Fish Eagle: Fishing in the dark

The first three days of the week produced a flat sea with no surf at all and one would have thought that these were perfect angling conditions, but one does not always catch fish when the sea is slack.

The sea and surf remained pretty good for the remainder of the week even though there was some heavy rain at times.

Not too many anglers are fishing these days and this could only mean that there is not too much happening in the surf. In some areas, there have been a few small shad caught at first light and there has been some small fish caught among the rocks as well. With the perfect sea conditions, I would have expected a pompano or two being caught but I have not heard anything.

The fishing being quiet is usual for this time of the year but I was talking to one of the local anglers during the week and he said that he has caught a couple of decent fish recently but it has been a case of waiting long periods between bites and fishing in the dark has proved to be the way to go.

For a long time, the Tugela River has been almost dry but the recent rains have changed this and the river is flowing nicely. Most of the rivers seem to be pretty full and there have been times recently when the river water has flowed into the sea for several days on end. Most anglers are put off when the river water dirties the sea but this can be a good thing because the fish tend to move into the mixed water to look for food. The discolored water is great for fishing for shark and the summer flatfish.

Offshore anglers are having a great dorado season and several fish are being caught on every outing. The couta are not here in numbers yet but it is still early days.

These days of climate change has certainly changed the seasons as we used to know it and the game fish seem to be arriving later. Sometimes the couta only begin boiling during the month of May which is the autumn season. It has not been unusual for anglers to be catching couta and garrick simultaneously.

Fishing on the bottom has been quite good at times with some decent sized fish being caught but as usual, there have been the days that the fishing has proved to be slow. The local bottom reefs are not producing fish as they were a few years ago. Offshore anglers tend to travel further and further out to sea in search of decent bottom fish. Big rockcod are always much sought after by the bottom anglers as well as the decent sized soldiers.

The offshore anglers are very dependent on the weather and sometimes they get caught by a strong wind and travelling on the water can become very dicey. Many of the anglers are really experienced but accidents can happen.

It seems as if the strong winds are a thing of the past for now anyway. But with the cyclone season in full swing across the Islands, anything can happen. The humidity levels have been extremely high and I am sure that there is more to come before the month of February is a thing of the past.

Sealice

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