Anglers get lucky as the fish come out, morning, noon and night

FISHING in the Durban Harbour has started to pick up again with a few good reports of big grunter being caught, as well as a few garrick and kob. The better fish have been caught in the deeper water on cracker and live mullet.

The few garrick that have been caught have been taken in the mornings just off Centre bank. Kob and grunter, on the other hand, have been plentiful in the evenings and the kob have been taking live mullet near the floor in the deeper water. Don’t leave your live bait in for too long as it will die and sink to the ground where a stingray will probably pick it up giving you false hope.

Surf fishing at Kosi Bay has seen quite a few three spot pompano, bonefish and kingies as far edible fishing goes, all on chokka and red prawn baits. Many have also been landed on small jerk minnows in neutral colours.

Cape Vidal to Maphelane has seen the same fish with the addition of blackfin sharks. There have also been quite a few small shad and stumpies on sealice. Garrick have made their appearance at Maphelane and in the evenings there have been some kob on paddle tails.

Richards Bay has seen the odd snoek on spoon and quite a few stumpies and three spot pompano on sealice during the day, and kob in abundance on live bait and paddle tails at night.

Tugela is quite productive with reports of kob at night and garrick in the day on live bait.

Towards Zinkwazi there have been a few big stumpies in the 5kg region coming out on sealice. Ballito has also had its fair share of action with stumpies, pompano and snoek off the rocks. The evenings have proven to be the most productive time for the grey sharks and in the early mornings, anglers throwing plug have caught a few small garrick.

Umhlanga Lighthouse fishing hasn’t been too bad with reports of stumpies, pompano and grey sharks keeping anglers busy on chokka baits as well as sealice. Durban beach front to Bluff has been rather quiet, with not many edibles coming out besides a few shad and winter diamond rays.

Bluff is very sanded up with only a few stumpies, bronze bream and shad coming out. Small kob have also been coming out in the evenings.

Umkomaas North to South bank, there has been a few kingies around as well as a few garrick, all coming out on live bait. Small shad have harassing most of the bait and spoon throwing anglers. The Pennington area has seen some nice stumpies, garrick and shad. There has also been the odd big blackfin sharks at Beazley as well as odd winter diamonds. Baits used for the stumpies are sealice and for the shad and garrick, small live baits.There has been bait activity out at sea.

Port Shepstone to Port Edward offers up kob at night on live bait and paddle tails, while shad are full up. There have also been quite a few bronze bream around caught on prawn baits while some winter diamonds have started coming out of the deeper water points.

Port St Johns North has seen nice size kob coming out on paddle tails and live bait with the odd hammer and big grey sharks showing themselves in the deeper water picking up on dropped baits. There is also lots of sardine activity in the deep.

Port St Johns South has lots of big kob on live bait and paddle tails and garrick on plugs and live bait. The odd big shark has also been coming out on swim baits and big baits being dropped in the deeper water closer to the sardine activity.

Ski Boat fishing in Sodwana Bay has been rather productive over the past week with numerous reports of fish being caught throughout the week. Anglers on the paddle skis have been catching quite a few yellowfin tuna and a few decent snoek. There has also been a handful of dorado in the area, picking up small live baits. Anglers fishing for snoek have been getting their snoek on small live shad and all sorts of bullet spoons.

Maphelane has been fishing really well for the winter months with reports of tuna, couta and even a few small sailfish showing, all of which have been picking up predominantly on live bait. The sailfish have also been surfacing to pick up the bigger konas being trawled. Anglers fishing bottom have also had a bit of success with dagga on live bait in the shallower water later in the afternoons.

Over to St Lucia, fishing has been quite good with a few snoek and couta being caught. The snoek have been picking up almost anything being dragged as long as it was small and shiny. Couta, on the other hand, have been more attracted to live mackerel and bonnies. There have also been good reports of kob coming out in the area, mostly in the evenings on whole sardines, mackerel and live bait.

Cape Vidal has been very productive the past week with good reports of big snoek, decent size tuna and even a few couta. Snoek have been picking up on the Kingfisher bonnie spoon in 40g, while the couta and tuna have been picking up on most down rigged baits. Anglers trawling 160 size lures have also had their hands full with the tuna.

Richards Bay to Tugela has been very productive with some decent catches of tuna, couta, snoek and even reports of a few bigger game fish giving anglers a stretch. The smaller tuna have been coming out along the majority of our coastline. Apart from the snoek being caught on strip baits and the usual bullet spoons, the rest of the fish been caught on live bonnies and mackerel. Umdloti has had its fair share of action with many reports of snoek being in the area again, as well as tuna in the 8kg to 14kg range. Anglers bottom fishing around here have also been quite busy with dagga salmon and stumpies. The Dagga has been coming out on small live baits and whole Chokka. Stumpies have been picking up on prawn baits and small chokka baits.

Our local water has proven to be quite productive with a few nice fish coming out off shore, trawling and fishing bottoms. There have been very large amounts of small shad around harassing the snoek anglers. The grey sharks have also not given anglers the chance to pull a live bait for garrick or snoek.

There have also been quite a few stumpies and pompano caught on chokka baits just outside the mouth of the harbour. There have also been a few geelbek coming out on the wrecks and reefs on live bait and whole sardines.