Angling Report – 20 November 2015

If last week’s column was all about a big surf, rough seas and strong winds, this week is about small surf, calm seas and light to moderate winds with some rain in-between – almost perfect fishing conditions all week long.
I saw the first of the flying ants last week and this always meant that the big blue shad were in local waters and so it turned out again. I saw some anglers that were obviously targeting these shad in the early mornings and these guys pulled some nice fish, but unfortunately they were not returned to the water. Sooner or later these criminals all run into the conservation people however. It’s only two more weeks before the shad can be legally caught again and it looks like anglers can look forward to some good fun.
The flat surf conditions were ideal for the anglers spinning off the deep water points and one angler told me that he caught a couple of nice sized snoek on spoon in the Ballito area. This angler would not say exactly where he had been fishing for obvious reasons, but he said that he was alone at the time and the fish were caught just after first light. He said that he was back the next morning but the snoek were not feeding although he could clearly see the fish on the surface. This is why fishing for snoek is so frustrating.
Surf anglers had a lot of sport with small sandsharks last week and these harmless fish seem to be plentiful at present. During the late afternoon and early evening periods, anglers have found the grey sharks moving inshore and there has been some hectic fishing, especially from some of the sandy beaches. A friend from Umhlanga said that he was at the beach one afternoon and apparently there was a fair crowd fishing and these guys were hooking these sharks shot for shot. One will always find these sharks moving inshore when the surf is nice and flat.
I was at Westbrook beach early in the mornings last weekend and the surf ski anglers were there in force launching in the small surf. These anglers found yellowfin tuna and dorado on the bite and some of these guys had nice catches. The dorado were mostly in the deeper water but plenty of tunny were caught inshore.
Deep sea anglers have also caught some decent fish at times but there were days that the fishing was slow, even though conditions out deep were good. There were a couple of days last week when the south easterly wind was blowing a bit and we always used to call this wind the poison wind. Fish tend to go off the bite when it begins to blow and nobody really knows why. Anglers that travelled out into the deep water last week reported that there was evidence of billfish off Durban and there were also reports of shoals of bonito which the billfish feed on.
Anglers that arrive at the beach in the dark should be careful because it seems as if the parties have started early this year and there is broken glass that one can stand on if not careful. Also be careful when parking your vehicle because I have seen some inebriated people climbing behind the steering wheel of their cars. I used to arrive at the beach in the dark but not anymore after a near hijacking last July and two punctures on my car.
Some late news is that a friend phoned me on Sunday and said that he had been spooning just south of Virginia beach and he had managed to catch one snoek of 5kg and three nice shad which he returned to the water.
Sealice