Fishing conditions were much improved last week before the weekend, with the surf on the small side.

There was a reasonably big swell out at sea of between two to three metres that began moderating towards the end of the working week.

Sea and weather conditions at first light on Friday were still perfect with small surf and a low swell reading of around one metre, but that soon changed by mid-morning when a southerly wind arrived and continued throughout the weekend.

The weekend was “blown out” and the wind meant a return of rain to help swell the rivers and pump dirty water into the sea.

Nature again ensured anglers endured another weekend of tough fishing conditions.

In recent years the windy season has been almost relentless for months at a time, plus storms have become more frequent and violent creating flooding.

Because of the increase in human settlement on the river banks throughout the province, the rivers flooding into the sea now carry with them all sorts of rubbish because rivers have become convenient dumping grounds.

The result is more toxic material are washed into the ocean which has a detrimental effect on marine life, which in turn has a negative effect on fishing.

Last week there were very few launches from offshore anglers because skippers said it was not worth the cost of fuel as the fishing was quiet. The murky water added to fish going off the bite and a big swell made bottom fishing difficult .

Inshore angling for garrick was out of the question and fishing for bait was probably the only way to go, but again not really worth the cost of fuel.
Fishing in the surf or rocky gullies was equally quiet with just the odd fish being caught amongst the rocks. A few copper bream were caught and a few shad landed.

Not much else was reported.

Although local anglers struggled, the guys down the lower South Coast did record some notable catches of edible fish.

Daga salmon weighing around 20kg were caught at night by anglers using live baits, while some salmon were caught on chokka and fresh fillet baits.

During the day anglers found smaller salmon and other edible species, including copper bream and galjoen, which are pretty rare along the KZN coastline.

Another unusual catch was a nice-sized white steenbras or pig-nosed grunter which is unheard of from a KZN beach as this species lives in Eastern Cape waters. One could reason the water was on the cold side, the reason for this fish to move so far up the coast.

The Durban bay was also quiet last week just after the rain and big grunter was a no-show.

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