Angling Report

There was a bit of rain on Saturday morning and a moderate north easterly wind that began to blow on Sunday morning, otherwise the weekend weather was great.

But during the week some really bad weather and heavy falls of rain kept anglers away from the water.

At the beginning of the week a cold front was shown to be moving up the coast bringing bad weather with it but the front did not look anything out of the ordinary and once it arrived, it seemed pretty normal with a bit of rain and wind that churned the sea up but up north from Zinkwazi northwards.

This is where the conditions changed.

At 6am on Wednesday morning I was driving in the Tugela area when the heavens suddenly opened and the rain began hammering down. It was so bad that all I could see was the bright lights of traffic moving towards me and lots of water but the road was invisible.

I have never driven in such dangerous conditions before and when I eventually reached my destination, it was really a relief to arrive safely.

It was not long before this dirty water began to flood into the sea and began to disperse in a northerly direction at fi rst because of the southerly winds.

Nearer the weekend the wind changed direction and began to blow from the north east and so the dirty water began dispersing over a wide area. This was bad news for the offshore anglers planning to target the game fish at the weekend and many decided that fishing was just not worth the effort.

It was not too bad for the rock and surf anglers because it was the off color water that had brought the salmon and kob on the bite recently.

As most of the action was up north recently, I contacted the anglers that I knew in these areas but they told me that adverse sea conditions had kept many offshore anglers from launching and the heavy rain had kept the rock and surf anglers from fishing during the hours of darkness so there was very little news.

Most of the guys that I contacted said they had never seen such weather conditions at this time of the year and the Tugela anglers that normally target the labotes during the month of May remained indoors.

The rain was not that heavy locally but the local anglers told me that the fishing was relatively quiet even though the surf conditions were not all that bad.

There were a few anglers that tried their luck on Saturday morning but they did not remain on the beach too long after it began raining again and all reported negative results. Most of the locals are saying that they are now waiting for the shad to arrive before fishing again but this could be a bit of a long wait if the recent past is anything to go by.

The past couple of winter shad runs have been a disappointment with the fish arriving late and only certain areas produced decent catches. Because of this, the garrick run was also a disappointment along the local beaches and one wonders what this year will bring.

This week’s fishing is going to depend a lot on the sea conditions and the movement of cold fronts up the coast but at the weekend there was another approaching the Cape coastline.

Sealice

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