#FishEagle: Promising sightings of endangered seventy-four

It was a windy weekend with the north easterly on the water early in the morning on both days.

The wind was just light to moderate but hard enough to create bumpy sea conditions that made for uncomfortable fishing out at sea.

When fishing on the anchor, one does not really feel the unsettled and bumpy sea and many an angler has been caught out when they stay out for too long. Only once the anchor has been pulled aboard do you realize just how rough the sea has become and how hard the wind is blowing.

I did not see too many anglers putting to sea even though the launch and fishing conditions were good at first light.

The inshore reefs off Tongaat and Umdloti were deserted, which can only mean that the fishing in these areas has been poor. Dorado and tuna are still in the deep sea grounds plus some snoek in certain areas but I believe that the South Coast has been producing some nice fish.

At Port Shepstone area one angler pulled a nice 20kg couta after he put out a live shad from a deep water point.

There have been a few wahoo boated down south but they have been scarce this year. The dorado being caught down south are also larger than the fish caught locally.

Anglers fishing the bottom reefs have recorded some nice catches but skippers have found it difficult to anchor correctly on the reefs because of currents created by the winds.

There is nothing worse than trying to fish on the bottom when there is a current running, especially if it is a reverse current that can make fishing impossible.

Again the South Coast anglers seem to be recording better bottom fish catches than some of the local anglers.

There have been a few cracker, some big rockcod and soldiers and I believe that there are plenty of seventy-four seabream which are still on the banned list but this means that the species is recovering.

They were once the most common linefish consumed in KwaZulu-Natal, due to overfishing, stocks collapsed and they have been protected since 1998. They are listed as Critically Endangered.

Some anglers have had nice catches of shoal salmon and geelbek.

The surf is nice and warm at present and it is now time to begin using ghost crab, sealice and chokka to target the pompano and stumples that are normally present now.

I believe that anglers fishing at Glenashley caught a few small pompano this past week.

With the small pompano there are sometimes shoals of small stumpies that can give light tackle anglers tremendous sport.

The Umhlanga and Durban North anglers reported that the fishing has been on the quiet side with few edible fish being caught excepting for a few bull mullet and some tiny shad.

Anglers have had some excellent sport with a few sizeable skates and the odd big sandshark caught from the sandy beaches. Anglers have seen snoek activity along the backline but the fish have been well beyond casting range and the surf has not been calm enough for the snoek to move closer inshore.

I did not manage to get any news from the night anglers last week so I do not know what is on the bite in the dark.

The story in last week’s Courier about the out-of-control party in the Thompson’s Bay tidal pool area and the killing of the parrot fish was really shocking.

It is something that is happening along the entire KZN coastline at present and former Park’s Board officials must be shaking their heads in disgust watching all their hard work over the years being rapidly undone.

The local coastline could become a watery desert in the near future because of such behavior.

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