A massive 29.86kg barracouta hooked by Gareth Brockett off Umdloti earned him the top prize in last weekend’s Durban Ski Boat Club festival.

For his efforts, Gareth took home a brand new Sea Cat boat worth almost R1-million and a year’s worth of bragging rights to boot. His prize-winning fish, caught using walla walla bait, was over 4kg ahead of the second biggest couta.

Hundreds of anglers fished the festival on Saturday and Sunday, with a series of big fish caught in good conditions after Friday’s bad weather cleared. Aside from coutas, the biggest wahoo (21.7kg), dorado (7.24kg), snoek (7.22kg) and bonito (7.02kg) were caught by Max Killan, Jacques van Staden, Gavin Swart and Colin Smith respectively.

Non-competition anglers enjoyed decent offshore conditions in the early part of the week, but came up against some hungry sharks competing for catches. Those fishing the bottom reefs found the usual red fish species, rockcod, half-kob and a few geelbek salmon too.

Rock and surf anglers came up against strong surf last week, while dirty water became an issue over the weekend after the rain. Some salmon, stumpies and kingfish were caught, but little else. The dirty water will keep the pompano away and the best prospects for anglers will be in the rocky gullies, where copper bream, brusher and the usual rock fish may be found.

Fishing was reportedly a disaster on the South Coast last week, with popular areas deserted because of the rough and dirty water and only a few sharks hooked by those who persevered.

Conditions do not look great this week either.

Durban anglers fared better and there were half-kob, snapper, salmon, grunter and kingfish on the bite. The light tackle anglers have been doing well lately and there have been reports of some really good sized grunter. The main problem facing those fishing the bay is water pollution.

Further down the coast, some sardines were spotted off Gqeberha but they were quite a long way offshore. These sought after fish will soon begin shoaling before venturing up the coast. Netters will surely be checking their equipment in anticipation of another excellent sardine run.

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