Getting HOOKED

THE recent rains resulted in chocolate coloured water almost throughout our entire coast and this, together with floating debris, has hampered fishing. DEEP SEA: Huge swells in Sodwana made launching a challenge. However, those boats that made it past the breakers were rewarded with couta and dorado. There were also tuna around and they took live maasbunker baits.

The water off Cape Vidal produced lots of dorado with tuna found in deeper water. There were also snoek lurking closer to shore.

Zinkwazi has seen pockets of snoek over the past week

Tinley Manor produced a few snoek. There were also a few dorado around.

Boats launching at Westbrook picked up snoek, dorado and couta. However, with the warm water temperature, finding live bait has been a tough task.

Umhlanga produced a few tuna. Dorado were caught on live baits near the ships ROCK AND SURF: NORTH COAST: Anglers fishing along the this stretch were rewarded with good catches of honeycomb rays, diamonds and sand sharks.

These fish were caught on big chokka, mackerel and red eye sardine baits

The Durban coastline has been quiet with only a few grey sharks landed. A few duckbill rays were landed at Virginia. Expect angling activity to pick up once the water clears. DURBAN HARBOUR: There’s plenty of kingfish around and they are taking a variety of lures. Some anglers throwing out for kingies landed good size rock salmon instead.

Anglers fishing from boats around the banks caught grunter.

Surprisingly, these grunter have been taking squid baits instead of cracker shrimp. Boats also landed perch. These fish are taking anything from bread crust to sardine fillets. Anglers fishing off the South Pier got stuck into kingfish. A few snoek were also caught here. SOUTH COAST: eManzimtoti produced some nice flatfish. Anglers using squid bait came up trumps with grey sharks, diamond and brown rays. there were a few catches of honeycombs as well.

Scottburgh produced some grey sharks on shad cutlet baits. There’s plenty of under size shad lurking here.

A few bronze bream were landed at Port Shepstone and the odd hound shark was caught at Shelley Beach and Splash Rock. Anglers fishing with artificial lures had little luck along this stretch. FRESH WATER: Anglers reeled-in huge bass that are feeding off the flooded grass line edges of Midmar Dam.

Inanda Dam produced some excellent carp. The same goes for Shongweni Dam and Albert Falls.

Tilapia were also caught at Albert Falls on Banjo floats. Most fish were caught in the mornings.

Carp of between 1kg and 5kg were also caught at Nagle Dam.

Anglers trying their luck at Hazelmere caught some nice sized bass. These fish were caught among the reeds.

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

Until next week… TIGHTLINES!