Angling Report – July 21

The weather was perfect last week excepting for Monday when a south westerly wind pushed through before first light and blew for most of the day.

Although it was cold at first light, it was nice and warm during the day plus the surf and sea conditions were excellent for fishing.

The sea was a bit bumpy on Thursday but on Friday morning conditions were good again.

The surfers were having a ball on Friday morning with nice shaped waves of five to six feet with the sets coming through on a regular basis and each wave breaking predictably on the sandbank situated in the mid-break area.

Unfortunately the weather changed later on Saturday morning when another southerly wind began blowing.

I met a friend of mine on Thursday morning and he told me that he had been fishing offshore the day before but was disappointed with what they had caught.

He said the word around was that some decent bottom fish were on the bite out deep so the plan was to travel out to forty fathoms in good sea conditions.

The guys did not anchor but drifted over the reefs in the forty to forty two fathom area with little luck and my friend said that when their sinkers were raised from the bottom they felt ice cold and they realized that they were actually wasting their time because the water was cold on the bottom.

The next thing to do was move inshore and try on the shallower reefs between thirty six and thirty two fathoms.

Because they did not see any decent showings on the fish finder, they decided to drift over the reefs again. My friend said that they caught two reasonably decent sized captain fine rockcod and a nice soldier at thirty six fathoms and when they tried a shallower reef at thirty two fathoms, managed to boat a daga salmon of 12kg and a couple of slinger.

Apparently the barbel were full-up and a real nuisance so just before lunch they decided to call it a day and return home.

I spoke to someone else who had fished during the week and he also said that they had found barbel on just about every reef on which they tried and they too did not catch much. Another offshore angler was telling me during the week that it has been a bit of a disappointing winter so far.

This skipper fishes mainly for the gamefish during the summer months and during the winter he targets the garrick and snoek whenever he can find them. He said that this July has been one of the leanest he has known for a long time because he only boated three garrick and all the fish have been on the small side.

Fortunately there has been a bit of snoek around at times so he cannot complain about the catches of this species but is surprised about the scarcity of the garrick. At times he has reverted to fishing the shallow reefs in search of a daga or two and he has caught one daga weighing 21kg.

Although it has been a disappointing month for this boat owner, he says that he is expecting much improved backline fishing from August onwards.

Rock and surf anglers had mixed fortunes this past week and it was the anglers that fished the rocky areas that fared best of all again. Some big blacktail were on the bite and a few of these fish caught rivaled those caught in the Transkei waters. I saw a couple of big fish that I have not seen in this area for a long, long time and the smaller blacktail that I saw were keepers as well and worth fishing for.

The blacktail have been caught from several local fishing spots and are showing a preference for sardine bait. Several stumpies have been caught locally as well and these fish have varied in size.

A few have been on the small side but there have been a couple of decent sized fish as well. The best time to catch these fish seems to be before first light because as the sky becomes grey, the peekers start stripping baits.

The future does not look too bright for the water sport clubs operating in Durban.

From reports that I have seen, it seems as if they are in the same predicament that anglers along the coast are in. Developers move in and the water users have to pack their comics and move off and are banned from fishing in historical fishing areas.

Send a photo of your catch to sport@nothcoastcourier.co.za and share your success with all the ardent fishermen on the North Coast.

Include the angler’s name and surname, species, weight (estimated or actual), where and when it was caught and what bait was used. Who knows, you could win a R200 voucher from our sponsor for “Catch of the week”.