Angling Report – July 14

The weather and sea conditions were near perfect for the first half of last week.

A bit cold at first light but nice and sunny during the day.

After looking at beautiful sea conditions with clean water on Tuesday morning, I was surprised to see the sea unsettled and a mushy looking surf during the low tide period on Wednesday morning.

There was just one angler fishing from the beach and all he had caught was one small mullet. I watched the angler for a while but save for small fish taking the bait off his hook, I never saw another fish caught.

As I was about to leave Westbrook beach, a fellow angler arrived and he told me of an incident that had happened at the beach the previous morning.

A few vehicles were parked close to the lifesavers building. A red Toyota Corolla arrived with two male occupants and one climbed out and began looking into the parked cars.

When he was confronted he produced a large knife. The pair nearly ran over the people who attempted to prevent them from leaving.

This is a bit of a heads up not only for anglers, but all beach users and it proves just how desperate and brazen these criminals have become.

A friend told me that during the week the odd small shad had been caught along the Durban North beaches so he thought that he would try on Saturday with a spoon. At first light he arrived at Virginia beach only to find that there was no parking and anglers were parking their vehicles as far away as the road to the airport entrance.

So he decided to travel to Glenashley where it was quiet and he walked down the beach towards Virginia spinning all the way.

When he arrived at Virginia he saw that there was a big mob fishing but there was nothing happening.

There was another angler also spooning from Glenashley who told him he had been trying every morning that week but had only managed to catch two small shad. This angler said he had been keeping an eye on Virginia beach but there had been no action, so it seems as if someone had spread tall tales that caused the crowds to converge.

Another friend just spent a week down the South Coast and said that during the first weekend the fishing was great with plenty of shad being caught but as the week progressed, fish became hard to come by.

He was able to catch two small garrick and a couple of nice shad on his trusty old Les Buckle spoon.

Apparently anglers fishing at night among the rocks caught a few small fish but nothing of any great size.

The popular South Coast beaches are also crowded during the early morning periods. Sand banks have built up along the coast and these banks are situated just beyond casting distance, so as the tide drops there is very little water.

Anglers will have to look and see where there are channels and these would be the areas that would probably produce a few fish.

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”.