Excellent catches as weather settles down

ANGLERS have had better conditions to fish in over the past week, resulting in some excellent catches of edibles and non-edibles, particularly in Zululand, on the North Coast and at Umhlanga.

At Kosi Bay there are still high volumes of edibles to be had in the surf and some very nice fish in the lakes as well.

The size of the kingfish has definitely increased over the past week or so, leaving anglers itching for more. Live baiting has been the more effective method of catching these bigger kingies, but anglers using plugs have also managed a fish or two off the ledges.

Grunter in the lakes are feeding on prawn baits, crab, chokka and sardine.

Although the bay is pretty well sanded up, there are still good catches of wave garrick and small grunter at Cape Vidal.

Richards Bay harbour has had some good catches of snapper salmon and kob, all of them on cracker or sardine baits.

The grunter have remained on the bite and have been feeding well on cracker. In the surf, spinner sharks and brown rays have been taken on redeye and chokka baits.

Big surf has had an effect on productivity over the week but the conditions are predicted to settle.

Rains along our coast have added some colour to the water in the Tugela area, but anglers fishing earlier in the week managed to catch some nice kob on paddletails and some of their smaller cousins, the snapper salmon, on small baits.

Big seas and strong sidewash at Zinkwazi has kept fishing to a minimum. Anglers braving the conditions managed to land and release some huge shad, also some kob on bait.

Good cave bass have been seen in the area, too.

Ballito produced some good brown rays earlier in the week, along with some bigger grey sharks.

Choppy seas brought on the brusher at Umhlanga, caught mainly on crab or mussel baits.

In the evenings, many anglers hooked and landed grey sharks on mackerel baits. Most were caught in the evenings.

From Glenashley through to about Blue Lagoon, many anglers have been catching garrick on artificials. Plugs and dropshot have been working best, but the odd spoon has worked well too. Live bait seems the best option for the larger fish.

Although there have been terrible seas in Durban, anglers still made their way down to the beaches to try their luck. Most on the piers hooked into nothing but shad, and as luck would have it, extremely large shad, in the closed season.

The uShaka stretch produced grey sharks and brown rays throughout the week, mainly in the evenings and early mornings.

Not too many reports of fish came from the Toti stretch, as the big seas moved in and limited fishing. Some smaller stumpies were landed along with a few blacktail and shad. Umkomaas had a bit of colour in the water, as well as some serious sidewash which made fishing difficult, but the kob seemed to hang around and take most baits that they stumbled across. At Scottburgh Point, greys, big shad and a few rays were there for anglers eager enough to fish in the rough conditions. Later in the week, shad were the only fish around. Reports came through of two brusher which took crab off the Point later in the week.

Anglers have targeted bronze bream where possible at Trafalgar area, to good effect. Some nice catches of around 2.5-3kg were reported.

Other species such as stone bream and blacktail have also been caught.

At Port St Johns, hammers, grey sharks, shad and kob have been on the loose. The Eastern Cape has been extremely productive. Chokka slide baits have worked for most species including bigger kob.

Paddletails have been responsible for most of the kob and garrick catches. Early morning has been the time of choice. For bigger sharks, the evenings have been more productive.

Fishing in Durban harbour has been tough, but some anglers have done very well in the bay, particularly with grunter which have been caught in various spots on fresh cracker.

The start of summer has brought on a few more kingies as artificial lure anglers spend more time on the water in search of these good fighters.

Closer to the piers, there have been masses of larger kob.