Local conditions have been unfavourable for anglers. Anglers in the Transkei are finding conditions a little harsh.
Read what Mike Laubscher has to say in his fishing report. Don’t forget to watch the action packed ESA fishing shows on TV.
Crayfish season is closes on 31st of October.

Locally, conditions lately have kept most anglers at home as the seasonal wind and rain are spot in for this time of the year. However, some hardened anglers are seen along rocky ledges fishing for brusher. When targeting these fish your tackle should be stepped up a grade or two to that of shad angling. These fish are found amongst rocky ledges and points and for this reason your tackle should ideally be that of a heavy nature. Your nylon should be around the 35lb range, Kingfisher Giant Abrasion is good and a heavy action rod like the Poseidon Medium / Heavy is advised. Hooks should range from a 6/0 to a 8/0 Mustard Kendall Round and your trace line should be no less than 50lb. Reels are also very important and should be in good condition. Machine reels, the Daiwa SL50 and the Daiwa Grandwave 50 are ideal as they have the pulling power to get big specimens out and away from rocks. Baits can vary, as these fish are not fussy eaters. The main bait however is a live crab but sea lice, crayfish, whole mussels, chokka and even sardine heads work very well. Garrick, when conditions allow are now being caught all along the coast. Some good catches have recently been reported from the Tongaat Long beach area where shore anglers and Ski Boaters alike have had some good results. The Durban beaches are a bit slow for this time of the year but there are a few grunter and some stumpies around. Durban Bay has for the past couple of weeks or so produced some fine catches of grunter along the Center Bank. Anglers in Boats, Skis and even shore based anglers are getting in on the action. Terry from Port Edward reports that, stormy weather has hampered fishing along their coastline down there but the more determined fisherman has not come back from the water empty handed. Some really good sized bronze  bream have been caught (one weighed in the shop of 3.3kg) and a number of black tail over 30cm also fit the list. A large parrotfish was also returned to the water.

Transkei
Anglers venturing down to the Transkei are finding conditions a little harsh at times but when a good window of weather presents itself, fishing is as good as it gets. Those looking for edibles are getting some good catches of garrick in and around the Port St Johns area. The river itself, at Port St Johns is still steadily producing some fine catches of mainly grunter and again the odd kob. The majority of these fish caught in the river is at night and around spring tides. The Hole In The Wall area has produced some good catches of bigger sharks recently, most of them being hammerhead sharks and the odd big ragged tooth shark. There are also reports of anglers catching some big kob in this area. Results for the final Postal Round (8) has been posted on the Union’s Website. Website   www.kzncau.co.za

Report by Mike Laubscher
Report send in by Mike Laubscher. “We launched just before 05h00 on Saturday and the sea was gorgeous, it was flat like a lake with a mirror finish, there was a light wind and the water surface temperature was 21.1 deg C and it slowly increased through out the day until 22.6 deg. C. Initially we trolled some strip baits close in-shore but we just kept getting shad and so much time was wasted preparing the baits that we decided to go deeper after we finished a box of sardines.  Out deeper we managed 2 small kawakawa and 2 small yellow fin tuna and got back to the Marina at 10h30. By 11h00 I was on my way out again with a new load of guests and the fishing became tough whilst the sea remained simply stunning. On this trip we were fishing drop shot and we really struggled and only managed to land 1 decent size garfish. It is so frustrating when it is like this. We got back to the Marina at 15h30 and by the time I had cleaned the boat and was pulling the cover over the rain came down and so I just missed getting wet. There were some southern right whales around, and we were privileged to see a manta ray close up as he came right passed the boat, we also had a logger head turtle come very close by and we saw a lot of dolphins around. On Sunday we got going at around 06h30 and again the sea was gorgeous with a light NE wind and the water surface temp was 22.1 deg. C. We went out deep looking for yellow fin tuna, whilst out in the deep we came across several humpback whales and one of them was sticking his tail out of the water and we saw some others breaching which is truly magnificent to see. There was not even an enquiry and so we decided to make our way closer in-shore. We had just started heading in when the weather changed and a strong SW wind started to blow and the sea got very choppy, then the rain came. This also caused a change in barometric pressure and all over a sudden a reel screamed and we landed a small kawakawa, and so we decided to stay out a little longer as I suspected that the fishing would improve which it did and although we did not find yellow fin tuna we managed to land 3 huge bonnies all over 8Kg which gave us some real good sport. By this time the sea was really choppy and uncomfortable and so we went into the sheltered area north of the harbour and fished drop shot where we caught some nice sarda sarda and had a lot of shad chasing our lures.”

Crayfish Season
Don’t forget that the crayfish season closes on the 31st of October and permits will have to be renewed again next year when the season opens again. We will remind you closer to the time