#FishEagle: Sardine run comes to an end

Although sardines were again netted at Umkomaas early last week, it then went quiet and we can probably now accept that this year’s sardine run is over.

Small pockets of sardines may still suddenly appear in certain areas from time to time but the pockets of fish will probably stay out of reach of netters.

Now is the time anglers hope the small fish disappear rather quickly because the remnant shoals tend to interfere with their fishing.

There was some concern at the beginning of the week of a cold front moving up from the Cape that would create big seas, thus destroying any planned fishing outings for the week.

Although the Eastern Cape was battered, the KZN coast missed the worst of the unpleasant weather.

Early morning anglers were well into the shad again last week along the entire coastline, and it was the usual bun fight at the recognised shad spots.

The problems are mainly caused by newcomers to rock and surf angling who are not experienced enough to fish in a crowd.

At times they use the wrong tackle for the surf conditions and do not keep their lines directly in front of them, causing tangles and the wrath of the more experienced guys.

The word went out last week appealing to anglers to please clean up their mess of bait scraps and plastic wrappers before leaving the beach. It happens every year when the shad begin running, and although most clean up when they are finished for the morning, there are those who just do not care.

This season most of the shad are well over the minimum limit size and there have been a few outsized fish caught.

Already there have been a couple of catches weighing in between six to seven kilos, so there could be several more before the season closes.

It seems as if garrick will become the main species targeted by the experienced anglers because they have arrived in big numbers. Anglers are finding plenty of karranteen about at present and many garrick have been hooked with live karra.

A few shoal salmon were caught in the dark last week, plus one or two nice stumpies.

Umdloti produced a few fish in the dark but anglers have had to be patient in between pulls as there have been plenty of peckers stripping baits, causing anglers to revert to squid or octopus baits.

The bay seems to have gone a bit quiet with just the odd grunter being caught. The pier did produce a few good catches though.

Inshore game fish anglers are in their element at present with garrick and snoek at times providing good action.

Most of the recognised backline fishing areas have produced garrick recently, plus snoek in selected areas.

The Durban North backline areas saw a few fish caught with some snoek coing out at Umgeni The ever popular Tongaat River mouth is continuing to be an excellent garrick angling spot.

Anglers mentioned that live bait was available but said the fish were taking spoon and plug as well. Many anglers are releasing garrick, which is really good news.

The bottom reefs seem to be the choice of many anglers and there have been some excellent results as well.

Many decent bottom fish caught have regurgitated fresh Natal sardines when brought aboard the fishing craft.

Some big soldiers, the odd Englishman and Scotsman, plus big trawlies by the guys fishing deep have all been recorded. The inevitable big rock cod of various species and big fish such as cracker have all been hauled in.

A word of caution for local anglers is that the crime rate seems to be increasing, so be wary when fishing at your favourite fishing spot. It is not advisable to fish alone these days even though the area seems to be safe.

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