Fish Eagle: Anglers cross lines in the shad bun-fight

The south westerly winds at the start of the new week resulted in mostly unfishable conditions along the coastline.

A big swell moved up the coastline that created storm surf conditions that would have helped anglers had these rough seas arrived a month back.

Fortunately from the mid-week period, the wind switched to the north east and at worst could have been said to have been moderate but unfortunately some beaches remain heavily sanded with very little water running across these banks during the low water periods.

This means that the best angling prospects are during the full tide periods but at times the water washes off the sand banks creating rip currents that made for difficult angling conditions.

The regular rock and surf anglers said that Thursday morning could be the best chance to record a couple of decent catches.

A friend of mine said he would be on the beach early on Thursday morning so I decided to wake early and be on the beach before first light.

The venue was Durban View at Umhlanga Rocks and I arrived early enough to see that it was the regular day-to-day anglers that had arrived that morning.

Not much was happening and by first light not one fish had been caught.

Full tide was at 7.30am and at 6.45am the first fish was hooked. The anglers enjoyed an hour’s productive fishing before the shad were gone and by then most of the anglers had caught their two and three fish.

My friend and his son managed to land five nice sized shad.

I was back at the same venue early on Friday morning and there were double the number of anglers than the day before – so someone had passed the word that the shad were on the bite.

Because the high tide period was now later, the shad also moved in a little later but I saw that basically the same amount of fish were caught even though there were double the amount of anglers.

One vehicle pulled up in the parking near to me and when I saw the number plate I said to the anglers that they had travelled some distance just to catch a couple of fish.

The anglers had travelled all the way from KwaDukuza.

Once the fishing had become quiet, some of the regulars said they would not be fishing the weekend because big crowds were expected and fishing would not be enjoyable.

I had another look at the beach on Saturday morning and the words of the regular anglers rang true.

There was a big crowd and I saw a similar number of fish caught, but now the fishing had turned hectic because there were numerous tangles and I saw several fish lost because anglers had crossed over other angler’s lines and they thought that they had had a bite, meantime they had just caused the angler that had hooked his fish to reel in an empty line.

It does seem as if the angling is slowly improving but as yet there are only certain areas that are producing a few fish and many of the historical hot fishing venues remain quiet.

This has been the trend the past few years as the seasons become later.

It’s the end of August and still the weather has been relatively quiet whereas in the past there would have been several thunder storms already.

I heard this week that anglers fishing along the South Coast are now landing shad weighing up to a kilo or more and several decent sized kob have also been caught.

Local anglers still have a full month of fishing before the shad season officially closes so there is plenty of time, yet remember, before leaving the beach, make sure that all bait scraps and any discarded tackle are cleaned up.

The beach at Umhlanga is already beginning to smell a bit.

Sealice