Angling Report – 18 December 2015

The north easterly and southerly winds somewhat spoilt the fishing last week and even the early morning rock and surf anglers found the winds blowing strongly. I was at the beach at around 4am on Saturday morning when the north easterly wind that had blown on Friday night suddenly ceased and turned to a south westerly straight away. This did not deter the surf ski anglers that began to launch early in the dark.Unfortunately the fishing was blown out on Sunday.
Offshore anglers are having a really good gamefish season so far and some big yellowfin tuna were again caught this past week. Most of the larger fish are being caught on live baits but the tuna have been nailing lures as well. Anglers have also been catching dorado (they seem to be almost everywhere) and a few nice wahoo have been boated as well. So far this gamefish season catches of wahoo seem promising and this season could be as good as last season for these fish. The odd couta weighing between 15 and 20 kilos have been caught. So far there has been no shoal couta landed but it is still early days.
Last Wednesday I saw the Tongaat river flowing into the sea and because there was a southerly wind blowing, the dirty water was being pushed up north. On Thursday morning the river was still flowing into the sea but this time the wind was blowing from the north east and the dirty water was headed south. I had another look at the sea early on Friday morning and although the water did not look too bad, I could see the off color water line quite far out at sea and it was not looking too good for the weekend offshore anglers. Fortunately the weekend’s southerly winds did clean the sea up a bit.
I heard something really interesting on Saturday morning when talking to an experienced offshore angler on the beach at Westbrook. This angler has been fishing deep sea for many years both for gamefish and bottom fish and he said that lately he has been catching a few fish that are unusual for the local coastline. He showed me a few photographs and these fish definitely had a tropical look about them. He said that the temperature of the sea water was a little higher than normal for this time of the year and I have heard this from several people lately. Anglers have been saying for some time now that the seasons are changing and no doubt anglers will have to adapt to this.
Surf anglers managed to catch some nice shad again last week but the fishing was a bit patchy. There were a couple of fish caught on some mornings and on others nothing happened. There was one monster shad that weighed over 8kg that was caught in the Ballito area. It is usual for this time of the year, most of the fish will be on the small side and the odd larger fish being caught in between. The best time for the shad is still the early morning period but one never knows when the best time is for the larger lone shad as they seem to feed at anytime. I saw an angler the other morning fishing with small hooks trying to catch blacktail. Suddenly he was picked up by a nice sized shad which he landed after a long fight.
It is difficult to predict what the weather is going to do these days and there has been a couple of occasions recently when I have left home for a spot of fishing in good weather only to find that the wind is blowing down at the beach. Westbrook beach has been changing from day to day and one angler told me during the week that he fished the area the day before and the beach was not too bad and the next morning the sand had been washed away. There are other beaches along the local coastline that are also prone to erosion so anglers should be really careful especially in the dark. This is the time of the year that accidents tend to happen, especially when holidaymakers do not know the beaches or rocky outcrops.

Sealice