#FishEagle: Sardine shoals moving north

Early reports of baitfish shoals moving rapidly up the South Coast had all parties interested in the sardines quickly identifying the fish as red eye sardines and mackerel.

These baitfish were being smashed by Cape yellowtail, sharks and plenty of birds, so it was thought the sardines were on their way and it was expected that the South Coast would be really busy last week.

On Monday the first of the pilot shoals arrived and sardines were netted at Scottburgh, then at Doonside and Winkelspruit.

They were moving fast, so some of the nets deployed missed their target leaving netters disappointed.

More sardines were netted on Tuesday and Wednesday, but unfortunately a big groundswell was moving up the coast mid-week that halted all netting.

Because of the big seas, the fish moved out into deeper water and out of reach of the netters, and when pockets of fish were observed within possible netting distance, the skippers were reluctant to launch in the strong surf.

The next successful netting took place on Saturday morning at Illovo and Winkelspruit, and on Sunday morning passing shoals were identified as red eye sardines and mackerel, but again the fish were moving rapidly and no netting was possible.

At the weekend the main sardine shoal was seen moving north at Port St Johns. So they should reach KZN waters by the beginning of the week and more fish could be netted should sea conditions allow.

Rock and surf angling suddenly burst into life last week after being in the doldrums a bit, and this sudden improvement must be due to the baitfish moving rapidly up the coast close to the surf and bringing with them a variety of fish.

All of a sudden shoals of shad arrived and are being caught from the lower South Coast up into local waters.

Natal snoek seem to be almost everywhere at present and most of the deep water angling spots produced nice fish last week from Tinley Manor down to La Mercy.

It is actually unusual to see so many snoek being caught by rock and surf anglers over such a wide area and most were caught on spoon and lures.

The Tongaat river mouth is now producing decent sized garrick and shad.

Anglers fishing the Ballito area are finding shad on the bite and just further north at Chaka’s High Rock, shad and garrick were caught last week.

The local water temperature has not varied much and is still a little high for this time of the year but the fishing should remain productive.

Offshore anglers found plenty of snoek in inshore waters. Some have been real bus fish but most have been of a decent size. A few couta came out as well with one or two weighing over 30kg.

Fishing the bottom reefs has also been productive with daga and geelbek salmon being reported along with the usual rock cod and reds.

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