Angling Report – 12 February 2016

I was at the beach early on Monday morning and although it was before first light, the north easterly was already pumping and fishing conditions were not looking good at all. The next morning was the same with the sea looking really horrible and the water almost a khaki color. There was a big churning swell running out at sea with white water rolling towards the beach. On Wednesday the barometer was down and a south westerly wind was predicted. Sea conditions were a little better but there was still a big swell running at sea. The westerly came through on Wednesday night and when I had a look at the sea on Thursday morning, I could see the wind blowing against the swell and the water was really rough. The southerly winds continued for the rest of the week with still more southerly winds in the new week.
The past couple of weeks have been particularly windy and settled seas rarely made an appearance, resulting in very few edible fish being caught. I did see a couple of die-hards that fish in any conditions and these guys were scratching among the rocks. The two anglers that I had a word with said the fishing was slow and all they had caught were a couple of small blacktail. They said that they had been targeting brusher or copper bream and the rough seas had made fishing very difficult but they would not give up trying. I hear through the grapevine that a few decent sized shad were caught in the Umhlanga area recently but last week the beaches were deserted.
I believe that offshore anglers that launched from Durban early in the mornings found some nice snoek and the odd wahoo on the bite along the dirty waterline off Glenashley. Guys on the larger craft did manage more time on the water and although fishing conditions were very uncomfortable they did manage to land a couple of couta and dorado in the Bluff area. The long term weather report says there will be southerly winds for much of the coming week, but the weekend should be okay.
While I was watching the sea last week I was reminded of a similar occasion when the north easterlies howled day after day in the 1980s just before cyclone Demoina caused such devastation. For those that do not remember those times, it was unbelievable what was washed down the swollen rivers. Massive trees full of live snakes, bodies washed up everywhere (even on Westbrook beach) and motor vehicles were seen floating half submerged out at sea.
It took months and months to finally clear Westbrook beach of all the massive trees and other debris and people were warned not to walk on the beach because of the danger of snakes and coming across dead bodies. It was months before we started launching again at Westbrook and even then we came across submerged trees floating far out to sea. Two Durban based boats were lost when they sank in the Bluff area after striking submerged objects. Some of the old time offshore anglers said that the fishing in the local offshore grounds was not the same after Demoina.
The southerlywinds that were predicted to blow this week could be just what anglers need to improve the rock and surf angling. From what I have seen there are many areas that are badly sanded up and these winds could remove all this sand.
Sealice