Angling Report – 22 January 2016

The few anglers to be seen on some of the popular fishing beaches throughout last week was an indication that fishing was quiet. Many of the local anglers fish only for the edible species and they tend to leave the summer flatfish and sharks alone, but I did hear that the water was also cold after the easterly winds. Apparently a few anglers were catching some fish at night in the Tongaat area, but I have no word about what exactly was on the bite (fishermen and their secrets). We used to catch some nice stumpies and grunter in this area at night at this time of the year so perhaps some of these species are coming out.
Apparently the Umhlanga Rocks and Durban North beaches have been a little quiet as well with just a few undersized shad and the odd shark being caught. There has been a lot of snoek activity along the backline in these areas and guys surfing in the Westbrook area also reported seeing some snoek. Tides will become more favorable for the surf anglers this week and the improved surf conditions could mean that pompano will move inshore. I heard that another nice pompano of around 5kg was caught in the Tongaat area last week.
On Sunday morning I watched a couple of jet-ski anglers beach and one of these guys had a very nice sailfish that he had caught off Westbrook beach. The angler said that he had subdued the fish after a 40 minute battle and he had been towed some distance during the battle. Seeing this beautiful fish brought back memories of another sailie that I saw a long time ago now.
We were up at Sodwanna bay and an angler brought ashore a really big sailfish that they were about to weigh. Ellinor Bullen, a research officer, was there at the time and she asked whether she could take some measurements and calculate the weight of the fish before it was put on the scale. Ellinor measured the girth of the fish then the gonads and after a calculation she said that the fish would weigh about 90 pounds. The anglers hoisted the fish up on the gantry and the scale read exactly 90 pounds, leaving everyone impressed. Ellinor said that the sailfish species grew rapidly and lived for about five years.
Surf ski anglers caught some nice snoek off the Durban North and Umhlanga beaches last week in the mixed water. One or two nice couta were caught in the Umdhloti river mouth area but sharks are still a problem with anglers often retrieving heads only.
Stud Rock was quiet during the week and for some reason this once excellent gamefish area yields very few fish these days. It is normally further south in the Sea Belle area that the guys now manage to pull a few fish.
Sealice