Angling Report

Last week began with a southerly wing blowing long before first light on Monday and the wind reached gale force later in the day. The result was huge curling swells out at sea and a large strong surf running. Although the weather had changed on Tuesday morning, there was still a big surf that was causing erosion on the beaches. As the week progressed, fishing conditions improved and the fish came back on the bite.
I reported recently that the brusher should have already been on the bite and on Friday, a regular angler in the Umhlanga area caught a nice brusher weighing between 4 to 5kg. The surf was still a bit rough but these fish revel in the rough conditions. From now on we should be hearing more about the brusher which of course is part of the musselcracker family and they usually appear in local waters during the winter months. There are some well-known brusher angling spots locally so no doubt guys will be targeting these fish.
My contact in the Tugela area told me that the water has cleaned up a bit with most of the weeds having gone. Some garrick and salmon or kob have been caught in the area. He said that a few fish were caught on the north bank but it was from the south bank that most of the fish had been caught. At times some big shad have also been on the bite and it looks as though this area is coming alive again after being unfishable for a while. Apparently, the shad are thick further north and anglers are catching limit bags on every outing and the sizes are varying from fish just over the limit size to fish weighing up to 2kg. The shad are eating both spoon and bait.
Still on the subject of the fishing up north, some nice grunter have been caught recently. It is at this time of the year that the grunter begin congregating in northern waters to spawn and it will not be long before anglers start recording limit bags of decent sized fish. The angling spots to try are the areas from the Tugela northwards. Hopefully the St Lucia area will be back to it’s glory days soon but if not then Mapelane could be another area worth looking at. Even the local river mouths could start producing the odd big grunter from now onwards so it is worth trying.
Some shad were caught locally at the weekend and some of the local beaches are nicely dug out after the heavy seas so there is some deep water close inshore where the fish come in to feed. The big blue shad are now moving into the local waters. The problem is that as soon as a couple of shad are caught from a particular beach, the crowds tend to congregate and the fishing becomes rather uncomfortable. Some of these anglers arrive at the beach already in an aggressive mood and they make life unbearable for the guys just trying to catch a couple of fish. One of the local regular anglers told me the other day that he wished the shad season was over just so that the part time anglers can put their rods and tackle away and the fishing can get back to normal. The shad season officially closes at the end of September.
Local angler Bruce Long was over in the UK last week. He was invited by a friend to do a bit of fishing in the waters off the British Isles. I heard that he had caught a huge sea bass and it will be interesting to talk to him about his adventures when he is back.
I had an unconfirmed report that a couple of big daga salmon were caught from the beach in the Tongaat area last week?
Sealice