FISHING REPORT 14TH NOVEMBER 2009

Anglers
There are signs of the weather letting up as some warmer weather was recently experienced. But the persistent Easterly winds have not let up resulting in us having some very cold water along the coast. Never the less reports of a few better fish are coming through, last week end Mark Davis succeeded in landing a big kob of 30 kg in the Umkomaas area. The Park Rynie area has also started fishing well with a lot of above average size yellowtail kingfish being reported.

The Umdoni and Sezella areas are also producing a few of these fish and the odd pompano has been landed here.  Garrick are regularly being caught in these areas as well. There are also favourable reports of garrick and kob down at the Sandspit at Port Shepstone. Kob are also around and those anglers who can put in a couple of hours at night are being rewarded with a few good fish.

Brusher and bronze bream are now being actively targeted by most anglers. These fish can be caught in almost any weather conditions due to their habitat being in and around rocky ledges and bays. There are good reports of some bigger brusher being caught in traditional places like the Twini ledge and the rocky bays at Doonside. The north coast produces many fish particularly the La Mercy and Westbrook areas.

Barry Tedder from Zululand sent in a photo of an outstanding catch by Chad Engelbreght who fishes for Tugela ac, Chad caught this fish during this past weekend Zululand postal comp at Mapelane. This honeycomb of 104.4kg’s, measured 162 cm, took him one and half hrs to land with his Daiwa Saltist 50 reel. This is a pending Zululand and SA U21 record. Glad to see that Chad is another Daiwa man.

Barry also sent in a report about a kob caught in the PE area, on Sat morning by Gary Martin, a St Croix Club member. The length of this fish was 1,87m, approx 70kg!  (SASSA’s measurements only go to 1,83m which is 66.2kg) The best thing about it all…. The fish was revived for 20min and released back to live another day!

Fishing in the Transkei should also start picking up as far as shark angling is concerned. Reports from the Hole in The Wall suggest that a few nice size raggies have come out recently and that some average size grey and hammerhead sharks have also been caught.

Mike Laubscher
On the fresh water side, Mike Laubscher went to Lake Jozini for some tiger fishing last week. It was a hot day of around 38 deg. C, the skies were clear and the NE wind was pumping. Water surface temperature averaged around 24 deg. C. They launched at 10h30 and the guys wanted to be back at around 14h30. The water in the river section was chocolate brown and so it was decided to take the 20km ride to the Gorge to get cleaner water, the trip takes around 45 minutes, and Mike new this will shorten fishing time, but it was their best chance to get fish, the waves were up and it was a following swell and the best thing to do was get up on the plane and move at full speed.

When they got to the Gorge the wind was sucking through there like a venturi, but the water was crystal clear and so they went far up into the Gorge and decided to make their way down with the wind tailing them. They started in a bay where Mike gave the guys instruction and then they started to fish. There was no takes in the bays but they found fish at the points and so decided to only fish points as time was limited. It was clear skies, and so Mike decided that fishing deeper with jig heads using the drop shot method was the way to go. All the guys lost their first tiger on the jump which is normal because people are used to striking up and not down into the water (essential for tigers). In the end they got about 6 strikes, and only landed 1 fish which was a super tiger weighing in at exactly 3Kg (6.6lbs).

The  fishing time allowed was only 2.5hrs and then they had to head back and make the long trip to the launch site, which was going to be a bumpy ride as they had to head straight into the wind, again the best thing to do was get onto the plane. Whilst they were fishing in the Gorge one of the guy’s lines went tight and the “fish” took about 100m of line, this “fish” caused huge excitement for a few minutes until they observed that the line was wrapped around the sneaker prop and they were fighting the boat and not a fish. It was a good laugh and a nice false adrenalin rush.

Ski Boats
Ski Boats have started catching some good numbers of dorado mainly off the deep reefs off Durban but quite a few have recently been caught on the shallower reefs off the North and South Coasts. When weather permits , the Cape Vidal area is also fishing well with reports of dorado, wahoo, sailfish, small tunny and the odd couta being boated. Fishing on the Aliwal Shoal and the Protea banks have also started picking up with catches of wahoo and tunny being reported. General bottom fishing is still going well when the sea lets up as there are still good numbers of geelbek and daga salmon around.

ESA Saltwater
Catch the ESA team doing battle on ESA Saltwater at 7:30pm on Thursday and don’t miss the bass show at 7:00pm every Tuesday on Super sport 1 (unless mentioned otherwise – check your DSTV guide for details). The latest ESA magazine is out and on sale at The Kingfisher for R19.95. This issue it is jammed packed with great features.

The Kingfisher’s trading hours
The Kingfisher’s trading hours are Monday, Wednesday to Friday 8:00 to 17:00, Tuesday 8:30 to 17:00 and Saturday 8:00 to 13:00.
 The trading hours for the festive season are: Every Sunday in December, including Wednesday the 16t and Saturday the 26th, plus November the 29th and Sunday the 3rd January, from 9:00 – 13:00.

Free Fishing Clinic’s
The Kingfisher hosts free Fishing Clinic’s on their premises once a month, booking is essential. These clinics are there to help beginners and experienced anglers to see what the sport is all about and how to target certain species of fish. It also shows anglers what equipment to use and also elaborates on safety. To find out more about these clinics and to book a seat please phone The Kingfishers sales staff on
031 368 3903.

Chad Engelbreght and his 104.4kg honeycomb ray landed at Mapelane, this great fish was landed in one and a half hours with his Daiwa Saltist 50 reel.