Fish Eagle: Brace yourself for the windy season

I think that the near perfect angling conditions that anglers have been experiencing are now over and our windy season is about to begin.

This was the impression that I had at the end of last week and into the weekend.

Although the wind was not excessive at the weekend, the sea was rough on Sunday morning and the surf not very inviting at all.

A good angling friend of mine decided to have an early morning throw at one of the local angling spots on Monday morning and when he arrived at the beach, he found that he was alone.

He baited up and thought that he was a bit early but still cast his line. He had a pull after a couple of minutes and when he retrieved his line, he found his bait to be shredded.

He readied another Japanese mackerel bait and then cast that bait into the water again.

After a short period of time he had another pull and this time landed a small undersized shad that dropped off the hook just after being beached.

This time my friend decided to bait up with a whole sardine which he then cast out. After a couple of minutes another pull and this time my friend said he could feel that he had hooked into a larger fish.

This time he landed a shad of around 340mm and it was still only 4.30am.

Another full sardine bait and this also resulted in a decent shad and when he landed his third shad, he saw another angler arriving at the beach.

My friend had just hooked into his fourth shad and he saw that the other angler was also into a fish.

The other angler on the beach landed another decent fish and my friend caught another two undersized fish that were put back into the water.

By this time the anglers could see the first tinges of grey on the horizon and then the fish were off the bite.

My friend tried a few more casts but the bait was just being stripped by peckers and small fish so he decided to pack up and return home.

The next morning my friend did not fish as he had an appointment to attend to but decided to call in at the beach just for a check.

The angler that was on the beach with him the previous morning was just leaving the beach and he said the fishing was quiet and he had only caught one shad.

My friend tried again on Wednesday morning but there was nothing happening just small fish stripping any fillet bait cast into the surf.

My friend said he left tile beach just after first light and he caught nothing.

I contacted some friends who fish the Umhlanga and Durban North beaches and the news was similar, a few fish early on Monday morning them nothing from then onwards.

Anglers had said to them that they had been catching shad at night with nothing happening when it was light.

My one friend watched a group of anglers using tiny hooks and they were catching small sand soldiers and undersized black tail. He said they were filling plastic shopping bags with the small fish and size did not mean a thing.

My other friends that fish mostly in the dark said they had not been out because the tides had been unfavourable but they were hoping to be trying again this week.

They will be concentrating on fishing for salmon and stumpies as the shad had been a bit of a pest when they were fishing at night with most of the fish being undersized.

l believe that sardine bait is still a bit difficult to get hold of and one local angler showed me a kilo box of bait that he had just purchased and the box had cost him R65.

I thought this was a bit steep but the days of purchasing cheap bait are now over and if one really needs the bait, then one has to pay the price.

At times anglers have been catching a few maasbanker from the beach but they said it had been hard work catching just a half dozen massies.

The north easterly winds should begin to push a bit more from now onwards and this will be the time to persevere for the shad.

Sealice