Angling Report

There was some in and out weather during the week that resulted in a big swell at sea and some rough surf conditions but on Friday the weather report predicted some excellent weather for the weekend and the sea and surf looked very favourable for anglers.

A bit of a south westerly wind was predicted for Sunday as another cold front was moving up the coastline, bringing with it more rain. Friends of mine travelled down south last week on a scouting trip.

They found that the fishing had not improved tremendously as yet and while anglers were catching some small shad and salmon at night in certain areas, only the odd small garrick has been caught. Anglers fishing the rocky areas have recently been catching some sizeable blacktail and stone bream with a few copper bream at times.

Surf conditions were not all that great when the guys took the trip so there were only a few anglers that they could speak to and the conclusion that they came to was that it was not worth the cost in fuel to fish down south yet.

These guys took the trip because the fishing in the Durban area has been pretty quiet with just a few small fish being caught from the surf. The small green shad have not arrived as yet so the larger fish that prey on the shad are scarce as well.

They say that fishing is a bit of waste of time at present.

Normally at this time of the year the early morning periods do produce a few shad although many are undersized, but as yet this has not happened and like last year the fish are likely to be late again.

Local anglers said the river mouths have been the areas to try as there have been a few small salmon caught when the conditions are right but these fish have not been feeding consistently. Most local anglers have been fishing in the rocky areas, but again results have not been encouraging.

The guys tell me that north is where most of the action has taken place recently but unfortunately conditions were not ideal last week.

Most anglers I have spoken have shown concern for the rapidly rising fuel costs and this has restricted fishing trips considerably.

From this week the price of fuel will be over R15 a litre so the fishing has to be worthwhile before an excursion is made.

Some told me they cannot afford to run up and down to the beach and they only use their vehicles when they are forced to. Some of the ski boat owners have also adopted the same attitude and only launch when they are sure that the trip will be productive. I saw several boats fishing off the Umdloti river mouth on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

But on Sunday morning the area was quiet with nobody at sea and this could have been because of the predicted south westerly wind that began pushing around lunch time. I believe that there have been a couple of nice couta boated in this area but anglers have had to fish hard.

Although a few fish have been caught in this area, fishing has been hard work and anglers have had to have a lot of patience.

Sealice

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