#FishEagle: Sardines spotted off Ballito coastline

The sardine spotters were excited to see sardines as far north as Ballito last week.

The shoals did not come in close enough for netting however, which is always the case due to the shape of the coastline.

Further south a lot of sardines were netted last week with some areas producing more fish than others. On one day one netter managed to drop seven nets in the Scottburgh area with all nets capturing a substantial amount of fish. Another very productive area was Umkomaas where several successful nets were dropped in one day.

Early in the week the sardines were being netted as far up the coast as Umgababa and towards the end of the week sardines were seen at Ballito. There was great expectation that the weekend would produce full nets again and that the beaches would become chaotic but all was quiet. Some shoals were seen but no netting took place on Saturday or Sunday.

As the sea conditions moderated so the water warmed a little and I think enough to cause the sardines to seek the deeper colder water. There were reports of two big shoals of fish passing the Casino at Port Edward so the sardine run is not over yet. Some of the shoals seen in local waters contained a mixture of red eye sardines, Natal sardines plus a few mackerel and maasbanker.

Fishing from local beaches did not improve that much but where the sardines or baitfish passed close by, anglers caught some really nice fish including snoek, plus one angler landing a barracouta. At Glenashley beach there were some shad in the morning plus a couple of nice garrick and there were sightings of plenty of sharks.

Most of the surf action took place down the South Coast in the vicinity of the sardines where the guys hooked into some monster sharks that could not be landed and anglers reported Orcas hunting dolphins that were feeding on the sardines. Another angler commented that any sardine cast out was immediately grabbed by a big shark. There were various shark species with the sardines and a couple of big bronze whaler sharks were landed.

The shad were also following the sardine shoals and in areas that had seen sardine activity early morning anglers caught shad shot for shot after the sards had gone. It was said that the shad “going mad ” at Scottburgh after the netters had left and Umkomaas was another hot spot. The shad were biting off the Bluff as well so this week could be an excellent shad angling week and big crowds of anglers are expected at most of the popular Durban shad angling areas.

A few lucky anglers managed to enjoy some excellent sport down south when hooking and battling big G.T. kingfish. There were several big kingies landed plus the garrick were also thick on the fringes of the sardine shoals and a number of big garrick were landed.

Anglers using the jig and drop method of fishing all caught fish including garrick, big shad, daga salmon, kingfish and of course, sharks and some big rockcod. Most of the South Coast areas produced fish and this week more action will be seen when the other shoals appear as they move north.

The weather is reported to remain a bit on the mild side so the early morning periods on the beach are going to be hectic especially if the shad are thick and unfortunately all the fishing rules and regulations will be forgotten.

The local fishing areas should now begin to produce fish on a more regular basis and popular fishing spots such as the Tongaat River mouth, Ballito, Chaka’s high rock plus Salt Rock, will probably be busy with shad, garrick, and salmon making up catch bags. The rocky Sheffield, Ballito and La Mercy areas should begin to start producing copper bream and lantern bream plus the ever present stone bream and blacktail.

Already it has been reported from down south that there are plenty of peckers in the water so the winter season is beginning to look up.

Sealice