Angling Report – 11 December 2015

There was great anticipation amongst anglers for the opening of the shad season because there had been reports of some big fish being caught the weekend before. I received information that a few big shad had been caught at Umdloti of late and there were only a few anglers fishing the area, so this was where I would be early on Tuesday morning.
I arrived at Umdloti at 3.40am, only to find that the north easterly wind was already blowing at a velocity of about 15 knots which was a bit of a disappointment. There were two other anglers with baits already in the water so I decided to wait and see what happened before I committed myself in the windy conditions. At 4.30am two small shad were caught then the fishing went dead and I decided to have a look at waters nearer to home. At Westbrook I saw that there were a few shad caught but the anglers were losing a lot of tackle because of all the rocks that had opened up in the water.
Friends told me that some big shad were caught in the Umhlanga area despite the wind but as expected there was huge crowd which made fishing really uncomfortable. Glenashley was another popular spot that produced a few big shad but again, a large crowd. When one considers just how many anglers were fishing, there were not that many shad caught and many fishermen returned home empty handed.
A few shad were caught during the early morning periods for the rest of the week except Friday. Fishing was dead on Friday morning and on talking to anglers that fished other popular fishing spots, almost nothing was caught. The late afternoon periods produced several large shad locally but it was a case of being at the right place at the right time.
Most of the shad that I saw last week were what we used to call “return shad” which are fish that had already dropped their roe and were heading on their way back South. There were some nice fish, the largest being around 3kg, but there were smaller fish as well, just making the limit size. The smart anglers fishing last week with time on their hands stuck it out on the beaches and tried for stumpnose and some nice fish were caught.Apparently there were plenty of peckers around after dark that demolished fillet baits in seconds.
There were many surf ski anglers looking to launch during last week, especially on Thursday when the surf was completely flat. These anglers have been catching a lot of yellowfin tuna and I heard that the largest was a big fish of 34kg, caught off Westbrook. I also saw during the week that a couple of the surf ski anglers were really struggling in the strong surf at times and one guy had to be assisted by two of his friends when he got into difficulties. Other species caught by offshore gamefish anglers were dorado (plentiful at present), the odd whahoo off Durban and there was even a whisper that one or two couta had been landed.
Word is that there have been quite a few couta caught up North as well as well as the odd billfish, with Vidal seemingly the area that has seen some good fishing. The gamefish season seems to be getting into full swing, but unfortunately the weather so far has been a bit unpredictable.
Sealice