Fish Eagle: Dorado fishing spots remain a close guarded secret

The week began with strong north easterly winds again and this resulted in rough seas that persisted until just before the weekend. The rough surf could be seen shifting plenty of sand and this means that heavy sand banks will build up again, hampering anglers. Fortunately, just after the mid-week period, the weather changed and by Saturday morning, the sea conditions were perfect for angling.

Offshore anglers were out in force making good use of the favourable fishing conditions and I believe that a few decent catches were recorded. There was a bit of light rain just before first light on Sunday morning but that soon cleared and a fresh north easterly wind was predicted for the day. Keen offshore anglers launched again to search for the game fish and remained at sea for as long as the wind allowed.

Most anglers went in search of the dorado and I believe that one or two couta were caught as well. Where these fish were found remains a secret but I believe that they were caught not too close inshore. The sea conditions were great for fishing the bottom reefs and a few big bottom fish were caught. Some anglers were lucky enough to find small salmon – or snotties as they are known – plus sizeable rock cod and decent sized soldiers.

At the end of the working week, surf ski anglers fishing the backline area at Peace Cottage caught several snoek but although there were plenty of these fish in the area, they were not feeding properly and trying to catch them was a bit of a mission. One angler fishing a little nearer Umdloti caught a kingfish of 9kg on Friday morning then on Saturday morning, he caught a queenfish of a similar size. He reported pockets of small fish in the water that he identified as sprats so it seemed there was plenty of food in the water.

The photograph of the kob that was the catch of the week last week was certainly just that, because there should rightly be no kob around at this time of the year in the warm water. Recent years have turned up some surprising catches at certain times of the year and at this time of climate change, one cannot really be certain what one will catch when embarking on a fishing trip. Friends of mine fished on Friday night and although they did not catch anything of substance, they watched a lone angler land a small prodigal son just after first light near Beachwood on Saturday morning.

Anglers fishing the Durban piers have been catching small undersized shad which seem to be highly prized but not much else has been caught. Apparently, there has been a lot of churn up caused by the strong north easterly winds and the water has not been all that clean, keeping many anglers away. Some bathers and surfers have been stung by fireweed and this shows that the Mozambique current has moved really close inshore.

I was at one of the popular surf angling spots on Saturday morning and was surprised to see no anglers on the beach. I thought the conditions were perfect for species such as the pompano so obviously, there is not too much happening in the area.

Ballito is normally a productive fishing area at this time of the year and the big bricks at Umdloti can also spring some surprises if anglers fish in the correct manner. This is a perfect spot to fish the drop shot method and one can expect to hook a few decent sized fish both edible and inedible.

At lunchtime on Sunday I received a call from a friend who told me that anglers fishing at number one in the outer anchorage had some luck boating a couple of nice couta plus two wahoo and they reported that there were shoals of bonito rising to the surface over a wide area. The fish were all caught on lures.

Sealice

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