#FishEagle: Weather hampers anglers

With winds and fluctuating weather, anglers battled throughout the week and some popular angling beaches were abandoned although many remain officially closed.

The start of the week looked good, but a north to south drift hampered surf anglers and by mid-week, weather again changed and brought with a southerly which curtailed the strong drift.

Rain began to fall by Wednesday and surf anglers thought the river mouths would open up, but dirty water did not appear everywhere.

Those who persevered in the rough water managed to land a few really nice sized stumpies at various fishing venues.

Stumpies enjoy the rough surf conditions and will take almost any bait in the water, but a couple of the larger stumpies caught recently took crab baits and one took a mixed grill of chokka and prawn.

Apparently a few anglers have been fishing quietly at night and have managed a few decent fish between them.

I believe two smallish daga salmon weighing around 12kgs were caught around the river mouth areas, plus there have been a few grunter caught.

The South Coast continues to produce decent results even through anglers also had bad surf conditions to combat.

Some really nice shad have been caught with a couple of monsters taking live baits cast out for garrick.

Angling spots such as Umkomaas have been producing a number of edible fish even though anglers have had to put up with large crowds.

Shad, garrick, salmon and grunter have all been landed at times but fishing has been far from comfortable.

Spots nearer Durban have also seen some productive angling, from the Bluff down to Toti.

Anglers travelling up north have had some enjoyable fishing from time to time.

There have been plenty of shad at first light plus a few big garrick caught from the deep water rocky outcrops.

The early summer flatfish have provided some excellent sport when sea temperatures have been higher than usual.

Tugela Mouth usually produces excellent fish at this time of year, both in the sea and in the river at the mouth.

The trouble is, the Tugela area can fish well on one day and then be dead the next.

A weekend spent at St Lucia or Cape Vidal can be really worthwhile considering that some of the popular local angling spots remain closed.

I did not see too many offshore angling craft at sea last week but I believe that a few yellowfin tuna were boated along with some snoek, and the usual bottom fish, although fishing on the bottom would have been really difficult with the rough seas.

On Saturday morning there was a large swell running after Friday’s southerly wind, so fishing on the bottom for the weekend would have been a no go.

Offshore angling can be a bit erratic at this time of year when the winds are around and although sea water is still a bit cold, early season dorado could very well make an appearance when there is a sudden rise in water temperatures.

This week there will be another mixture of winds blowing from the north and south, so one can expect adverse sea conditions again.

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