Fishing Report 19 June 2010

The shad are on the bite again and many are coming out on spoon and bait fish are shoaling all over.
It certainly looks as though a sardine run is finally going to materialize this season as a few of these fish have sprung up in the Port Edward area two weeks ago.
On the south coast places like Toti, Winkle and the Umkomaas beach stretch have produced some very good numbers of shad during the past few weeks.

FISHING REPORT 19TH JUNE 2010.

Angling
Greetings from the South Pole, that’s the message from along our coast. Icy Westerly winds arrived early Tuesday morning and in the past these conditions have sounded the drums on the arrival of our illusive visitors from the South. Next week could be an interesting one and it’s definitely time to prepare the tackle box.

Meantime, the shad are on the bite again and many are coming out on spoon and bait fish are shoaling all over. It certainly looks as though a sardine run is finally going to materialize this season as a few of these fish have sprung up in the Port Edward area two weeks ago. Apart from that anglers are now going to have to get their ‘Jig and Drop’ traces ready as well as cast nets for the imminent sardine run. The Kingfisher have a range of made up traces called Salt Water Sport, one is a Jig & Drop trace and sells for R28.95 for two traces.

With ideal winter conditions for the past few weeks anglers have had some good fishing with shad in particular. These fish seem to have moved in along the coast and are feeding well at most known spots. Anglers fishing the Durban and Umgeni area have had some very good days where shad have been biting well during both early mornings and late afternoons. Here anglers have also been getting some nice grunter, small kob and the odd big stumpie at night.

On the south coast places like Toti, Winkle and the Umkomaas beach stretch have produced some very good numbers of shad during the past few weeks. Here as in Durban some grunter and small kob have also been accounted for. Anglers targeting garrick have also been quite successful along the Illovo stretch and in the Greenpoint area. With strong early morning off-shore winds the Kite anglers have also come out in force particularly at the Umkomaas car park. These anglers have had some measure of success lately with the odd above average size sharks being landed. Further down the coast the Port Shepstone area has produced some shad and garrick. Anglers fishing at night with Rapalas have caught the odd big kob.

Terry Nel from Port Edward informs us that shad are now biting at most spots but are very small with many not making the 30cm mark in length.
Other worthy fish have been a couta caught last week which is a good sign of the season on our door step. At most deeper water points grey sharks are eating at nights and here is a chance for the aspiring "tag and release" artist to raise his score.

Transkei
The Transkei is fishing extremely well as far as shad goes with anglers getting their quotas very quickly. The Port St Johns area at this time gets very active and many anglers flock to this spot to catch mainly garrick and big kob. Garrick have been a bit scarce but at night some good action has been had as far as the kob go. The river here is also fishing very well with some good grunter in the 4 kg mark being landed.

Sardines at the moment are still holed up along the Transkei coast with some big shoals being spotted as far north as the Waterfall Bluff. The main concentration is still further south in the vicinity of Port St Johns. Hopefully the big front that has hit the coast during mid week will get these fish on the move.

Ski Boats
Ski Boats are now getting some good bottom fish as well as game fish.
General bottom fishing has picked up with the first geelbek and daga salmon being reported. Couta, although slowing down a bit are still being caught on both north and south coasts. The Aliwal shoal has over the past few months really produced some great angling as wahoo in particular have given anglers some great fun. Couta and yellow fin tunny are also still coming out but shark activity has also increased and a lot of fish are now being eaten by sharks.

Fishing ski's
Fishing ski's are also having a goes season and numerous couta are being caught on the north and south coasts. The lower south coast which normally produces some good couta fishing has somewhat disappointed this year.

Mike Laubscher  
Mike Laubscher sent in this report about fly fishing off Durban. Mike launched just after 08h00 from Durban Harbour, equipped with 4 fly rods. There was a light wind and the sea was mostly flat in the morning making for easy conditions to cast a fly rod. The water is still warm averaging at around 22.7 deg. C on the surface. Later on the wind turned and picked up a little but the conditions were still relatively flat.

Mike took his guest to some of the bait areas South of Durban and let him get his sea legs whilst casting the 6wt for some bait fish, this was fun and there was a lot of mackerel around and many small bottom fish also readily took the fly. Mike got his first double hook up ever on fly (2 fish 1 fly) with 2 greedy little lizard fish. They were now ready to get going for our target species which where yellow fin tuna and eastern little tuna.

They went out to deeper waters but found virtually no surface activity, the 9 & 12wt rods were rigged with big flies on intermediate lines but there were no takers. Mike had noticed on the finder that all the fish were holding deep and so they switched to fast sinking lines which proved to be the correct choice as they immediately started hooking up small eastern little tuna. They were treated to an aerial display by a large manta ray.

Realising that there were no yellow fin tuna around, which Mike found strange as there was a lot of dolphin activity which usually signals that the yellow fin tuna are around, they switched over to the 6wt rods with sinking lines to make the smaller fish more sporting. The smaller eastern little tuna proved to be an awesome quarry on the 6wt fly rods and they gave them a few hours of great fun with several dual hook ups and in the end they must have landed about 2 dozen between them, all in the 500 – 1500gr range.

This is such an awesome way to go fishing and the eastern little tuna really put up a good fight on the light fly tackle. This type of fishing is highly recommended for anyone looking for a good time out at sea.