#FishEagle: Summer flatfish on the move

Hot and humid weather conditions, plus good sea conditions and small surf during the week were ideal to bring the summer flatfish on the bite.

That is exactly what happened along the KZN coastline, with sand sharks especially providing anglers with plenty action.

Some catches weighed in at more than 30kg.

Along with the sandies, several ray species were on the bite as well and these included diamonds and brown skates.

Small hammerheads were also plentiful, as were some grey sharks.

It is still early days but it seems as if the summer flatfish season is well underway.

Sharks moving into the surf to feed ensured that anglers used wire traces when fishing, especially during the late afternoon periods.

Because of the shark presence, catches of edible fish were limited, but normal for this time of the year.

Anglers fishing at night managed one or two big stumpies plus a few shoal salmon. A number of grunter were also caught but the venue where these fish were caught was not revealed.

As mentioned many times before, night fishing does come with some danger. An angler was stabbed and robbed at Durban View beach one night by three youngsters who appeared friendly before the attack.

The new shad season opens on Friday morning, so the popular shad angling spots will become busy again after being quiet with the sharks feeding.

It was unfortunate that many anglers totally ignored the shad ban and helped themselves to as many fish as they could, but hopefully the guys will adhere to the limit size and limit catches of four fish from Friday.

There are a lot of small shad in local waters at present but the odd big fish can still be found.

Offshore anglers are anticipating another very good game fish season gauging by what has been on the bite recently.

The fishing up north is still very good, with billfish anglers returning good catches at a billfish tournament at Cape Vidal.

There were reports of a couple of couta caught in local waters. Dorado are also on the move but not thick as yet.

Some yellowfin tuna are still to be found but again not yet plentiful, but there seems to be plenty of snoek still around with Umdloti being one of the productive snoek fishing areas.

Last year at this time a lot of jellyfish were floating offshore but there does not seem to be any jellies this year. Blue bottles have been seen offshore which indicates the Mozambique current is on its way.

Anglers fishing the bottom reefs continue to record decent sized fish and a number of different species are feeding there. Notable catches were some nice Cape yellowtail, daga salmon, big rock cod and several big soldiers, dageraad and the inevitable slingers.

A number of big musselcracker have also been caught so far this year and the guys who travelled deep found geelbek salmon at times and nice sized trawl soldiers.

Apparently there is still plenty baitfish to be found on the inshore reefs. A few garrick were caught by the guys fishing for bait, then setting trap sticks with live baits.

One or two queenfish have also been caught in this way, so the offshore fishing seems to be productive at present as long as conditions hold up.

It is the time of the year that all skippers are busy with or are preparing for their annual boat inspections for next year’s seaworthy certificates.

This can be an expensive exercise if expired equipment must be replaced but it is necessary to have the equipment on board.

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