For the rock and surf fishermen, there has been good catches of kob, shad and bronze bream all along the coast.
Terry Nel from Tacklenet in Port Edward reports that, down South they certainly have had their share of the cold and wet weather and the sea has at times been unfishable with cold weedy water lashing the shore.
Some results for Light Tackle Boat Leagues fished during July sent in by Charles Hounsom.

The sardine run is all but over except for a major miracle, these fish have been pushed far out to sea with the rivers coming down in flood.
The South Coast is also fishing very well with shad obviously being caught freely at most spots like Toti and Isipingo.
This weekend sees the NCAU Common Venue taking place, good luck to all the guys for this round.
The Yamaha Skeeter BETT KZN 2011 was fished over the weekend at Inanda Dam.

Miserable weather has moved onto the KZN coast with more bad weather expected on Friday.
Not too much action over the last week. Most of the boats have been targeting the bottom fish. There has been a few big Muscle crackers and big Rockcod.
This time of the year is a good time to target Tiger fish in Jozini dam in Pongola.
The Oceanographic Research Institute urgently needs your help with a study on recreational shellfish collection in KZN.

s the holidays end most of the people are returning home with the new crowd coming into the South Coast.
The weather looks good for the rest of the week, spots like Ifafa, Bluff and Salt Rock will definitely be worth a few hours of fishing.
Vey important to use a good quality fresh Sardines when targeting these fish, keeping them cool and in good condition is essential.

Since the weather has changed for the better and the sea has settled, fishing has improved remarkably and the fishing spots are packed full of fishermen again.
The Geelbek and Daga Salmon are still coming out. Please remember your catch limits on these fish which are 2 Geelbek per person, any Daga Salmon under the length of 1.1m the limit is 5 fish.
There’s been good catches of Carp and Bass at Inanda Dam.

The arrival of the sardines on the Kwazulu Natal coatline this year has created some great fishing opportunities for both deep sea and rock and surf anglers.
Recent South Westly wids will hopefully push the Sardines closer inshore allowing anglers to become apart of the action.
In terms of Offshore fishing the sea hasn’t been to great, making for uncomfortable fishing.

Believe it or not but they are still netting sardines in the Durban area! Natal’s biggest sardine run continues to surprise veteran anglers.
Anglers fishing at night are still getting quite a few kob and the odd stumpy.
Terry Nel from Tacklenet in Port Edward reports that it is great to have much news to report this time and the coast is alive with fish during one of the better sardine runs we have had for some time now.

Fishing conditions over the past weekend have been almost impossible due to some very bad winter weather which generated some massive seas sardines still stay elusive.
No garrick as yet and many are trying for this game fish without results.
Apparently one of the nets broke and a number of game fish were landed after these fish smashed into the released sardines.

Dave Nisbet: the Selection Committee met on the 7th June and advised that the KZNCAU Masters, KZNCAU Grand Masters, KZNCAU Triangular Masters, and a KZNCAU B Development Team have been announced.  Details are attached and these latest selections have been posted on the Union’s website.

Have just heard from Shaun Murphy who is down in the East London area is that there is wall to wall sardines with plenty of fish.
These fish have all been caught mainly on the South Coast although spearfishermen have seen one or two in the Umhlanga area.
Locally the Blue Lagoon area has over the past few weeks produced steady catches of mainly shad during the day and some grunter and smaller kob at night

Angling has picked up quite well particularly down in the Transkei where anglers are catching some very good size shad.
Sardines are still proving to be a little elusive although there are some unconfirmed reports of them being sighted in and around the Port St Johns area.
For anglers who target bigger fish there are now plenty of big sharks and skates around.

Ben Els, the Commode of Finnlands Angling Club, sent this report to The Kingfisher.
Ski Boats operating out of Durban are having a good season as far as gamefish is concerned.
Port Alfred Game fish Classic: The weather also allowed for 2 days of fishing, although the seas were big on the 2nd day.
Hound sharks and hammerhead sharks are also biting and news of the odd garrick caught are also coming in.

It’s nice to have lots of information for you… There seemed to be plenty fish around!
Rock and surf surprisingly has supplied me with plenty of news…I say surprisingly because this time of year is normally pretty dead!
The spinners have started to show there faces in the Tugela area along with some shoal size kob!
Also some great news for the paddle Ski’s

Fishing is still pretty much mediocre, from the boats the fish are far from wild and the shore angling has been painfully slow in our local waters!
Social angling hasn’t produced much new news for me…
There are still a few yellow fin around and the occasional couta but you have to put in some hours!
Looking ahead at the weather on wind guru, it’s looking good!

With all the public holidays behind us and some structure back into our lives we can focus back onto our angling!
The winning fish was a magnificent specimen of 31kgs!
From the shore in the Durban area has been quiet, still only pompano and grunter coming out but you have to put in the hours!

Well it must be said my predictions of a fish filled weekend for the ski boat competitions was horribly wrong!
Both Durban and Hibberdene competitions had lean pickings with very few couta being caught.
Apparently the shad have come on in full force, not big shad but shad none the less!
The biggest fish other then a couta was a yellowfin tuna of 19.1kgs caught by Gary Ryan!

