Angling Report – 25 September 2015

Rock and surf anglers had to wait until mid-week before casting lines as a result of bad weather. There was a big surf running for the first half of the week and the sea was bumpy with some big swell. The surf angling conditions were good at the weekend but unfortunately the rain kept many anglers off the beaches. There are always the hardy anglers that will fish in any conditions and a couple of these guys caught a few nice edible fish. A couple of nice shoal salmon were landed in the La Mercy area at night, but anglers had to be patient and wait a fair time between bites. One angler pulled a nice spotted rockcod of 4kg at around the half-tide period and it was about then that the salmon started feeding. They were all around 3kg but once the salmon went off the bite, the peekers moved in and baits were stripped from hooks almost immediately after being cast into the water. Apparently the anglers tried the next night again but found the fishing to be dead.

Early morning anglers also found the tobies to be a nuisance and few shad were caught from the popular angling beaches. The shad that were caught were all around 350mm. This was a little surprising because the larger shad should be feeding now. The largest shad that has been weighed in for the Kingfishers largest shad competition for September is a fish of 5.5kg and the next best is a fish of just over 4kg. There are some big fish around but to find where they are feeding is a challenge. This weekend is the last one of the shad open season but the public holiday on Thursday will be a welcome bonus for the “weekends only” anglers.

A few grunter were caught along the Durban North beaches last week during the evenings but the fish were on the small side – mostly just making the legal size of 400mm. The fish were mostly caught by anglers using sealice, but I believe that a couple were trapped on sardine strip baits. The best catches of grunter are still being made by anglers fishing in the bay, but I heard from one source that a few anglers have been catching some big grunter from the beach in the Addington area and these fish have also been caught in the dark.

I tried fishing locally at the weekend but there was not much happening and all I saw caught were a couple of grey sharks. The water was a nice ginger beer colour, ideal for salmon. Although I was on the beach early on Sunday morning my mixed grill baits of fresh shad fillet and baby squid were soon stolen by peckers. I really thought that there would be a salmon or two around, but there was nothing. Several local anglers spoke of negative results but I did hear through the grapevine that a couple of nice stumpies came out during the week. This was probably during the rough surf period as these fish love the rough water.

This week will be the equinox period so there should be some higher than normal water and also some really low tides. I have noticed through the years that we have either very good or very bad weather during equinox. The fish seem to appear in numbers in the surf just after this time so this could be something to look forward to.

A Durban based friend told me that they launched early on Wednesday morning but found the sea very bumpy. The deeper they travelled the worse the conditions became and they did not fish for long. Apparently when conditions have allowed, anglers are still catching some really nice bottom fish with daga salmon making up the bulk of big fish caught.

Sealice