Angling Report – 20 February 2015

There were some excellent fishing conditions last week, especially during the late afternoons and early evenings with the tides almost perfect.
A friend who normally fishes in Umhlanga and Durban North told me that he had some great results in the afternoons last week. He apparently arrived at the beach just south of the lighthouse at Umhlanga at around 4pm and saw that there was a bit of a crowd fishing in front of the car park so decided to walk a little south. There was a nice bank and he put out a fresh mackeral fillet. About ten minutes later he felt a bit of a pull on his bait and all went quiet for about thirty seconds before the tip of his rod dipped and line peeled off his reel. He said that it felt as if he had hooked a shark but the fish was not trying to head out to sea as sharks normally do. After a fight of twenty minutes or so, the fish was in the trough of the shoredump and was beginning to tire. With the help of some local fishermen they finally got the fish on the beach and to his surprise it was a rare prodigal son – a fish he has never caught before in his long fishing carreer. The fish weighed just on 11kg and was released to fight another day. Apparently the fishing was quiet after that until it started to become dark and my friend then caught two stumpies of between 1,5 to 2kg also on mackeral fillet.
Word was that several stumpies were caught along the Umhlanga and Durban North beaches last week, mainly on sealice baits. This was after most anglers battled to find edible fish the week before. Light tackle anglers fishing just beyond the shorebreak also caught silver bream and wave garrick right in the shorebreak. The late afternoons into the evenings proved to be the most productive times for the anglers and it was just a pity that the weather turned bad at the weekend.
I found that because of the heat and humidity you had to leave the beach by around 9am as the hot sand and glare from the water became too much to bear.
I heard from reliable sources that the deep sea anglers caught some nice barracouta during the week but I am not sure where the fish were on the bite. The fish apparently weighed between six to 20 kilos, with the sizes depending in what area they were caught. There were several nice dorado caught as well as a few tunny weighing in the region of 30 kilos. Because of the good sea conditions bottom anglers managed to boat some sizeable soldiers, slinger and big rockcod.
I heard that an elderly angler drowned last week whilst fishing at Umdloti. This is an area that I have spent a lot of time fishing in the past and I used to know all the anglers who fished in this area.

Sealice