#FishEagle: Looking forward to a good season

As expected, fishing was blown out on Monday because of fresh southerly winds that brought some adverse weather conditions.

Anglers were able to cast their lines early on Tuesday morning but bad weather kept them off the beaches on Wednesday because of the rain and bad seas, then on Thursday because of the rough surf.

On Friday morning the surf had moderated and anglers were back on the beaches before first light and they managed a few hours of relaxed fishing mainly because the popular beaches were not crowded.

The weather was perfect on Saturday morning and many of the shad anglers were back on the beaches trying to catch their share of fish because it was the final weekend of the open season.

Although anglers found trying fishing conditions on some days last week, there were some nice shad caught plus one fish that weighed 5,8kg that was caught by an angler fishing in the evening at the Umgeni mouth.

In the dark before first light, anglers found that the small shad were feeding and when the sun began to rise, the larger fish bite.

The fishing could not be described as hectic but most anglers caught their two and three fish plus there were a few very nice mullet caught as well among the shad.

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The largest of these mullet weighed 2,5kg. At an Umhlanga popular angling beach, two small skates were also caught during the week.

It is going to be interesting to see whether the anglers refrain from fishing for shad now that the season is closed.

Last year anglers carried on catching the shad even though the season had ended and some guys were on the beach every day catching fish.

The problem is that there is a ready market for shad and a few anglers are making good money selling shad. The shad is a non-commercial fish which means that they may not be sold at all.

Last week I was asked whether I wanted to purchase mussels or crayfish which I declined but it showed that the local coastline is being plundered and it will now be the same with the shad moving up the coast to spawn.

Friends of mine contacted me at the weekend and they said that they had been fishing their favourite angling spot at night and they had caught some nice sized grunter.

They said that they had used a variety of baits that included cracker shrimp, sealice and even sardine strips.

The grunter ranged in size from 2,5kg to 4kg but anglers did have to wait a considerable amount of time in between bites. One of the anglers also landed a beautiful stumpie of 5kg and the anglers said that when they used sardine strips, they were hassled by shad and small fish and even the cracker shrimp were attacked by shad.

The grunter should now be gathering up north for the spawning season and popular angling spots such as Mapelane and even St. Lucia should now begin to yield good catches of grunter.

I heard again last week that a couple of the Zululand beaches had produced a few decent Summer flatfish, mainly big rays that gave the anglers some terrific sport.

Unfortunately anglers had to put up with some rough seas as well but they were rewarded when the surf moderated.

The early signs are that it is going to be a good summer fishing season this year and it will just depend on the weather and just how strong the north easterly winds will be.

I have talked to many of the dedicated anglers that spend a considerable amount of time at the water’s edge and they were all mentioning that the garrick season this year had been very disappointing.

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There has been a few nice garrick landed but the fish seem to be few and far between and the reason being that there has been a considerable amount of baitfish available close inshore this year.

There are other reasons as well like badly sanded up beaches but the fish have seemed to be reluctant to move into the surf this year.

The one angler that I talked to said that he had done some travelling looking for the garrick and so far this year he has only managed to land one fish.

This fish was caught at the Tugela north bank but he said that there was still time for his luck to turn and now that the shad were becoming more plentiful in the surf, he expected to still catch a couple of nice garrick.

A couple of surf ski anglers mentioned to me last week that they had begun to look for the summer yellowfin tuna and reported that there were thousands of shad just off the backline still.

Although they had not caught any tuna yet, they remain optimistic that the fish will soon arrive.

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