August blows in some fine fishing

AUGUST is the month of winds and it seems to be off with a bang with fluctuating pressure systems and a number of fronts pulling through.

Many anglers have used the changes in pressure to their advantage and have had great pre-frontal sessions.

Remember The Kingfisher’s Annual Shad competition which is already under way, with one entry of 650g caught last week.

From the most northern stretch of through to there have been thousands of shad, all between 25cm and 40cm, in massive shoals frequenting the shallows throughout the day.

These fish travel way into Mozambique and can be caught throughout the season up to the end of November or even into December. As the water heats up, these fish move back down the coast towards the Eastern Cape where they will spend the summer months.

Over last few

Kosi Bay Cape Vidal

the days has started to come alive with fish. Reports at

Kosi Bay Cape Vidal

suggest a large spread of shad in the low light sessions, on bait only. As the sun rises they have also taken spoons.

Richards Bay

harbour has produced some fine angling with excellent kob and grunter. The main target species, however, seems to be garrick, which have taken surface lures and live bait.

Anglers should take as much time as possible on the water at this time of the year as the garrick tend to move on quite soon.

Tugela

has been on top form with many reports of kob up to 15kg and good garrick catches along the south bank. Debris in the water from the river seems to have subsided.

has been a bit quiet, but with reports of grey shark and shad landed on smaller baits.

Nice kingies of between 1kg and 3kg were landed in the bay at over the last week, on baits and paddletails in the 4” range. There were also a few nice grey sharks caught off the point of the pool.

Zinkwazi Salt Rock Ballito

has seen fishing going in the shad anglers’ favour, with spoons once again being the culprit. Those using redeye or Japanese mackerel as bait have landed bigger fish.

locals have used bait boats to drop baits out deep for bigger species with great success. Using bonito as bait, anglers have hooked into

La Mercy

some serious blackfin sharks.

Plenty of shad were landed on bait and spoon in the

area. There have been more sightings of garrick as the water settles and clears. Inside the mouth and up the river there have been many catches of good-size perch, landed on sardine or redeye.

In small tropical yellowtail have been landed off the piers on baits and live baits. Shad anglers have had their load of fish daily, around 300mm-350mm in size.

Stumpies have been coming out of in the evenings. Kob have been sighted around and and should be on the bite with this week’s weather forecast.

Good conditions expected throughout this week will favour the anglers, the westerly will put the kingies on the bite. Kob landed have ranged between 3kg and 7kg, and some very respectable bronze bream were landed around the Diamond Fields area.

Anglers around found themselves having fun with shad throughout the week, with catches of garrick being slower than before.

Smaller fish have been landed over the last week, but there were plenty all around the area. Kob under 5kg were seen by a few, landed on chokka and redeye throw baits. Garrick were landed on live shad in the mornings and later in the afternoons a few anglers had some fun with the blue rays.

At water conditions have been good recently and this has resulted in good catches of kob and garrick. There have been reports of good-sized kob in the river. Anglers who targeted inedibles also hooked into a few shad and grey sharks on the south bank of the river.

There was good action for the fishermen off

on the weekend and some excellent fun with grey sharks and shad. Smaller kingies have been targeted heavily on paddletails and spoons throughout the week, and reports suggest many strikes have been had on a faster retrieve.

These fish hunt at high speeds and cannot be given much time to scrutinise the lures. A faster retrieve will almost always get a better bite.

The is fishing well at the moment, and can only be expected to improve with this week’s conditions.

Lagoon Durban Vetch’s Reef Bluff Warner Beach Umkomaas, Point Blue

Addington Wreck Vetch’s Pier, Toti Scottborough Durban harbour