of this area is that there has not been too much shark activity.
He also told me that offshore anglers move out to the deep reefs to fish on the bottom and that skippers do not anchor anymore. This is done because once a couple of bottom fish are caught, the sharks quickly move in and eat all the hooked fish. The guys look for reefs then take a couple of drifts and once a couple of fish have been boated, they move off to another reef and do the same. Apparently they are catching more fish this way and are losing less tackle.
On my way home from meeting the fishing guys on Sunday, I called in at some of the popular shore angling spots to have a look at what was happening on the fishing front. Apparently a lot of small undersized shad have been caught near Umgeni mouth but as usual the anglers are greedy and are ignoring the catch and size limits. These guys are offering people bags of a dozen small shad for R70. I told the guy that offered me the fish that if anglers carried on in this way the shad stocks would quickly drop again and he just shrugged his shoulders and said that a person has to earn a living.
As I travelled from beach to beach, anglers told me that it had been a quiet week except for the occasional skate and a few small snoek caught with spoons near Glenashley. I thought there would be news of stumpies on the bite in Glenashley but nothing came up.
Regular local anglers told me that fishing had been quiet with just a few small fish amongst the rocks. One regular angler who fishes La Mercy said he had caught a few stone bream and one or two small rockcod in deeper water.
March is now past and it is time to target pompano. Historically, I have had the best results when fishing for this species at this time of year. I have found that whole crab is the best bait although one must be prepared to sit a while and wait for a pull.
Sealice