Terry Nell from Port Edward tells me just before the bad weather last week a variety of different fish species were being caught.
From the boats and skis there has been plenty action in our local Durban waters…
Last week the north to south current was humming, so I’m sure the current will push the dirty water from the rains away!

Well the land breeze’s have started and winter is just around the corner…
Port Edward has been super quiet with a gang of guys off Splash Rock being treated to only one big pull over the weekend.
The Shoal had the Sappi water over it and so that put lots of anglers off from fishing there.
On the fresh water side of things I just got this in…

It seems that there have been some fish around for the last week that I’ve been away…
The couta have also started to make an appearance on the lower South Coast, I’m sure they will be found in the Transkei now.
Richard Pillay managed to land a fifteen kilogram couta on a bonito slide bait from the shore on the weekend.

Lloyd is away on a fishing trip to Santa Maria, he will be back next week but here goes with the fishing report.
A lot of anglers have recently taken to fresh water angling with bass being the target specie.
Mike Laubscher sent in a report about his fishing trip to Jozini and Inanda Dam.
Anglers fishing for natal snoek have had some really good fun.

I’d like to start off with a little appetiser from the weekend; Alain Kahn was fishing off La Mercy beach using his bait boat on Saturday morning.
Also big congratulations to Deon Naidoo from the natal A team, Deon is the first Indian angler to make the protea team.
There are still pompano and bonefish being caught off Sezela area.

It fills me with absolute joy when I come to write the fishing report and there is plenty of action to write about! From couta, to diamond skates, to zambezi’s and more…
Last Friday and Saturday produced quit a few couta and snoek.
There’s been a fair amount of action for the shore anglers… the shad turned on down the South Coast after the south westerly wind came through.

This last Saturday saw great catches off the boats and Ski ’s in and around the Durban area.
Terry Nel tells me this last week gone bye down Port Edward area a variety of fish came out off the reefs, banded galjeon, stone bream and wrasse together with karrenteen and blacktail.
Sunil Pillay did tell me he landed a lovely raggie last week down in Port St Johns of over 250kgs, which was his only bite in three days though!

Well done to the Natal team for winning the B national’s!
A few trophy “prodigal sons” were landed; one particularly good fish of 28kgs was landed.
Apparently Dave Oldachre braved the big sea last weekend with his ski and managed to land a lovely stripe marlin of roughly two meters.
The water has been too cold for the yellowtail on the Port Edward wreck but apparently the “bottom” anglers have been getting some lovely reds

This last weekend produced some lovely fish despite the continuing   north easterly wind.
Dean Pretorious tells me the hound sharks have arrived in full force, orange rocks had them eating throw for throw the other day.
The harbour is still quiet from the water temperature drop, the north easterly wind cools the water and so the harbour has gone quiet.
I made a charge up to Mtinzini late Sunday afternoon and landed one nice diamond and lost a Zambezi.

North Easterly winds have been dominating our coastline for the better part of the last two weeks, the water temperature has dropped substantially and so fishing in general has been pretty slow.
Onto what’s been happening, deep South Coast area the Blue Skates have been relatively abundant and some Hound Sharks have started to arrive with the cold water.
On the weekend Henry Brown landed an awesome Zambezi Shark off Errol Hayze point of 174kgs.

Our fantastic summer continues as great reports come in from shore and boat anglers
From the shore the skates have been all over the place, plenty reports of brown skates, honeycombs, blue skates and even some more rear species for our coastline such as thorn tail rays, duckbills and ribbon tail rays. There have been some sandsharks around but it’s only going to heat up over the next 2 months.
You’ll notice as we go from December to January to now February the days of consecutive north easterly wind extend which makes for more favourable inedible fishing. Our fishing summer starts properly now!

The KZNCZU kicked off its first round on the 21st January 2011 and as with tradition, most teams headed North to target the flat fish, as in many cases these fish disappear and teams are left either waiting or rushing off to home waters.
The Transkei has over the past month fished very well and places like Port St Johns and Umboyti have yielded many hammerhead and fair size grey sharks.

Summer is kicking in with a vengeance, as I write this its 32 degrees and ridiculously humid! This can only bring good things to our Natal coast line
The one fish that invaded the Natal waters recently has been the yellowfin tuna.
I’m sure the snoek are around but very few anglers would be targeting them while the other game fish are around.
I managed to get a lovely honeycomb ray of 45kgs and a rough tail ray of about 70kgs the previous weekend.

Mike Laubscher informs us that 2011 has started off with some really nasty weather, lots of heavy rain and big seas.
During the week whilst out in extremely heavy rains we even managed to get a small sailfish of around 30Kg
On one of our trips we had to pull in all our lines and rescue a Loggerhead turtle that was caught up in plastic sheeting
The middle North Coast now produces some good flatfish and shark fishing at this time of the year, so if you are needing some well earned exercise, get your heavy tackle out and venture down to the Ballito / Chaka’s areas.