Angling Report

Anglers had some pretty decent fishing conditions all week long and the weather itself was good, especially during the early mornings.
It was cool at first light and pleasant to be on the beach but later in the day the wind tended to puff a bit although the late afternoons were perfect with very little or no wind at all. On Thursday night there was a storm with some rain but the fishing conditions on Friday remained good with hardly any wind at all.
Anglers fishing the Durban North beaches managed to land a few mullet and fairly decent sized blacktail were on the bite in some areas. I had a look at a couple of the beaches during the week and saw that although there were sandbanks, a few nice deep channels had formed and these were ideal fishing spots to target in the dark.
There were just a few anglers that I saw fishing and this is because the fishing has been quiet. This will change from now onwards because I believe that a few small shad have been on the bite in the Durban area.
Not much has been happening locally in the surf, excepting for a couple of copper bream and stone bream caught in the rocky areas but I heard via the grapevine that a couple of nice sized stump nose were caught during the week. Nobody wants to report where these fish have been on the bite but the fundies are saying the fish were caught in the Ballito area in the dark. As I said last week, the local rocky areas will probably produce the best results at present.
News from the South Coast is that quite a few small garrick have been caught along with some shad and small grunter in the Umkomaas area. This popular fishing spot normally produces small salmon at this time of the year and has been a popular fishing ground for many years, especially at the mouth from the pier or in the river. The South Coast is always an excellent pointer as to what may happen from Durban northwards in the near future. Apparently there are already big crowds fishing the areas where there have been catches so it is better that the local anglers stay away and rather wait until the fishing improves locally.
Several couta weighing over 30kg were caught during the Durban Couta Classic last weekend and although it was said that quite a lot of fish were caught, there were anglers that lost out as well. This normally happens when there are a lot of anglers all trying to catch the largest couta to win the competition and I have found in the past that it is not always fun to fish in these tournaments. I fished a few of the Umhlanga Festival competitions and although we caught fish, there were always hastles such as launching in the mornings and beaching at the end of the day, plus fishing the local game fish grounds was frustrating at times.
A few snoek were caught along the backline at Umhlanga during the week and one or two nice couta as well and some really big tunny have been providing some excellent sport. The big groundswell has dropped now and anglers are able to travel out deep in search of bottom fish. I believe that some nice bottom fish have been feeding as well in places but Richards Bay seems to be producing more fish than the local waters.
The Tugela seems to have been productive the past few days with some nice kob on the bite. The best times to fish have been the night hours and this week there is a nice tide for the night anglers. It is also time for the lobotes to arrive at Tugela so some hectic fishing can be expected with some decent fish being caught.
Sealice

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