Angling Report – 22 May 2015

The weekend was a disappointment for the surf anglers because of the sea being rough with plenty of white water rolling over the sandbanks. These adverse conditions were caused by the southerly winds that began blowing during the second half of the week. Usually the north easterly winds bring the sand and the southerly winds tend to remove the sand and scour out the beaches, but this has not happened. In fact, the southerly winds seem to have added sand to the banks and the water is very shallow at low tide. Conditions did not make for good fishing and very little seems to have been caught apart from a few really small fish.
I met a friend at the beach during the week who I have not seen in a long while. He was the angler who introduced me to the art of keeping a log book and entering information on every fishing outing. He started his log book as far back as the 1980s and now has a wealth of information at his fingertips. He had his laptop with him and it was really interesting to have a look at all this fishing history. One can actually see the decline in catches as the years went by. In years gone by in the month of May he caught good numbers of shoal kob and stumpnose. The beach and sea conditions were also documented as well as the time of the tides. He was saying that even though he spends some time at the beach, he always reverts back to his log book before deciding on a fishing trip. He showed me that, going on his information, it would be the middle of June before he wets a line again. From his logs the venue would probably be Eastmore in the Umhlanga area where he had caught plenty of shad in the past.
I was talking to a few of the locals at Westbrook beach during the week and they were telling me that the Casuarina beach area in the vicinity of Beach Bums is hot at the moment when it comes to crime. A few people have been robbed recently and vehicles have been damaged which is a real pity because there is an excellent fishing spot in front of the haunted house. This leaves the local anglers very limited areas to fish because the La Mercy area is also not safe. I noticed that anglers are still parking their vehicles at the south entrance to the bridge over the Tongaat river and I can see that there is a serious accident just waiting to happen.
One cannot really blame these anglers because there is simply nowhere else to park and the nearest parking is Westbrook beach which is some distance to walk. In fact it is a couple of kilometers away. Anglers parking at Westbrook and fishing at this beach are hounded every day and it is not a pleasure trying to fish in the tiny area allowed.
Sealice