#FishEagle: Shad keep anglers casting

Shad were the order of the day on the lower South Coast last week, anglers also reporting the fish to not be picky at all in terms of bait.

In the Durban area, Blue Lagoon is fishing best of all with plenty of really nice-sized shad and a few decent garrick being caught as well. Umdloti is also producing decent shad, as are all the other popular shad spots.

Although fishing has improved much, the weather was not all that great at times and the sea was also a bit rough and these conditions will be pretty similar this week.

Local anglers also caught their share of shad with popular fishing areas such as the Tongaat River mouth up to Sweet Waters, Boulder Bay at Ballito and the Chaka’s High Rock all being popular with the anglers. A lot of fish were caught in these areas and, as usual, there were greedy anglers who ignored catch limits.

A word of warning, anglers were arrested on the South Coast for fishing without permits and exceeding catch limits last week.

Anglers who mostly fish the rocky outcrops were happy to find copper bream are slowly coming back on the bite and the usual areas of La Mercy and Sheffield both producing a few decent-sized fish.

Down in the La Mercy there have been a few lantern bream and stone bream on the bite, but unfortunately fishing time was limited because of rough seas. A few small kob and the odd stumpie came out and hopefully conditions will allow for fishing in these areas this week.

Durban Bay has cleaned up a bit and there were some really big fish caught. These included a couple of grunter weighing over 6kg, plus a few half-kob weighing around five to six kilos and a number of springer. Bay anglers have being doing well recently especially with the big grunter.

The game fish season seems to be coming to an end now with just the odd couta being caught along with a few big yellowfin tuna. Surprisingly, there have been a few prodigal son caught and these fish are normally scarce with just the odd specimen being caught every summer.

Water temperature seem to be remaining steady at around 22 degrees Celsius, so it is still quite warm but I am sure that the cold water is not very far off.

Fishing the bottom reefs are the trend at present and the reefs are producing decent fish if one can manage to get out. Nice-sized half-kob are feeding on some reefs, and Daga salmon are also being caught along with rock cod, reds such as soldiers, Englishman, the odd Scotsman and slingers.

Adverse conditions last week kept the sardines away, continuing their journey north out deep at sea. There were reports of another shoal of sardines, spotted north of East London, being harassed by predators and birds.

Toward the end of the week sardines were also passing Port Edward, where an angler caught the catch of a lifetime, a black musselcracker weighing in at 32kg. These fish are mostly caught out at sea by ski boat anglers.

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