Never mind the weather, let’s tackle the rocky ledges together

LOCALLY, conditions have kept most anglers at home as the seasonal wind and rain are spot on for this time of the year. However, some hardened anglers are seen along rocky ledges fishing for brusher.

When targeting these fish your tackle should be stepped up a grade or two. These fish are found among rocky ledges and points and for this reason you should use heavy tackle.

If you fish with conventional tackle, your nylon should be around the 35lb range. The Kingfisher Giant Abrasion is very strong and a heavy action rod like the Poseidon Coastline, three-piece, 13’6” Heavy is advised. Hooks should range from a 6/0 to an 8/0 Mustad Kendall Round and your trace line should be no less than 50lb.

Reels are also very important and should be in good condition. Machine reels such as the Daiwa SL50SHK and the Daiwa Grandwave 50SHVK are ideal as they have the pulling power to get big ones away from the rocks. Baits can vary, as they’re not fussy eaters.

Crayfish season closes on October 31.

Kosi Bay has started to pick up slowly, with a few more reports than previous weeks of decent fish landed by spinning anglers as well as the bait anglers.

Sodwana Bay to Vidal, there have been bronze bream, stone bream and blacktail landed on prawn baits. There have also been reports of a couple of kob caught on live bait and chokka baits. This area has also produced a few brown rays, as well as black fin and Zambezi sharks in the 80kg region.

Sliding or swimming small edible fish are usually most successful when targeting blackfin sharks, but we have found that small sharks have worked better when targeting Zambezi sharks.

From Cape Vidal to Richards Bay, fishing is still productive with reports of diamond rays, snoek and a few kingies for the anglers fishing in that area.

Reports say big kingies are coming out in the evenings on the live baits and diamond rays on mackerel heads.

There have been a couple of garrick caught in the Tugela mouth area early in the day on live mullet.

The odd kob has also been caught on chokka baits and live baits around the mouth in the evenings. Fishing in Zinkwazi is still mediocre with only a few reports of fish landed.

Ballito, the fishing is still quite good in this area with reports of bronze bream and stumpies caught off the rocks, best baits for these fish are sea lice and chokka. There have also been a few kob here and there caught on live baits and chokka blobs.

Fishing in our local waters has started to pick up the past week for non-edibles, a few brown and diamond rays and grey sharks coming out on the beachfront on most soft baits.

Anglers fishing for edible fish have been catching stumpies and grunter between the piers. Sealice and cracker have been the preferred baits for both these species.

There has also been a kob or two around the mouth at Blue Lagoon on sardine baits, while at Warner Beach the fishing has been good with reports of decent fish being caught through the day and evening.

Winklespruit has been doing very well as reports of garrick and kob have been coming in. These fish are mainly caught on live baits; maasbanker, mullet and karanteen are the baits of choice.

At Scottburgh point, there have been a few grey sharks and blue rays landed in the evenings on softer baits such as sardine and fillets off the point and red eye sardine cutlets has been doing most of the work on a small dingle dangle.

At Port Shepstone the edible fishing has been good the past few weeks and the non-edible fishing has started to pick up too. There’ve been reports of bronze bream and kob caught on prawn and chokka.

It’s that time of year again for our ski-boat anglers when the warm Mozambique current pushes closer to our shores, bringing shoals of dorado to our KZN coastline.

Yellowfin tuna are present almost all year now. Shoals of bonito are arriving and sightings of our Natal snoek should improve especially along inshore colour lines created by recent rains.

Bottom fishing when the weather allows visits to the deep, continues to be fruitful with geelbek, kob, slinger, soliders, rock cod and cracker being landed.

We appeal to all anglers to stick strictly to bag limits, minimum sizes and closed seasons.

Durban Bay is still fishing well with different species of fish caught on bait as well as on artificial baits.