Fish Eagle / Angling Report

The cold front that moved up the coast on Easter Sunday brought with it a fresh southerly wind and it was not long before a big swell of around four metres was running out at sea. The swell created a big surf that was pounding on the sandbanks and these bad fishing conditions kept anglers away from the water. It was only at around Wednesday that the swell and the surf began moderating and anglers were able to return to the water. Fishing conditions at the weekend were near perfect for both surf and deep sea anglers and fish were on the bite again.

Surf ski anglers that launched from Westbrook beach said that the fishing was a bit slow, but the guys that travelled north a bit caught some nice couta and snoek.

The anglers that fished the Durban area also caught a few small snoek close inshore and those that ventured out a bit deeper found some nice wahoo on the bite. Ski anglers that fished in the Selection area at Umdloti managed to hook a couple of couta, but found that sharks were a problem.

Apparently there was a bit of a current running out deep but the bottom anglers still managed some nice fish.

Half-kob, rockcod, big slinger and soldiers made up most catches and apparently a big cracker was caught deep off Glenashley by an angler using a live shad as bait.

Boat anglers fishing the Zinkwazi area also caught couple of big couta the weekend along with a couple of tunny and one or two wahoo.

It was hoped that the rough surf would break up the sandbanks a bit but that did not seem to happen. My younger brother said on Friday that the water in the Umhlanga area was not looking all that bright because of all the sand and he decided to fish the Glenashley area on Saturday morning.

He managed to catch one small shad and one very nice stumpnose of around 3 to 4kg that fell off the hook in the wash of the shoredump.

Other fish caught were a couple of milk sharks and two small skates. Anglers have been getting a few nice sized grunter and the odd stumpie in this area recently when conditions have allowed.

One lucky angler bagged a beautiful pompano of 12kg in the Tongaat river mouth area on Sunday morning and every now and again a nice stumpie is caught in this same area. The Westbrook beach area has been dead lately and there is still a large sandbank running right across the beach and the water is very shallow during the low tide.

Anglers have been catching some nice edible fish in the Durban beachfront at night.

There have been plenty of small shad, most of which are undersised, grunter, stumpies and even small salmon caught on light tackle. The problem is parking at the beachfront as there have been many break-ins.

One of the ski anglers said his fish finder showed that the water was just over 26 degrees.

As long as the north easterly keeps away, the water temperature will remain high, so surf anglers can expect more pompano on the bite plus the other warm water fish such as wave garrick and even the odd bonefish.

Sealice

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