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

Angling
It’s nice to have lots of information for you… There seemed to be plenty fish around! As I was discussing with my friend on Monday whilst paddling back from the wreck with empty hatches, May is a month of feast or famine!

I’d like to start off with some interesting news we’ve all been waiting for, the sardines have been sighted in the Transkei… Mazeppa Bay fished well over the last couple days with sardines filing through and plenty sharks in tow! So we probably have at least a couple weeks to wait…

Rock and surf surprisingly has supplied me with plenty of news…I say surprisingly because this time of year is normally pretty dead!

Port Edward area has been rather quiet but Terry Nel reports that as expected, garrick are beginning to show up in the area and the first of the season has come out although small around the 7kg mark. Shad have been caught and in some days almost shot for shot much in Port Edward and the Glenmore area. Stone bream are also plentiful. Stabell point however was chaotic this last weekend; GT’s smashing plug and spoon, a couta and a garrick off live shad, and many other tails of the big one that got away….and some that didn’t! Greg Beattie himself got two GT’s! Lovely to hear such action, you normally hear of action like that in the sardine run!

Scottberough had a little action over the weekend with a couple greys coming out! Mike Rogers and Alan Botha fished there with there new braid grinder combo! Mike was commenting just on how much fun it is catching them on the braid (48lb Triple Fish Gatorbraid) …you are so direct to the fish your heart is in your throat the hole duration of the fight!

There’s been grey sharks in the Umhlanga area and friends of mine recently fished just North of Umdloti! They were dropping baits out with the bait boat. They landed one sandy in the sixty kilo range, a grey of about eight which they swam and got cleaned up on to the drum and then lost two big flat fish in the cheeky backwash!

On Tuesday evening I heard of some action at Umdloti beach itself, couple greys and a screamer that wasn’t landed.

The spinners have started to show there faces in the Tugela area along with some shoal size kob!

I haven’t heard much from the Durban basin except for relatively small shad and the occasional grey shark! The walla walla have been wild in the harbour, perfect timing for the couta!

Also some great news for the paddle Ski’s, Stealth just ran a competition over this last weekend with some top quality fish being landed! Two couta over thirty kilo’s were landed on Saturday in the Blythdale area, fish of a lifetime for most anglers! The weather couldn’t have been any better and competition was a huge success!

Umdloti and Umhlanga produced plenty good quality snoek and a couple shoal size couta! The yellow fin showed there faces on Sunday after noon, the next day was dead…that’s fishing! The mackerel seem to have shown up in full force with the shad as well!

Marcel Greyling landed his first saily up at St Lucia, a quality fish of roughly thirty five kilo’s!

Down South I heard of a yellow tail or two combined with an amberjack!
APARRENTLY there were amberjack caught down Umzumbe way, now I stress apparently because the boys are rather cagey but three fish were reported to me with one over fifty kilo’s!

Durban fished well over voting day, I heard of yellow fin, shoal size couta and some very big snoek!

Peter Richards sent in ths report about the ‘Hibberdene Couta Classic’.
“This years compo was heralded by many as the best ever and for this we are truly grateful to you our sponsor as without you we are unable to host such an awesome event.

We had a fantastic turnout with 319 anglers fishing off 128 boats.Two anglers coming from overseas, one from Australia and one from England just to fish the Hibberdene ‘Couta Classic’.The comraderie between the anglers was huge,even though the competition was fierce.

First prize, a Seacat 510 with twin Yamaha trim and tilt on a galvanized trailer valued at R250000.00 was won by Dewald Van Der Merwe.
Second prize a Furuno G.P.S valued at R25000.00 was won by 73 year old P.J Botha.
Ladies prize was won by Coba Coetzee and the Junior prize by P.J. Botha (Junior).
The biggest game fish of another species was won by Alan Simes with a 24.9 kg amberjack.
The average weight couta was won by Louis Webber with a 11.7 kg couta.(The average weight of all the couta was 12.06kg).He won a Paddleski.

The winning couta weighed in at26.85 kg and was auctioned off for a whopping price of R4500.00. This money was donated to the Hibberdene Lions project to purchase a guide dog.”
Round 4 of the Unions postal is on the website if you’d like to have a look www.kzncau.co.za.

Petri de Wet’s "Hier Gaan Ons Alweer" is starting to air on Monday evenings on Kyknet, channel 111 at 17.30. There will be six rebroadcast as follows: Tues 14:00, Wed 8.30 & 2.30. Thurs 16:30, Fri 11.30 & 1.30. This series will run for three months. "Stywe Lyne” are doing a series of articles on this fishing series. Petri and his team fish all over Southern Africa, fishing in salt and fresh water and will be fishing with The Kingfisher products, reels, rods, lines lures etc.

Well if you wanting to angle this week then there is very good weather for you! Today, Saturday and Sunday are all crackers! Saturday and Sunday morning will probably fish the best off the boat and paddle ski with Sunday afternoon looking the best for a shore charge! Get your fishing in now as I see on wind guru there is some horrific weather and swell coming next week…just in time for my week away in the Transkei!!!