Fish Eagle: Winter is here

The first week of June has just passed by and it really feels as if winter is here. It is pretty chilly at first light but the weather warmed up nicely during the morning’s last week.

There was a southerly wind blowing mainly on the light side most of the week but on Saturday this wind really did freshen up. The sea was rough for most of last week along the Eastern Cape coast and the rough seas moved up into the Wild Coast waters later.

This may not be a bad thing because the sardine shoals gathering along the Eastern Cape coastline have now begun to move north into the lower Transkei waters. The shoals were accompanied by plenty of gannets and gannets were also spotted feeding further up the coast on what was suspected to be mixed shoals of baitfish.

The rough seas and accompanying southerly winds will push the shoals of small fish up the coastline and within a couple of weeks, there could be sardines in KwaZulu-Natal waters. Everything seems just right at present and more south westerly winds are predicted for the forthcoming couple of weeks so there could be an excellent sardine run this winter.

It has been a while since the last excellent sardine run in Durban so maybe this is the year we will see pockets of sardines in local waters. Last year the sardines remained on the South Coast with the result that the shad arrived late here, but when they did arrive some decent catches were recorded. Unfortunately catches of garrick and kob remained on the low side and many of the garrick anglers missed out.

Some local anglers say that several of the popular angling spots are badly sanded up at present and fishing these areas has been a complete waste of time. The south westerly winds should actually clear the sand from the surf area but I think that a couple of good strong blows will be needed. A fresh to strong north easterly wind that arrived last Sunday will not assist in moving the sand because it is this prevailing wind that causes the build up of sand in the first place.

The rock and surf angling did not improve last week and the surf itself was not at its best because the waves were pounding on the sand banks, creating lots of white water. The few anglers that I had a word with said that not much was happening and just a few “rats and mice” were coming out of the water. Others fished down at the Wild Coast but they also said that the fishing was quiet.

When the south westerly winds have been blowing for several days the fish tend to go right off the bite even though the sea conditions may be okay. I was taught as a kid that a fisherman’s best friend is a good barometer and if the indicator on the device shows low pressure, then forget about angling even if the conditions are perfect but when the pressure begins to rise, that is the time to wet a line.

No doubt most anglers will now be watching what happens along the South Coast even more carefully but I believe that it will be another month before the angling hots up locally. At the end of June every year myself and friends used to fish a lot down the South Coast with excellent results and it was only during the month of July that the fish would begin feeding locally and even then it was only selected areas that would produce fish on more or less a regular basis. There is always a chance however that garrick may start feeding so anglers should not be put off and try fishing with live baits.

Hopefully there will be more encouraging news next week.

Sealice.