Angling Report – 19 February 2016

Last week began badly again with rough seas and storm surf conditions on Monday. The surf and the large swell at sea took time to settle and offshore anglers were telling me that it was uncomfortable at sea, especially when fishing on the bottom. At the weekend anglers managed some sea time and it was the guys that were on the water early that had the best chance of boating some nice gamefish before being chased home by the wind.
Last week I had to complete some business in Durban North and I decided to call in at various beaches to chat with anglers. I called in at Virginia, Glenashley and Durban View at Umhlanga but at all these spots I found just a few anglers on the beach and they were all just sitting and killing time. All the guys said that the sea had been rough for most of the week and fishing had been very quiet. What I did see, however, was that the southerly winds had created some nice channels in the surf and this is what anglers look for when the fishing conditions are right.
One angler who is on the beach almost every day told me that he was going to wait until the sea conditions settled before targeting the pompano. He mentioned that during past years he used to fish light tackle for the smaller edibles such as wave garrick and spotted pompano but so far this year he has caught very few of these fish because of the adverse weather. Many anglers say the constant fresh north easterly winds may mean they have to change tactics when looking to catch fish.
Gamefish anglers are catching the odd couta from time to time when conditions allow but as yet the shoal couta or darts as we used to call them, still have not arrived in local waters. There have been reports from Vidal that the shoalies have been on the bite and usually at this time of the year, these fish are thick in the offshore gamefish grounds. When looking at the colour of the water last week and at the weekend, I don’t think that there will be much caught inshore until the clean water moves in again. There were a couple of days last week that the water did not look too bad but as soon as the easterly began to blow again, the water turned very green. The dirty water line was quite far out to sea and all one will catch in this water is sharks.
Usually one hears of a couple of nice kingfish being caught by the offshore guys but I have not seen any yet. I believe that there has been a bit of snoek about in some areas.
I think that the divers will also be hoping for some more favourable weather because the crayfish season opens in just a couple weeks and these guys must be itching to test out their favorite bug holes. I had a look at the beach again on Sunday afternoon and the sea was on its head because of the fresh north easterly wind.
Sealice