Fish Eagle: Spring brings promise

Spring is here and the first of the spring rains have fallen, with the result that the rivers are now filling up and there has been some river water entering the sea in some areas.

The early morning weather and sea conditions were ideal for anglers much of the week and it was only when the rain began to fall that anglers were kept away from the sea.

Although fishing conditions were pretty good early on Saturday morning, by lunchtime there was a fresh north easterly wind pushing and beach conditions were not all that great.

There was a bit of a whisper early last week that there were shoals of Natal snoek feeding along the backline between Umhlanga Rocks and Glenashley.

I was at Umhlanga last week and was lucky enough to be at the beach when a surf ski angler beached. I found out that he was very frustrated because he said that he saw plenty of snoek just south of the lighthouse but the fish were not feeding.

The second problem was that there were thousands of small, undersized shad also in the area and anything that he put into the water be it a lure, a Clarke spoon or a fish fillet, was instantly nailed by these small shad.

He had tried paddling to different areas to try and get away from the small shad but to no avail and eventually he decided to call it a day because it was impossible to try and catch other species such as the snoek.

At first light I saw at most half a dozen shad caught and the regular anglers told me that the fishing had been slow the entire week with just a few shad being caught at first light. After talking to the surf ski angler, it was plain to see that the shad were not moving inshore into the surf for some reason.

The sea water was crystal clear so maybe that was one of the reasons because the surf was really small and there was hardly any white water at all.

Apparently popular angling spots such as the Umgeni mouth, Beachwood, Virginia and the Glenashley area have all been quiet for some while with hardly anything worthwhile being caught.

This is probably the reason why the Umhlanga beaches such as Durban View and Eastmore has seen a sudden influx of anglers.

Up north the summer flatfish have started to slowly come on the bite and a few of these hard-fighting fish have been landed.

The anglers who target these hard-fighting inedible fish have been waiting patiently for the north easterly winds that have now arrived and the guys are expecting great results like were recorded last summer.

Depending where anglers have been persevering, a few decent edible catches have been recorded.

The usual big garrick have been taken at times in the Tugela area along with a few really decent sized kob but unfortunately this popular angling spot does not always produce the results and it is a case of anglers arriving at the venue at the correct time and scoring decent catches.

I drove across the Umhlanga River bridge a few times last week and it was a case of hold your breath when crossing.

There is another huge sewage spill into the river again that has killed off a lot of the aquatic life but the concern is whether the lagoon will be opened to the sea again.

A couple of years back there was a similar spill and the lagoon was breached with the result that a major part of the local coastline was contaminated with a huge loss of marine life.

This contamination of the sea resulted in poor fishing for many months and popular sea life such as crayfish, mussels and the octopus were out of bounds for those that are licensed to collect these marine creatures.

The shad anglers have three weeks of fishing before the season is closed once again and being in possession of shad will be illegal.

Will this be a reality?

I am not too sure, if last shad season was anything to go by.

Anglers just did not stop fishing for shad and they were actually quite open about how many shad they had caught during the closed season.

I have already heard complaints that catches have so far been poor but what many of the modern shad anglers do not realize is that even during the golden days, most of the fish were caught during the months of October and November, hence the implementation of the ban to protect tile species.

Sealice

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