Angling Report – 15 April 2016

The weather was not on the side of the anglers last week as the winds continued to blow from the north and south. The southerly began blowing on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning it was really pushing. The bad sea conditions were moderating by Friday but there was still a bit of a swell running and the water inshore remained dirty.
Because of the adverse sea conditions for most of the week, very few anglers tried their luck on the beaches. Those that I saw fishing were really battling to keep lines in the water and little or no news of catches was doing the rounds on the jungle telegraph.
I was in the Durban North area during the week so I had a look in at a couple of the beaches but the guys that I spoke to said that just the odd small fish were biting and nothing of any size had been caught all week.
Most of the popular fishing spots currently have sandbanks, making for shallow water that is generally not the best for fishing. One of the fishing spots that I had a good look at was the Tongaat river mouth where the beach is also sanded up pretty badly. The garrick will hopefully be here soon but I cannot see them moving close inshore as they tend to feed during the low water periods and there is very little water during these times.
It is nice and cool in the early mornings at the moment with an offshore wind blowing just about every day which suggests that the winter fishing season is just around the corner. I think however that it will be another month or so before there is real news of winter fish beginning to bite. During the past couple of years there has been the summer fish caught along with the winter fish so hopefully this year will see much of the same happening. Usually the small green China shad would arrive first with their predators hot on their tails. Shoals of karranteen would often accompany the shad but this species has been badly decimated and one rarely sees them these days.
I had a look at the La Mercy mouth last week and saw a large patch of green algae which means that the lagoon is polluted. Gone are the days when this water was in pristine condition and flocks of flamingos and pelicans would arrive every year. Many people would drive from Durban just to have a look at these birds.
I was talking to an angler a few days ago and he told me that he did most of his fishing in the harbour where some nice fish have been caught recently. Catches mainly include grunter but there have been quite a few small skates landed as well, with these fish giving anglers some tremendous sport on light tackle. There have been other smaller species caught as well such as springer, queenfish, kingfish and stumpies. The angler said that most of the fish that he caught were returned alive to the water and the few that could not be returned he gave away. He said that the harbour was very badly polluted and he was reluctant to eat fish that he had caught and when he gave away fish to anyone, he would warn them about the pollution.
Sealice