Angling Report – 24 October 2014

These past few days have been really tough for anglers with gale force winds, rough seas and sometimes heavy rainfall. I did not see many anglers fishing from the beaches last week, but there were a few that braved the conditions with seemingly little success. We certainly have had our share of rough seas in the last few weeks and as one angler put it, the conditions are more like what we normally see during the month of July than October.
It is nearly the end of the crayfish season now and the divers just have one weekend left to catch their bugs. The cray divers have also suffered these past few months with bad seas, but when conditions were diveable, some decent crayfish were caught, especially after the previous heavy seas scoured out the reefs.
There are still a lot of small shad about and I was told during the week that anglers had pulled out quite a few of these fish, especially in the La Mercy area. As expected, there were those who were caught with shad in their possession and they paid the price for disregarding the law. I just find it hard to understand why some people continue to try and catch shad in the closed season, knowing there is a good possibility that they will be caught.
I believe a sandie of around 15kg was caught from Glenashley beach on Monday morning but that was about all that was caught except for a few small wave garrick the same morning.
When the water settles there should be a few decent fish around, especially in the rocky areas. I hear there are still some decent sized bronze bream around and before the sea was turned on its head, anglers were catching a fair number of big stone bream and large blacktail early in the mornings. It has been an excellent year for stumpies and one can expect a few more this week as the surf settles. Anglers should remember that these fish love the rough water as there are lots of places to hide in the turbulence.
I had a word with a ski boaters in Durban who confirmed that not much had been happening because of the adverse weather conditions. A few guys who launched early and put in a quick shot just off Durban did managed to catch a few small snoek along the backline at Umgeni though. No doubt this week will see a few more boats fishing the backline off the Tongaat mouth as it is the time of the year that the garrick start gathering in this area.
There was a late whisper that an angler fishing at Umdhloti in the dark last Monday morning, caught a daga salmon of 14kg on whole sardine and he was the only angler on the beach at the time. An early morning jogger saw the angler carrying the fish off the beach at just after 5am.
I hope that the Hindu community had a happy Diwali weekend and hopefully there will be a change around and more fishing news next week.
Sealice