Fish Eagle: The best is yet to come

Anglers had more beautiful weather last week with most days almost windless and sunny but cold before sun-up and after sun-down.

A fresh to strong south westerly wind pushed through early on Friday morning creating a blustery day but once the wind had died down, it was back to the good weather and a very busy weekend.

Bathing was banned along most of the South Coast beaches because of the presence of massive shoals of sardines moving up the coast but unfortunately most of the fish were moving north a considerable distance from the shore.

Some netting has taken place but many believe that the best is still to come and that the main shoals have still to arrive.

The sardines that were netted fetched top prices and I think that people should wait a few days and they will be able to buy the small fish at much lower prices.

Surf angling conditions were almost perfect for most of last week and the most profitable areas have been down south where the shad are now much more plentiful, plus garrick have been caught at many of the recognized garrick fishing areas.

Many of the popular shad angling venues are now crowded at first light even during the work week and from what I have been told, catch sizes and limit bags are not being adhered to.

It is a pity but is to be expected when the shad begin running and greed takes over.

The other problem is that when one fishes among this mob, a hard hat is definitely needed to avoid injury.

A few very nice kob have also been caught recently in the dark with red eye sardine baits working well.

As expected, there is quite a lot of shark activity as well because of all the food in the water and in the vicinity where sardines were netted, there were a few yellowfin tuna seen in the water.

A couple of kingfish were hooked and landed, but couta were absent and they were probably feeding on the shoals further out to sea.

Although the local surf angling has improved a bit, there are no fireworks as yet and local anglers are going to have to wait a while.

Shad have come on the bite along the Durban North beaches at times but not in numbers as yet and most of the fish are on the small side still.

A couple of garrick have been caught but many anglers are still returning home empty handed after a couple of hours fishing. I saw one small brusher weighing around 4kg that was caught in the Tongaat area last week but not much else of any size.

The popular northern fishing areas have been fishing reasonably well where a number of nice edible and inedible fish have been caught.

Shoal kob weighing between three and five kilos have been feeding at the river mouths plus there have been some really decent sized shad caught as well at times.

This seems strange but has been the case for a number of years now that decent sized shad are being caught up north during the winter months.

I believe that a few big stumpies have been caught by anglers targeting this species at night but the venues where the stumpies have been caught, is a closely guarded secret.

Anglers looking to have their arms stretched have been targeting the sharks that one finds almost all year long in these northern areas.

The good weather that we have been having recently could soon be something of the past and anglers may have to use any favorable fishing conditions that they find in order to catch fish from now onward.

Sealice