Angling Report

The surf angling conditions were much improved last week and did not deteriorate even though there was a bit of rain and wind at the end of the week. Dawn is breaking much earlier now and the first light anglers have to be on the beach before 5.30am. The shad anglers have until Friday to catch their share of fish before the season closes, but the angling will have to improve as catches of shad were pretty poor last week.
I received conflicting reports of catches early last week so I decided to have a look myself at some of the recent shad hotspots. The first I visited was Blue Lagoon in Durban and here I found just half a dozen anglers fishing. They all reported that the area had gone quiet. Next I went to Virginia Beach and here I found just four or five anglers fishing on the beach and a couple were fishing off the pier. They told me that the shad had gone quiet and just a couple of nice mullet were being caught from the pier. They also said that the water was alive with tobies that were shredding fillet baits as soon as they entered the water. After watching them for a while at Virginia I decided to drive to Umhlanga because through the binoculars I could see that the beaches at Glenashley and the wreck opposite the La Lucia mall were deserted. Once I reached Durban View at Umhlanga, I saw there were a few anglers on the beach but the fishing seemed to be dead. I had a word with a couple of the regular guys when they left the beach and they told me that a few brusher had been caught towards the lighthouse recently but the shad fishing was very disappointing, with just the odd small fish being caught. Some nice mullet had been on the bite but tobies had also invaded the area.
On the way home I had a look in at the La Mercy mouth but there was nobody on the beach. Anglers told me that most of the local shad angling spots were quiet with just the odd fish being landed. Many of the locals have switched to fishing for copper bream that seem to be plentiful at present. During the week a local angler called in at my place after he had been fishing and he asked whether I could identify two nice fish that he had caught. I had a look at the fish and they were beauties of around three kilos each. I could not identify the species although I was positive that I had caught similar fish in the past. When the angler left I had a look at my photo albums and I came across a photo of a similar fish that I had caught that had weighed one kilo and it was a zebra fish with the prominent black stripes. The fish that I had seen did not have the stripes but the angler told me that when he landed the fish they did have black stripes which faded when the fish died. I could hardly believe it because these fish were the largest zebras that I had ever seen caught from the beach and both fish were caught on mud prawn. The angler also caught a nice copper bream on that outing.
Some nice snoek were caught last week along the backline between the Umgeni mouth and Virginia beach with some of the snoek weighing up to 5kg. Ski anglers told me that no garrick had been caught although they had been trying with live bait. Just a little further out to sea, a couple of yellowfin tuna were caught, also on live baits. It was said that the fish weighed in the vicinity of 10kg. Anglers also said that there was still plenty of live bait about and that there were some nice sized shad caught at the barge in the Umhlanga area.
Sealice

Send a photo of your catch to sport@nothcoastcourier.co.za. Include the angler’s name and surname, species, weight (estimated or actual), where and when it was caught and what bait was used. Who knows, you could win our “Catch of the week”.