Fish Eagle: Rough week for fishing

Anglers were really keen to be back on the beach early on Monday morning hoping that the shad would be thick again, but they were soon disappointed because the surf was strong and pounding on the sand banks.

This was because of the big south westerly blow on the Saturday before. There was a strong south to north drift so fishing was almost impossible along the sandy beaches.

A friend of mine was at an Umhlanga beach early in the morning but when he saw the fishing conditions, he decided to rather return home, spend time making up tackle and proceed to stock up with a stock of fresh bait.

After making up spare traces and sorting out his tackle box, my friend proceeded to his favorite outlet to purchase some fresh sardines or pilchards to be used as bait.

My friend was told that the outlet had recently sold out all the bait stocks that they had so he had to try at another outlet.

The story was the same, no stocks and after visiting another outlet and being told a similar story, my friend realized that sardine bait was difficult to find so he purchased a few Japanese mackerel and a few red eye sardines that he said were expensive.

On the beach on Tuesday morning my friend saw that the surf had moderated enough to enable anglers to cast their lines so he cast out a fresh Japanese mackerel bait that was taken before long by a shad that was over the legal limit size.

Unfortunately, that was the only pull that he had but one of the other regular anglers caught a rock cod weighing 6kg.

A bit of an unusual catch but a very nice fish.

On Wednesday morning after the fresh south westerly wind, the fishing was quiet with not much happening at all.

The fishing remained quiet for the rest of the week, a bit of a disappointment after the catches of the week before.

Apparently, there has been a big crowd fishing at the Umgeni mouth since the day that a shoal of shad moved into the area.

Anglers have commented that the area is best kept away from because there are some real “cowboys” fishing in the area. It was said that on one morning there was an angler dressed in a suit and ready for the office fishing on the beach.

The Umgeni mouth has always had the reputation of a crazy venue to fish when the shad are running.

Some decent fish have also been caught along some of the South Coast beaches now that the sardines seem to have disappeared. Shad have made up most of the catch bags but several nice garrick and kob have been caught as well from selected venues.

Unfortunately, the South Coast anglers had to put up with rough surf conditions as well last week and the fishing was also said to be a bit disappointing. With a change in the weather this week, catches should improve.

Although most of the shad have been biting in the Durban and Umhlanga areas, local anglers should persevere during the early morning periods because these fish could turn on at any time.

During the past few days I have spoken to several surf ski anglers and it seems as if these guys have been struggling a bit to find the fish.

I would have expected to hear that several garrick would have been caught along the backline but as yet this has not been the case.

From what I have been told is that a couple of snoek have been caught in the Durban North area but not much else.

There have been two outsized musselcracker caught from the charter craft recently, one weighing 42kg. and the latest catch a monster of 47kg.

These types of fish do not get caught on a regular basis and the anglers that landed these fish should realise that they have probably caught a fish of a lifetime and the feat will probably never be repeated.

The heavy seas of late have opened up several nice deep channels along some of the local angling spots.

At this time of the year anglers should look to see where these channels are and exploit them during the hours of darkness where there is every chance of picking up a big daga salmon.

Fresh bait or even a live bait is a must and anglers should be prepared to be patient.

The river mouths should begin working again soon and anglers should keep their ears and eyes open to find out what is happening in these areas.

Sealice