Fillets key to landing big boys
THE couta have been the main attraction offshore with some proper crocodiles being landed along most of the KZN coast. The bait is starting to make an appearance as well so stock up your freezers and catch a croc.
The north has seen plenty of action this past week. Umdloti, Westbrook and Umhlanga have been the pick of the launches. Starting in the shallows with a couple of fillet baits for snoek has produced some good fish in the early mornings. Lipped lures and fillets have produced fish but the fillets have landed the bigger boys.
Those venturing in to the deeper water will do well trolling lipped lures to the spot and then switching to slower trolling of live and dead bait. The lipped lures are mostly there for the tuna but you do occasionally get a surprise that jumps on. The slower trolling is best done around reefs and changes in depth.
Look at trolling your baits at different depths to ensure covering all the likely areas. The couta have been the main focus along KZN but there has been some good tuna action to keep the ski boat guys busy. Throwing poppers for the tuna has been the most successful method this past week. Seeing a 20kg+ tuna engulf a surface lure is enough to get anyone's heart racing. If you haven't done it before, get yourself some poppers and head to your favourite hunting grounds. For the couta, trolling live baits slowly around the drop-offs and reefs has been the most consistent method. If you can’t get your hands on some live bait, do not look past a good quality dead bait or even a decent sardine. There have been plenty of good size couta caught this past week on dead bait. The south coast has produced a mixed bag of results over the past couple of weeks. Some anglers have done very well catching plenty of bait, tuna, dorado and some nice couta.
The bait has been scarce lately so make sure you make the most of the bait you catch by putting it in to an ice slurry ASAP and freezing it properly once at home. The tuna have been very hungry down south and fishing around the bait schools with a trap stick can be deadly. This method can produce many species. The bottom fishermen have had a good run in the far south with plenty of big fish being hooked and most landed.
The beaches and bricks have been producing some good catches. The early risers can still get their quota of shad in the morning and the night owls can get in to some drag testing beasts.
The north coast has and always will be the place to go target the bigger fish of the skate or toothy kind. For those who enjoy a chiropractor visit, there have been plenty of big sandies around the upper north coast. As always, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay up to date with all our new video releases and to brush up on your species knowledge, tactics and tips/tricks https:// www.youtube.com/c/TheKingfisherFishing
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