Angling Report

The north easterly winds were blowing at gale force early in the week, moderating towards the weekend, but they left behind a rough sea.

The surf resembled a washing machine. This wind always creates hot humid weather conditions that become really uncomfortable and it is almost impossible to spend time at the beach when the wind is at gale force. Weather conditions were then much more pleasant with overcast skies and just light to moderate winds that settled the sea nicely.

The anglers were out in force at the weekend because of the more favorable fishing conditions and as expected, a couple of nice fish were landed.

A friend spent some time on Sunday morning walking up the beach from the Tongaat mouth and Zimbali and spinning as he walked. On the way home he stopped at my place and asked whether I had a scale because he had a fish that he wanted to weigh. The fish was a very nice garrick and it weighed just over 15kg. The garrick had attacked his plastic lure half way between the mouth and Zimbali and had taken some time to land on his light tackle. The other decent fish was a nice daga salmon caught by an angler fishing at the mouth in Blythedale late Saturday night.

Apparently he and a couple of friends had been fishing since the early evening but had found the fishing to be quiet so later the angler decided to cast out a mixed grill of mackeral fillet and chokka and then had placed his rod in the holder and relaxed on the beach. The angler said after about 20 minutes he saw the tip of his rod bend then straighten again, then after a couple of minutes the tip dipped again and line began to peel off his reel.

The angler scrambled to retrieve his rod from the holder, struck and the battle began. He landed the fish with the help of a friend and the result was a salmon weighing 19kg. During the week I was having a couple of “cold ones” with some of my fishing friends and we were discussing fishing in general.

One of the guys was saying he had spent a considerable amount of time on the beach recently watching the anglers catching shad and he was mentioning some of the ways they were hiding the fish. Some of the anglers arrived at the beach accompanied by their wives and when they landed a shad, they buried the fish where the wife was sitting and she covered the area with her loose fitting dress. Another trick was to use a runner and when a fish was landed the runner would quickly run off the beach with the fish then return and wait for another to be caught.

Others simply did not bother to hide the fish at all but proceeded to catch as many as they could and sell the fish to whoever would pay the price asked. A couple of the guys said they were to spend a few days up at Mapelane this week and they hoped to have some excellent fishing weather permitting.

They were going to target the Summer flatfish and the grunter that gather in the area at this time of the year. They said they had heard there were some big sharks frequenting the area as well so they were well prepared. Apparently quite a few big grunter have been caught in this area recently when conditions allowed and a few big sharks had been hooked and lost plus a few large rays had provided some excellent sport.

I read with interest the story last week of the surf ski angler and his encounter with the great white shark and I think that most of the local ski boat anglers have either seen or have had encounters with great whites over the years. One day we were fishing at anchor in 32 fathoms of water off Ballito in a flat sea. We had caught a few nice bottom fish but then the fish went off the bite and we were sitting with our traces on the bottom listening to one crew member at the back of the boat who never stopped talking. He was jabbering away then suddenly went dead quiet and when I looked back I saw this huge shape gliding by just inches away.

The markings were unmistakable and it took a long time to forget that big black staring eye that was giving us the once over. We were fishing aboard a 16 foot boat but the shark was almost as long as the boat and seeing this monster at water level really got one’s blood pumping. As soon as the fish passed, we reeled up our lines, pulled the anchor and headed for home.

Sealice

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