Getting HOOKED

ANGLERS have had a slow week fishing. Clearly, the fish are not brightening up the bleakness of returning to work. While there have been a few fish here and there, fishermen remain optimistic that things will get better as the year progresses.

Durban Harbour: Has produced good fish lately with plenty of grunter, stumpnose and kingies all coming out on their preferred bait.

Yacht Mall: Stumpnose and perch have taken to bait in this area. These rock fish are incredibly strong for their size and give anglers a good fight. Game fish have also been biting in this area, especially kingies and pickhandle barracuda.

South Pier: A few big kingies as well as some nicely sized stumpnose have been the reward for anglers who venture there.

Richards Bay South: With warm weather about, a few flat fish, shad and kingfish have been reeled in by anglers.

Ballito: Grey Sharks have been taking bloody bait late in the night. Some honeycomb rays have also made an appearance here.

Durban: Shad has been in abundance in this area. Some anglers were able to land pompano on mussel bait. However, fishermen are troubled by the peckers destroying their bait before the big flat fish could show interest. Anglers have responded by cottoning their bait, which has bought them enough time for flat fish to have a go.

Toti: Plenty of shad were bagged at the Warnerdoone Angling Club at the weekend.

Port Shepstone: Angling was quiet. Only a few bronze bream surfaced and plenty of under-sized shad.

Transkei: Kob, shad and bronze bream were among the few species of fish landed here.

Off the boats: There were reports of big grunter coming out around the Centre Bank on cracker bait.

Brown rays have been in abundance in the harbour and seem to be fond of grunter bait.

Anglers fishing off boats around the docks will be happy to know a few big rock cod have been spotted in the vicinity and have shown a fondness for sardines. Durban has also been a hot spot for tuna.

Ski-boat fishing: It has been an excellent week for skiboat anglers with reports of sailfish, marlin, snoek, couta, tuna, yellowtail and kingfish bagged in around Durban.

In Zululand, anglers reported a lot of couta and sailfish activity in deep water. In the shallows, dozens of snoek and kingfish were caught. Yellowtail was a popular catch off Cape Vidal.

In Zinkwazi, some anglers landed massive tuna with live bait.

Send info about fishing, fish caught or competitions in your area to mike.pereira@ kingfisher.co.za.

Until next week… keep those lines in the water.