Fish Eagle – 18 July 2014

I checked out some of the popular angling beaches last week and noticed the sand banks have moved closer inshore and are now mostly within casting distance. This means that anglers should not have much problem casting over these banks, thus greatly enhancing their chances of catching some decent fish. At a couple of these beaches, I saw that it was possible to walk out to the bank when the tide was down, which allowed anglers to acquire greater distances when casting their baits.
It was freezing cold on the beach early in the morning last week and I noticed that very few anglers braved the cold. Who can blame them as there was also very little happening to entice them to arrive early. The tides were wrong as well with lows at around 6am – this did suit the anglers fishing the rocky gullies though. Fortunately, the surf conditions were pretty good for most of the week and the water was still warm.
The shad season is definitely taking the course that it did last year. A bit of a flurry towards the end of June and now nothing along the local beaches. This is not too unusual however as this trend goes back as far as the 1980s. Anglers speculate a lot about reasons for this but whatever it is, these fish only seem to move into local waters in numbers during the month of August. Lately, it seems to be the same with the garrick – South coast anglers would report good catches and the same from the Zululand whereas local anglers would only catch a few of these fish. A couple of friends of mine have kept log books or diaries and have logged down information about every fishing trip they make. These guys tell me the time to start fishing for shad again will be the middle of August.
The yellowfin bream seem to be on the bite just about everywhere at present. Unfortunately, many of these fish are undersize and should be returned to the water.
Small grunter have also been caught in several areas but again, many of these fish are undersized. I did see two nice stumpies that were caught last week in the Ballito area. One angler contacted me and he said that he had caught some nice fish in the rocky Tinley Manor areas and his catches have included a couple of nice lantern bream and two decent sized spotted rock cod.
There is still no news on the sardines and although the small fish have moved up the coast late in the past, many are wondering whether there will be a sardine run this year. Last year’s run was a disaster and this could probably be the case again this year. Ever since I can remember as a small kid, there has been a sardine run every year, but this iconic event is now becoming increasingly unreliable. Who knows,we will just have to wait and see if it arrives this year.
The tides will be more favourable to the rock and surf anglers this week so the fishing should improve and some decent fish caught for a change.

Sealice

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