Change your angling tactics in these rising temperatures
THE fishing has been heated for all the facets. The summer heat has even pushed the water temperature off Durban up to 27 degrees. Let us hope we get some north-east wind to drop the temperature to a less bathlike nature.
The North Coast has seen a lot of edible and inedible fish landed.
The warm water is a bit of a problem as it puts the fish in a sulky mood.
The best bet is to fish as early as possible and to focus your fishing effort on the days after the northeast wind has blown.
The rockier areas up north have been the place to fish for the bronze bream, kingies and stumpnose. Scratching is best done using circle hooks in these areas as the curved in point stops the trace from getting stuck which translates to a lot less tackle loss.
Also put a knot into your sinker snoot to avoid losing your whole trace if the sinker jams in the rocks.
With water temperatures hitting the 27 degree mark the fish have been a bit reluctant to eat.
The warmer water holds less oxygen and therefore these higher temperatures generally push the fish into the deeper, cooler water.
With that being said, look for the deeper water points to put yourself in with the best chance at hooking into a summer special.
A good approach to this type of fishing is to have a trace and bait that can multi-target as many species as possible.
Look at using a 9/0 circle hook on a short section of 100lb carboncoated wire attached to a 1mm thick section of nylon.
The South Coast has seen a lot of shad action in the early mornings with not much in the line of other fish chasing them.
The garrick that were harassing them have moved into the deeper water. The scratching anglers have seen some good catches of bronze bream, stumpies and kingfish.
The chokka baits are producing the best catches if you can get the bait into the right area.
The beaches where deep water is close inshore are you best bet for getting stripped into your backing.
For the offshore anglers, the warmer water has seen a lot more billfish action than would be expected, along with some beastly snoek harassing the sprats.
The dorado have also been keeping everyone busy.
Although the average fish has weighed around 4kg, some impressive fish landed have gone over 20kg! Live bait has proven to be the pick of the methods.
Most of the guys have managed to find a school of these beautiful fish and then fished to them by chumming sardine or other fleshy baits.
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