Fish Eagle – 8 August

Last week was again a quiet one for the rock and surf anglers with moderate winds turning from southerly to north easterly during the course of the week. It looks like the “windy month” of August is right on cue which also means that Spring is not that far away.
I heard about the dead fish in the La Mercy lagoon and I actually them a couple of weeks ago on one of my visits to the area. The fish that I saw were all juvenile grunter, which did look quite fresh. The Umdloti river is known to be polluted and my guess is that this is probably what killed the fish. I sometimes sit on a bench in this area, watching the sea and lagoon and I think back to my younger days when the lagoon was open to the sea. Every year the pelicans and pink flamingos would arrive which showed that this estuary was alive and well. As kids, we used to visit this area with my dad and I will always remember the big fish my dad caught in the surf. There were big blue shad that all weighed in the region of four to five kilos and even in later years after the M4 was built, I would fish this area on my own and the fishing was excellent. Unfortunately this is mostly all gone now. The mouth remains closed to the sea, but the mangroves are still there which offers a perfect nursery for the fry of the salt water fish.
Shad anglers are still finding the fish very illusive with very few, if any, fish being caught locally. One angler told me that he had heard so much about Blue Lagoon that he decided to have a look for himself. He said he had seen a few very small shad caught, but there were more anglers fishing in the area than fish caught. A friend fishing the Umhlanga area said although he put in some hours on Saturday morning he only saw one small shad caught.
I recently met with an old fishing friend who has targeted garrick for years and has become quite an expert at it. He fishes in the Machaortwa area which is in front of the new hotel just north of the Tongaat mouth. He said although fishing has been tough he managed to catch a couple of garrick recently on live bait. This guy knows this area like the back of his hand so knows where and how to catch live bait and the best place to put the live  to produce a pull. He mentioned that the sand was a problem in the area, but he managed to cast his bait into deeper water during the low tide periods and this was when he had caught his fish.
This is another year that the sardines are a no-show and I am starting to wonder whether the sardine run as we have known it is now a thing of the past. The signs have been there during the past few indifferent sardine runs. The lack of sardines does have a big impact on the local winter fishing season. History says that in the next couple of weeks, the blue shad should start appearing in local waters, but this remains to be seen.
Sealice