WHO says one needs to invest thousands of rands to buy a boat and go deep sea fishing in order to catch couta? Definitely not Clive Naidoo.
On Monday morning this week, the well-known angler, who normally specialises in bronze bream fishing, decided to try his luck off Orange Rocks at St Michael’s for a larger species, probably a shark.
Using the sliding method, Clive slid out a mackerel bait and it was not long before he was ‘vas’. Thinking it was a shark, he fought it accordingly, only to find out at landing time it was not a shark but a ‘bus’ couta.
With no gaff available all panic broke loose but he managed to keep his cool and landed a magnificent couta of 25kg.
This is an awesome fish for the rocks and not every fisherman can say they have that species on their list.
Shad, though, are on the small side but seem to be plentiful at Orange Rocks, especially during early mornings.
Please remember the legal size is 300mm.
A couple of kob have been caught along the beaches with Drive-in Bay a hot spot at the moment, the flavour being chokka and sardine mix.
Talking about sardines, there is a massive shortage at the moment and the quality is very bad so if you come across some decent srdines, grab them as the new season now opens and we are only expecting fish around mid-February.
Off-shore fishing is still extremely good with some nice-sized couta back on the bite.
The boat Tom and Gemmy returned with a nice-sized couta but the fish of the week has to go to PJ Botha, fishing on Too Tight skippered by Jaques Olivier, with an amberjack of 38kg.
This fish was caught on a vertical jig at one of their secret honey holes.
There seem to be quite a few marlin around but no fish boated recently. Very few dorado have been reported. While it is getting a little late now hopefully we may still get a run of these fine eating fish.
Port Edward
Conditions have been perfect over the last few days and this has led to good fishing.
Anglers have experienced big pulls from the points and some results have been hammerhead sharks, one of over 40kg, large brown skates, blue skates and many of the pulls lost on fish.
Shad have also been big with Christine Nel landing one of 4,9 kg, a shad of note.
Estuary fishing has also been good with rock salmon and grunter mainly on the bite. Fish over 3kg have been common.
Report by Mark Bennett (Tackle Box) and Terry Nel (Tackle Net)
Tide Table
High tide times
January
23 07.41 19.52
24 08.35 20.56
25 09.59 22.46
26 11.46 – –
27 00.40 13.08
28 01.50 14.08
29 02.41 14.57
