Angling Report

For much of last week there was big, rough surf all along the coast and the sea beyond the waves was very unsettled. The windy conditions did not help much either with the wind blowing from the north east one day, south the next and then back to north east the day after. Fortunately, the fishing conditions looked good on Friday morning with the surf having calmed and the unsettled seas a thing of the past. The water was looking a lot cleaner also. Saturday was just perfect although there was light rain early in the morning. This did not stop the hoards converging on Westbrook beach for an early beginning to the crazy season of all night hooliganism. In all, anglers had some decent weekend fishing conditions for a change.
Rock and surf anglers will be eagerly waiting for Thursday morning when the shad season opens again but it could be very much like recent previous years. Normally the anglers flock early to the beach only to find that just a couple of shad are caught and many go home empty handed. It might be different this year though as some really nice sized fish have been caught recently. Anglers fishing the late afternoon periods fared best with just a couple of fish being caught during the early morning periods. Normally in the past, anglers would catch mainly small shad at the opening of the season but this seems to have changed recently and some big shad have been caught at the beginning of December.
Thursday will also herald the beginning of summer and this means the annual run of flatfish such as the skates or rays and the big sand sharks. Further up the coast, anglers have already had some excellent sport with these summer fish but local anglers have also caught a few skates on fillet baits. The holidaymakers enjoy fishing for these hard fighting fish and there are already some early season visitors around. Just a word of warning for the guys that arrive on the beach early. Be careful of the early morning revellers because there have been instances where these people have tried to interfere with the fishermen. Personally, I stay away from the beach, especially at the weekend.
Anglers fishing the rocky areas struggled again last week because of the rough surf and windy conditions but I heard that conditions were better last weekend and a couple of nice fish were caught. There are still plenty of copper bream and some stumpies around and visitors wanting to catch these excellent eating fish, should watch the locals how they go about fishing amongst the rocks and should make sure that the areas are safe. There have been several drownings recently. The guys in the tackle shops are always willing to help visiting anglers with tackle and advising on where the best fishing spots are.
I was talking to a couple of ski anglers that fish the Umhlanga and Durban North waters and they told me that they had been shore-bound because of the rough surf and unsettled seas. They did launch at the weekend, however, but found the fishing a bit quiet. The guys said that before the onset of the bad sea conditions, they did well with snoek and yellowfin tuna just off the Umhlanga beaches and there was plenty of live bait to be found. They also said that snoek were seen operating off Glenashley during the week but unfortunately these fish were gone by the time they launched.
Anglers fishing out deep this week should find a few gamefish if the sea conditions are right because there has already been some dorado caught. Hopefully the guys will be able to get into the big soldiers and rockcod that were feeding before the onset of the bad weather. The only problem might be the north-easterly winds that tend to push pretty hard at this time of the year and we are also at the time when the large zambies appear in numbers.
Sealice

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