#FishEagle: Shad put up a good fight

At first light on Monday morning the fishing conditions were ideal with a nice flat sea and calm surf.

The weather was warm and calm and the sea temperature remaining high.

The ideal conditions remained throughout the morning then just before lunch, a fresh, gusting to strong south westerly buster pushed through and all thoughts of fishing were cancelled for the afternoon.

The expected rain began to fall on Tuesday night and continued on Wednesday with heavy falls at times and unfortunately, dirty water was already flowing strongly into the sea on Wednesday morning.

The dirty water from the Tongaat River mouth was travelling north towards Ballito and at the weekend I saw the river was still flowing into the sea but much reduced.

Although the sea water was still dirty, the colour was much improved and Saturday’s north easterly wind began to blow the dirty water southwards.

Offshore anglers found the snoek on the bite again and a few excellent catches were recorded but a number were lost because some anglers tried to force the fish that have very soft mouths.

This caused the hooks to pull loose and a few big fish were lost.

Fresh fillets seemed to be the way to go, although shad were a nuisance in some areas, attacking the baits put out for snoek.

Off Glenashley beach a surf ski angler fishing for snoek with fillet bait hooked into and landed a shad that weighed in at 4,3kg. Another angler duffed a big queenfish then the sharks moved in so the anglers had to move.

Snoek have been found from south of Westbrook up to the Umgeni River mouth, but the shoals have been moving.

Although the odd couta has been caught in the Umdloti area, big sharks have been a nuisance, ruining a few anglers’ expensive tackle.

Those targeting dorado have been rewarded with some nice fish in the deeper water, mostly on live bait.

Yellowfin tuna have been stretching those targeting them this past week and one surf ski angler said that he was having a good summer game fish season.

He had just returned from Sordwana Bay where the guys were catching some big billfish.

Rock and surf anglers fishing the late afternoon and early evening shifts last week were rewarded with some excellent fun when they found the big summer flatfish on the bite along the sandy beaches.

Two big sand sharks were reported last week and these two fish really gave the anglers a tremendous workout.

It is recommended that anglers fishing for these big flatfish are adequately equipped when arriving at the beach, to improve chances of landing the fish and returning it unharmed to the water, plus a protection to the fish itself that it is not hampered in any way by dragging broken off tackle.

A couple of guys were smashed up when their baits were picked up by what was thought to be large skates or rays.

One angler said that he had actually seen the large ray in the shore dump before his hook pulled loose.

Anglers fishing the Eastmore area in Umhlanga Rocks seem to have had some excellent angling last week with these summer flatfish.

Eastmore is ideal this time of the year for the big inedibles, plus the early morning anglers have been catching a few small shad at first light and there was an out-of-season big shad landed that weighed well over 3kg. Otherwise, not much else has been happening in Umhlanga Rocks.

Another beach that normally fishes well at this time of the year is the sandy Glenashley area. Unfortunately this beach has acquired a bad reputation because of crime in the area but myself and a few friends have enjoyed some excellent and productive fishing there over the years.

One can have great sport catching small stumpies on light tackle and at times shoals of small pompano move into the surf.

It was at this beach that I caught a Prodigal Son, which is a pretty rare catch. In some ways it resembles a shark but is a beautiful table fish.

The one I caught weighed in at 7kg but it has been a long while now that I have heard of any more being caught.

The weather report for the first half of the week is not favourable to anglers, but what else is new!

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