Angling Report

There were some crazy things happening in the world last week and it was no different at one of Durban North’s popular angling beaches.
A friend was fishing at Virginia beach on Tuesday morning when a shoal of shad moved into the area where the pipeline is situated. He is a regular fisherman in the area and said that there was not a big crowd at the beach and the anglers soon had their legal bags of four fish. Whilst he stopped fishing there were those that continued to catch the shad and soon calls went out for bait replenishment and the removal of fish from the beach. Apparently the shad continued feeding throughout the day and there were anglers that continued fishing all day, pulling as many shad as they could.
On Wednesday morning there was a larger crowd at the beach with the word obviously getting out and the shad were on the bite again with some hectic fishing. My friend was back at the beach at 4am on Thursday morning only to find that there was no parking available. Fortunately, he was being dropped off by his son. It was chaos on the beach, made worse by the fact that the shad were only feeding in a small area around the pier. My friend fished for a couple of hours away from the crowd but had no luck so called on his son to pick him up from the beach. Whilst waiting in the parking area he found out that several vehicles had been broken into during the dark hours of the morning.
Another friend went to have a look at Virginia beach on Friday and although he was not fishing, he said that it was chaos in the area. All available parking had been taken up with anglers double parking and even parking alongside the road leading to the beach. He said that once he arrived at the beach area he saw unbelievable scenes unfolding. There were about 300 anglers all trying to fish in a small area and the air was blue with dagga smoke and foul language. The shad were feeding but not as quickly as the previous few days and when an angler landed a fish he pulled in about a dozen traces as well. Sinkers were flying everywhere, anglers were striking even though they had not had a bite and it was just absolute chaos.
It was unbelievable considering that it was a working day and there was such a huge crowd on the beach. After watching for a time my friend decided to leave the beach and in the parking area he saw Metro police busy towing vehicles away. Apparently the beach is in a terrible state with bait boxes, plastic, bottles and bait scraps littered everywhere.
Local beaches were quiet last week and I saw very few anglers on the beach and those that I did see fishing were just standing around with their rods in the rod holders. I believe that there were a few shad caught in the Umdhloti area. Even the rock anglers are not saying too much at present and they also battled to catch any decent fish. The small pompano that were plentiful recently seem to have disappeared and the only real decent catches were of a couple of garrick in the Tinley Manor area where there have been some decent shad as well.
It still seems as if the upper and lower South Coast fishing spots are the places to be with a variety of fish being caught. There are plenty of shad and Garrick, plus a few salmon and the odd nice cock grunter on the bite in the dark. Hopefully after the weekend’s bad weather, the fish will be back on the bite locally.
Sealice

Basil Manning is sponsoring a weekly prize of a R200 voucher for the “Catch of the week”. With a specific focus on sustainable use of our ocean resources, preference will be given to fish that has been released – although fish caught and kept will not be disqualified. Send a good quality photo of your catch to sport@nothcoastcourier.co.za.