Angling Report

It was not an ideal start to the week last Monday when there was a north easterly blowing at first light, then by mid-morning a southerly wind pushed through and by the afternoon the wind was fresh to strong. The wind was still blowing on Tuesday but moderated as the day progressed and the sea was not looking too bad at all.

From Wednesday onwards it was almost perfect summer weather and people flocked to the beaches. Humidity levels rose on Friday night and this was the first time really that high humidity has been felt this summer. More and more anglers have taken to fish the rocky areas recently and this is because a few nice sized copper bream have been caught. This is a bit surprising because historically anglers would only begin fishing for copper bream during the winter months but anglers are having to look for water that is not too dirty which can be difficult at present.

The Tongaat river has been pumping dirty water into the sea for about three weeks now and the variable winds have been distributing it over a wide area. The dirty water line can be seen quite far out to sea.

Anglers fishing the non bathing beaches have managed to catch a few shad at first light in the mornings but here again, anglers have to look for angling spots with fairly clean water.

The problem with shad at this time of the year is there is a good chance that the fish can be full of worms as I found out one morning after catching a nice fish of just over one kilo.

Along with the shad there have been a few sharks feeding plus the odd nice summer flatfish along the sandy beaches. I saw a few anglers with surprised expressions on their faces when hooking into these big hard-fighting fish. These guys are normally targeting shad with fairly light tackle and when they hook a big flatfish, they become uncertain what to do and on many occasions this leads to their line parting because of drags set too tight.

In the Durban North area there have been some big grunter caught in the dark but anglers are not disclosing where the fish are being caught, for good reason. Recently productive fishing areas have been the lighthouse and Durban view at Umhlanga, Glenashley and Virginia beaches but these areas have been pretty crowded at times. The sea is a bit cleaner in these areas and probably why they have been more productive. Many people return to work this week so angling could be more comfortable.

The offshore anglers continue to target the game fish but as always at this time of the year, beaching after a morning’s fishing can be a problem when the crowds arrive at the beach. I have seen a few really nice dorado and the inevitable big tuna but one surf ski angler caught a very nice queenfish during the second half of the week.

Unfortunately the discolored water has been a bit of a problem and I have yet to see a barracouta brought ashore. I think that the sea has to clean up a bit yet before we see these fish but there could be couta on the deeper reefs in the cleaner water.

Some offshore anglers have been fishing up north with good results and down the south coast anglers have caught some decent fish recently. This is strange but occurs every year. Anglers catch fish up north and at the same time down in the south but in between, there is not too much happening.

It is normally during the months of April and May that fishing in local waters hots up for the game fish anglers and the sea off Umdhloti becomes a hot spot. Unfortunately big sharks move in as well and take their share of hooked fish and there is nothing more frustrating than hooking into a big couta only to lose it to a big shark.

From this week onwards, the local beaches will be a lot quieter to the relief of the local anglers and fishing plus launching through the surf will be a lot easier.

Sealice

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