FISHING REPORT 31TH JULY 2010

Angling
Sardines seem to have missed the traditional south coast venues and have turned up in full force along the Durban and Durban North stretches. These fish have been netted for quite a few days now and it seems as though there is no letting up. Seine netters along these stretches have had some very good hauls and seem to be rather relieved that eventually their efforts are being rewarded.

In amongst all of this action anglers have had a lot of fun with flat fish, were a number of these fish were landed. Lloyd Pereira from The Kingfisher / ESA landed four diamonds from + - 15kg’s to + - 55kg’s on Tuesday afternoon / evening in the South Beach area. On the South Coast however it is a different story, with lots of sardines sitting just behind the breakers out of the netters reach. A few lucky netters have had some limited success down here.

During this time of the year most anglers’ attention turns to garrick and shad which are associated with the sardine run. Shad in particular have been prolific and the general size of the shad that are coming out now seem to be a bit bigger and in some cases some monster fish up to the 4 kg mark have been landed. Garrick have also come out in very good numbers particularly along the St Winifreds and Illovo stretches with Winkle high rocks also producing a fair amount of fish.

Anglers fishing along the Twini ledge and at Isipingo itself have experienced an excellent run of garrick and shad as well. During the course of last week this venue produced a few geelbek salmon, which at this time of the year seem to venture close inshore in pursuit of the sardines. Anglers who brave the cold weather and fish at night have recently started getting some nice size kob particularly along the Umgababa and Umkomaas stretches. This particular area also came alive with yellowtail kingfish during the course of last week and some in the 5kg range were landed.

Garrick, kob and shad have also been caught in fair numbers along the Port Shepstone stretch. Anglers fishing along the North coast areas should soon start getting into some garrick as shad have started moving into the well known Northern beaches. Places to watch now will undoubtedly be the Ungeni North Bank, La Mercy and Tongaat Long Beach stretches.

Transkei
Anglers venturing to the Transkei now can expect some excellent fishing as reports coming from this area suggest that there are lots of shad, garrick and kob around. Bigger sharks have also given anglers some excellent angling particularly in and around the Hole In The Wall and Port St Johns areas. Most of the bigger rivers down there are also producing some good fish. Mainly big grunter are being caught but smaller garrick and kob have also been landed.


Ski Boats
Ski Boats are also in on the action with some good bottom fishing being
reported. Kob and geekbek have started feeding but general bottom fishing has also been good with some fair size red fish and rock cod being caught. The game fish season has stared tapering off but those anglers who pursue these fish are still getting the odd couta in the Zinkwazi area but it is now the snoek that have returned in good numbers along the North Coast. The Tinley, Westbrook, Umdloti and Umgeni areas have been steadily producing good numbers of fair size fish. Lloyd Pereira from The Kingfisher has landed a few of these great eating fish this past week fishing from his paddle ski. Further south the Aliwal Shoal and Protea banks are producing some good catches of yellow fin tunny and wahoo.