KZN producing the goods
ALONG the Durban coastline, along with its northern section, has fired this past week. Anglers have reported very good catches of the much anticipated summer inedibles. The north bank of the uMgeni mouth has been a hotspot and anglers have walked away with sore backs and bruised egoes after doing battle with some of the bigger flatties.
Closer to the CBD, the section of beach from the north pier of the harbour to in line with Addington hospital has been working well.
Once again, diamond and sandies have made up the bulk with a few blue skates and grey sharks thrown in to the mix.
The lower south coast has still produced a fair batch of edible fish.
The inedible fish have also made an appearance along the upper south coast with species such as diamond rays, sandies and brown skates accounting for most of the catches, but a few anglers have managed a hammerhead or honeycomb.
In the harbour, bait fishing as well as spinning have both been rather successful the past week as many of the smaller gamefish have been landed on artificial baits and many edible fish on bait.
Cracker, chokka strips amd sardine head or belly have been the baits of choice for most of the eidble fish in the harbour. Live mullet have also been working very well for the kob in the evenings in the deeper water.
Large amounts of small bass are still coming out at Hazlemere throughout the day, mostly towards the banks. begun to really take off. Lots of carp in the 2kg to 6kg range have been coming out in the shallower waters on conventional tackle at Albert Falls.
Specimen anglers have also had good success with flavours such as FX, juana, almond and bunspice. Sweet and fruity flavours seem to be working really well for any method.
Specimen anglers have targeted larger fish in the deeper waters with larger baits, specifically larger boilies.
These larger fish have been coming out but can often be days apart.
Inanda Dam is picking up nicely with a few fish in the 8kg range being caught within 80m from the shoreline.
On the trout side of things this time of year patterns such as the Dave’s Hopper and foam winged hoppers have been used with great success, which have been fished on floating lines stripped slowly along the surface and mistaken for food by a number of the larger fish.
This pattern is extremely effective over grass and weed beds which are submerged by rising waters or sunken by sheer weight.
The fish sit in the pockets and wait for the food to come to them, which is why anglers should target the holes in the grass slowly and allows the fish to come up and take the fly.