Wind of change hit the high seas
THE icy south-wester gave our anglers a gap over the weekend, giving us flat, calm seas to fish, with our rock and surf fishing starting to stabilise.
The winter fish haven’t given us time to prepare for them as they have already started coming out and the in-edible fish have started disappearing.
The Durban Ski Boat Festival will be held on Sunday. There are R1.5-million worth of sponsorship and other prizes. Visit www.durbanskiboatclub.co.za or give phone 031 337 9506 for more info as well as the entry forms.
Starting up North, the fishing is starting to become more productive as lots of couta have been coming out as well as quite a few snoek and the odd garrick. Sodwana Bay has been one of the more productive areas as the paddle skis and ski boaters have been getting loads of fish.
The St Lucia area has picked up since last week as couta and snoek have been coming out. Anglers targeting the snoek have been throwing bullet spoons, twisties and have been trolling a fillet with a flasher over it. The couta have been coming out rather shallow as there are still reports of them being picked up right on the backline.
Moving over to Richards Bay, big tuna have been coming out as well as big couta with the occasional snoek being picked up. Most of the bigger tuna have been coming out in the deeper water on live bait and poppers. The big couta are taking on bonnies and big mackerel with slightly bigger treble hooks around size 2 to 2/0. Throwing small spoons around the backline has proven to be most effective for snoek and shad.
Tugela mouth to Zinkwazi is showing some decent size dagga salmon in the evenings, predominantly on live bait like shad, karenteen, mullet and majority of the smaller silver fish. Circle hooks and rather large J-hook are usually used due to the kob’s huge mouth.
The Umhlanga area continues to be productive with a lot of tuna and couta coming out on live bait, poppers, spoons and stick baits. A couple of our anglers have started targeting garrick and kob.
When targeting garrick it’s best to use live bait such as shad as that’s what they come to feed on. Locally, there have been a few fish coming out with weather that has stabilised and calmed the sea down.
A few tuna are still coming out on lures being trolled as well as on live bait, but the main species being targeted is couta, and, with the Durban Ski Boat Couta Competition coming up this weekend, anglers are getting some practice in. We have heard of two monster couta caught locally, one from a boat and one from a ski, so it’s looking good for the weekend.
Apart from live bait, the pink Kingfisher rattler seems to be doing the trick with most of the fish being caught. There have also been quite a few stumpies and big black tail being caught right on the backline by anglers fishing bottoms with light tackle using small hooks and chokka baits.
Moving South to Umkomaas and Scottburgh, there have been a few wahoo and some decent size couta coming out, mostly on rattlers and Halcos being trolled with decent length of wire in front of it.
There have also been a few garrick on live bait on the backline early in the mornings and late afternoons.
On to Shelly Beach and Port Shepstone, garrick have been coming out on live bait, drop shot and plugs quite close to the backline. Expect some of the bigger game fish to be coming in shallower soon.