Angling Report

The surf had turned rough by Monday morning and a three metre swell was reported out at sea.

By Wednesday the swell had risen to six metres and the surf was pounding on the banks, resulting in walls of white water rolling to shore. As the week progressed, the surf conditions improved and by the weekend the surf was quite fishable and the north easterly wind helped to quell the strong South to North current. The Kingfisher largest shad competition was won by an angler who landed a shad weighing 5,7kg.

The second and third places went to fish weighing over 5kg. These were big fish for this time of the year and I am sure that even larger fish will now put in an appearance this month. As expected, anglers continued to fish for shad last week and at an Umhlanga beach quite a few fish were landed just after first light in the rough surf.

One morning one angler landed four nice shad on spoon and dulled quite a few others so it seems as if the shad are really hungry at present. I had a look in at Virginia beach on Friday morning and although there were quite a few anglers fishing from the pier, I did not see anything caught. On my way home I also called in at Umdloti and met one of the regular anglers leaving the beach.

He said the surf had been a little rough earlier that morning but he did manage to catch a nice stumpie of 4kg just before first light. He said once it became light, the peekers were wild, shredding any fillet bait cast into the water. The angler also said the fishing had been quiet recently and the stumpie was the first decent fish that he had caught in quite a while. Anglers fishing up north are still enjoying an early summer flatfish run and I believe that several big diamond rays have been caught and returned unharmed to the water.

Unfortunately these anglers also experienced rough water last week that made fishing difficult. Once the north easterly winds begin to blow on a more regular basis, these fish will begin to move southwards in numbers and the local anglers can expect some hectic battles with these hard fighting fish.

The weather is already becoming hot and humid. Ideal conditions for these fish. The local beaches are still a bit quiet for edible fish but there have been a few shad and the odd garrick in some areas, plus several nice-sized grey sharks have been feeding in the surf. The best time to fish for these sharks is the late afternoon.

The river mouth venues having the best chances for anglers but they should use fairly heavy tackle to produce the best results. Anglers on the rocky outcrops say fishing is quiet but should improve as the sea settles.

Some anglers like myself tend to shy away from the rocky areas because there is always the possibility of losing fishing tackle, which is expensive these days, but there are the few locals who are experts among the rocks and they do land some really decent fish from time to time. The offshore anglers had the elements against them last week because of the front that moved up the coast but things could be very different this week and the dorado could be back on the bite again out deep and the bottom fishing could produce some nice results.

As always, the fishing will be dependent on the weather but I think that the cold fronts are just about gone for the rest of the year and it will be a case of keeping an eye on the wind strengths from day to day.

Sealice

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