#FishEagle: Weather keeps fishing conditions challenging

Rain, winds and a dirty sea all made for difficult fishing last week.

More rain is predicted and the sea is likely to remain dirty for some time to come.

When offshore anglers could launch last week, fishing was hard work and not too many game fish were caught. The fish seemed a little shy and difficult to find.

Good news though is that wahoo seem to have now moved into local waters and a couple of nice-sized fish were caught off Durban during the week.

The usual big tuna can still be found in the deeper waters and every now and then a couple of big fish are caught, mostly on live baits.

Dorado still seem to be plentiful, remaining in local waters a lot longer instead of disappearing early in the year.

Anglers fishing the bottom reefs have found plenty of sharks operating on the reefs and many decent fish have been lost after being hooked.

At times the guys have managed to pull a few nice soldiers and rock cod, but it has been hard and frustrating work.

Sea conditions have not helped either as anglers have had to put up with big swells and strong currents.

Rock and surf anglers have had to struggle in strong surf at times and then towards the end of the week came the dirty water.

Big summer flatfish provided some excitement again with a couple of anglers saying they hooked into monster fish that could not be stopped, stripping reels of their lines.

Most of the action has been a bit north of Ballito, but normally at this time of the year “Sweet Waters” just south of Ballito produces some nice fish – and not all of the inedible variety.

This area is well known for big stumpies, pompano and brusher at times.

Light tackle anglers found plenty of small edibles on the bite in the shore break again last week. Recently it was wave garrick, small pompano and moonies, and last week it was small Cape stumpies, known by a couple of names by local anglers.

The most productive bait still seems to be prawn and these fish are feeding quickly and anglers are catching numbers at a time.

Surf anglers fishing at Durban last week were in luck when shoals of sprats moved into the surf and a variety of edible fish followed to feed on them.

I hear the guys caught some nice grunter weighing between four and six kilos, while some snoek and kingfish were also bagged.

Durban bay continues to fish fairly well and a couple of big grunter weighing more than 6kg were hooked.

It has been an excellent grunter season in the bay so far this year but unfortunately the polluted water does put a lot of anglers off from fishing there.

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