Angling Report – 10 July 2015

I spent a considerable amount of time at the beach last week searching the water for any signs of sardine activity. On a couple occasions I saw pockets of what I thought to be Natal sardines but the surf ski anglers informed me that the fish were in fact red eye sardines that seem to be plentiful along the coast at present. The guys from the sharks board said that it seems as if the run is over because the whole week was quiet and on a flight down to Port Edward and back no activity was seen. Small pockets of sardines are probably passing by the local beaches at present but far beyond the breakers.

It will be for the best that the sardines have disappeared because when they are in any area, the fish are drawn like a magnet and the anglers on the beaches find that the fishing goes dead. It is only if they move into the surf that there is some action. I am convinced that there must have been sardines around out at sea because even though there were perfect conditions all week long, the fishing was rather quiet.

The water was crystal clear during the week and it was just a few lucky anglers that managed to catch decent fish, mainly garrick. One angler in the Umhlanga area caught a small shad on Saturday morning, swam it out and was soon into a garrick of 10kg. The regular surf anglers were telling me that there have been a few salmon caught at the La Mercy mouth and the Tongaat river mouth.

A few shad have been caught locally and although the fish have been mostly undersized, every now and then, a larger specimen of around 2kg will test a lucky angler’s tackle. Some decent sized shad of around 1kg are being caught along the popular South Coast angling spots but even there you find your ‘dead days’. I think that it will take a couple of more weeks before the shad angling improves locally and some decent sized fish are caught.

Some of the locals have been putting in the hours at night amongst the rocks and apart from landing a couple of copper bream and a rare big stumpie, not much has been happening. It is hard work fishing the rocks at night because one has to be vigilant at all times – to the sea and slippery rocks and slippery characters that might want to relieve you of your hard earned possessions.

There are several varieties of bait fish around at present and they are plentiful. These include red eyes, pinkies, maasbanker, mackeral and small blacktail, with the karranteen remaining scarce. I can remember in the past at this time of the year, anglers would be catching bag fulls of karranteen during the low tide and because of that, one rarely sees a karranteen these days. Strict bag limits now apply to anyone lucky enough to find this fish. A fresh karranteen fillet used to be deadly when fishing for salmon during the winter months.

An angler I was talking to said that he found a nice hole in the Tinley Manor area where he has been catching some decent sized lantern bream or cave bass. Apparently a couple of the fish have weighed around 2kg, which is not bad at all.

Sealice