#FishEagle: Perseverance does pay dividends

It was not a good beginning to last week for the anglers.

A fresh south westerly wind came through during the early hours of Monday morning and the wind continued throughout the day.

The sea had turned rough and the surf was not really user friendly.

Rain began to fall on Monday evening and the rain continued throughout the night and during the day on Tuesday.

It was not all bad news on Tuesday because surprisingly, sardines were netted and brought ashore at uShaka beach.

Quite a substantial amount of sardines were netted but they were all snapped up pretty quickly with very few finding their way for sale on the side of the road.

Apparently several shoals have been spotted recently and the conditions were ideal for the small fish. On the Sunday before the beginning of the week, friends decided that a dive in the area of the containers in the outer anchorage would be a good idea. When the divers entered the water they found that the water was ice cold so diving was a waste of time.

There was quite a bit of rain mainly at night for the rest of the week and with the rain the inevitable southerly winds that were mainly moderate but the winds did cause the swell to rise at sea which in turn created difficult fishing conditions.

An offshore angler mentioned to me last week that a couple of early season dorado have been caught and this could be true but I think that it is still a bit early.

Offshore anglers fishing up north have been boating some nice yellowfin tuna so it should not be long before the tuna arrive in local waters.

There is still plenty of live bait around if one knows where to look and I believe that anglers have had their bait traces destroyed by shad which are said to be a menace at present.

The weekend was blown out by the winds that began pushing early in the mornings plus most offshore anglers were more interested in the rugby on Saturday anyway.

Not much has changed in the surf but I believe that anglers fishing in the Umgeni area have been pulling a few garrick on live bait.

ALSO READ: #FishEagle: Summer fish come on the bite

This is not surprising with the sardines being in the vicinity, but the weather did keep many anglers away from the beaches and most of the fishing was done during the early morning periods. As expected, most catch bags consisted of shad but I hear that there are some nice sized mullet about along some of the sandy beaches.

Two very nice stumpies weighing around 5kg were caught at Glenashley last week by one angler using crab bait.

The fish were caught around 4am and the angler was really rewed on both occasions. There were only three anglers fishing from the beach early that morning and the fishing conditions were not all that good because of the rain that was falling, but perseverance does pay dividends.

I had a word with several anglers who fish among the rocks locally and they told me the fishing was a bit quiet with just a few stone bream and blacktail being caught but some anglers have been trying really hard for the copper bream.

Occasionally, one or two decent sized bronzies have been caught but anglers have had to be really patient and it has been the experienced anglers that have come right.

On inquiring, I have found who some anglers are reluctant to fish at night because of the probability of being held up and robbed.

Those that are fishing at night do so in groups and they make sure that they are armed. How things have changed over the years because myself and my brothers used to fish on a regular basis at night without any problems at all but today we would not even consider it.

It has been said that the fishing up north is still producing some big fish and there have been a few decent edibles among the inedible catches.

Salmon have been the more numerous of the edibles that have been caught but there have been a few garrick and stumpnose as well.

Most of the anglers fishing up north are targeting the summer flatfish and a few outsized rays have already been landed and returned unharmed to the water.

Apparently some big sharks have been hooked and lost after a brief battle so it certainly seems as if the surf anglers fishing locally, could have an excellent summer angling season this year.

Download The North Coast Courier mobile app, now available free from the Apple iStore and on Google Play, for IOS and Android phones.