Fish Eagle – 6 October 2015

The month of October was really windy this year and anglers are hoping that November will be just a little calmer. I have spent many happy hours fishing in relatively calm weather conditions in Novembers past so lets hope for more of the same.
Offshore anglers told me that the water is quite warm on the surface and in the deeper water there are bluebottles to be found with the occasional jellyfish. These are good signs and means that the Mozambique current is moving inshore which normally hails in the summer gamefish season.
There have been reports already of shoals of small yellowfin tuna in local waters as well as Dorado. It is early days yet, but the billfish anglers will be looking for the first marlin of the season, which normally appear in the deep waters off Durban.
During last year’s summer gamefish season, there were plenty of tuna and some real bombers were caught. It was the surf ski anglers in particular that were involved in some hectic battles with the larger yellowfin tuna. Some of these fish weighed up to 40kg and after a struggle with a tuna of this size, one’s arms actually feel quite lame.
Unfortunately the barracouta did not really turn on last year and although there were some crocodiles caught, missing were the smaller fish or darts as they are called. Another problem was the sharks that were nailing just about every couta hooked, especially off the Umdhloti mouth.
The amount of wahoo caught at the beginning of last year’s gamefish season was encouraging so it will be interesting to see whether it will be more of the same this year. Being at sea during the summer can be really rewarding not only with the fishing but also all the creatures one sees in the water. You do need to be careful of dehydrating in the warm conditions however so the trick is to drink plenty of liquids and make sure that there is plenty of fresh water to spare. Another necessity is a hat to keep the sun off one’s head.
Rock and surf anglers were catching copper bream again at the beginning of last week and I watched a group of anglers having great fun with these fish on light tackle in the Westbrook area.
Unfortunately the winds began pushing early in the mornings last week, making fishing with light tackle difficult as the surf quickly became churned up. The coppers that I saw caught all weighed around a kilo and the anglers had to wait some time in between bites. The only other fish that I saw caught from the surf last week were a couple of grey sharks and these were caught by anglers using
steel traces.
I have been asking anglers for some time now if anyone had caught any blue shad but I always received a negative response.
I then heard from a friend who said that he had heard a whisper that a few shad had been caught from a local beach. This was an area that used to produce the big shad in the past, so I decided to investigate the next morning. I decided to arrive at this beach just before first light which is the prime shad angling time. I arrived just before 4.30am only to see a group of anglers already leaving the area. When I asked whether the fishing was quiet, one angler said that they had already caught their fish and were returning home.
There were still a couple of anglers on the beach so I went to have a word with them and they told me that the shad had been feeding from very early in the morning when it was dark and most of the fish caught weighed between 1 to 2kg.

Sealice