#FishEagle: Wet weather hampers fishing

Rock and surf angling remains patchy and word has it that up north is where the action has been recently.

A variety of edible fish have been caught from North Coast beaches recently, including a couple of big kingfish, some nice kob or salmon, stumpies and labotes in the Tugela area.

Fishing at night has been profitable but anglers are fishing in groups after dark because of safety concerns.

It is not advisable to surprise anglers on the beach at night because these guys are armed and some are really nervous.

Small shad are still feeding in the Durban area. Unfortunately, the fish are mostly under the legal size limit.

Anglers north of the Umgeni Mouth have found nice sized grunter feeding at night, but they have not been feeding consistently.

I had reliable information that a couple of big stumpies were caught in heavy surf at night.

Game fish anglers were mostly kept off the water.

A video (WATCH it here: https://fb.watch/5ib5BTaoan/) that went viral last week Sunday showed a launch in rough conditions at Shelly Beach that went horribly wrong.

Fortunately, there were no injuries but as usual, there was damage to the ski-boat.

The guys were forcing a launch because of excellent recent catches. There have been some nice couta caught plus a couple of big wahoo and the inevitable yellowfin tuna and bonito.

Catches of game fish have been exceptional so far this season down south, and baitfish are also becoming more numerous with large shoals in some areas.

The gathering of baitfish shoals could mean that big wahoo will increase in number, as they normally do at this time of the year.

It was said that dorado can still be found in some of the popular South Coast fishing areas and anglers fishing bottom reefs have pulled a few decent dorado while using a trap stick with live bait.

A few large cracker and rockcod have been caught by South Coast anglers fishing bottom reefs and some were saying there are plenty of 74 to be found as well, but of course catching these fish remains taboo.

Popular angling beaches after seas moderated were La Mercy and Stud Rock.

I believe some nice couta are being caught.

Usually at this time of year small salmon turn on, especially at La Mercy.

The Umdloti River mouth remains unpopular at present due to shark activity but further south in the Selection area as well as off Peace Cottage, a few decent sized couta have been caught along with snoek.

On Thursday and Friday morning the sea was glassed off in these areas and fishing craft looked as if they were resting on smooth table tops.

Some anglers have their favourite game fishing areas off Ballito, Salt Rock and Tinley Manor but areas such as Vidal and Sodwana Bay up north have been very popular because of decent catches of couta and billfish.

Vidal has been a popular fishing spot for many years now and for good reason.

I have seen big catches of couta and big snoek brought ashore.

These areas are also popular at present because of the settled weather usually at this time of the year.

Sardine news has been scarce this past week but in a month’s time everyone could be talking about them.

Because of the thousands of small shad along the backline at present, and the big shoals of baitfish also in local waters, anglers fishing the river mouth areas could do worse than beginning to fish for garrick.

Yes, it is still a bit early but 3 years back several garrick had already been caught from local beaches.