Angling Report – 9 January 2015

The festive season has come and gone and it is now slowly back to normal for Dolphin coasters. Many of the local anglers that I saw during the past two weeks told me that they were staying away from the beaches until after the holidays. I myself also spent little time at the water’s edge and when I did, it was early in the morning.

There was some strange weather over the holidays with very few days that the sea was looking really good. The winds pushed hard at times and quite a bit of rain fell as well. Swimming conditions were a little dicey at times with strong currents running from north to south and from south to north. I was watching a few shad anglers early one morning and they were really struggling to keep their baits in the water. I have seen plenty of bluebottles floating in the water and this means that the warm Mozambique water has really moved inshore.

Anglers looking for edible fish struggled with just the odd small undersized shad being caught with one or two stumpies here and there. One angler told me that he and some friends spent the whole night fishing in the Salt Rock area and all he had to show for it was one blacktail. The Umgeni Mouth area was pretty consistent with small shad on the bite during the early mornings, but there was a large mob scrapping over these undersized fish. The north bank apparently produced a couple of grunter at times when the tides were right.

There were a lot of grey sharks feeding in the early mornings in some areas. Again, tides had to be right for catching these fish as some of the beaches are sanded up and at low tide there is very little water.

I hear that holiday anglers had some great sport with skates and the odd big sandie along the Umhlanga and Durban North beaches as well as a couple of the popular local beaches. Normally the Umdhloti area fishes quite well at this time of the year but the area was crowded and anglers had little chance to try their luck. With the season now over and tides right for this week, anglers could have some excellent sport with the kingfish that like to hang around the deep water rocky outcrops in this area.

On Sunday morning I was at Westbrook beach before first light and the paddle ski anglers were lining up to launch, but they were all watching the surf very carefully. There was a big, strong wave picking up from the mid-break area and this caused a big shore break. I saw a couple of guys launch, paddle up to the mid-break, only to get washed all the way back to the beach again.

The offshore anglers are still catching a lot of tunny with some sizeable fish amongst those landed and at times, a couple of dorado close inshore. There have not been a lot of couta around yet, but I did hear of a 30kg specimen caught off the Umkomaas area on Saturday which could bode well for local anglers. Anglers fishing aboard charter craft have caught some nice marlin out in the deep water and I heard that some big fish have been hooked and lost. Apparently, there is still a lot of live bait around.

The SAPS and the metro police did an excellent job of bringing sanity back to Westbrook beach over the holiday period and this year the beach was cleaner than I have seen it for many years. The beach was still packed to capacity but was under control not like the mayhem of the December 16, which was the worst that I have ever seen in all my years at Westbrook.

Sealice