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.

Angling
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. On the boat front; this seasons continues to be bumper as better catches have been reported this year then in the previous years…
The dorado season continues to be a smoker, producing more dorado then I can remember in recent history! Off Durban the majority of the fish seem to be in fifty to eighty meters of water and always hanging around floating structure…They are the fastest growing fish in the sea for a reason, they feed very aggressively!

The couta season started off extremely well but the dirty water from the rains has slowed it down. Umdloti was on the tips of most anglers’ toungs but almost all the normal couta spots have been producing fish.

The one fish that invaded the Natal waters recently has been the yellowfin tuna. Mostly juvenile fish in the 2- 8kg range, but that’s the best pan size! Undloti once again has been a hot spot, but then again Number One has been working very well as well. Most fish have been caught on Strike Pro and Halco lures trolled fast or poppers being thrown and retrieved! Last week Marcel and Matthew caught 5 fish on the double ski and where at work at The Kingfisher by 8am.

I keep going on about good seasons but it literally has been a cracking summer so far, and it doesn’t end here… The marlin up in Richards’s Bay has been as close to wild as we get in SA waters. Steve Andrews and Ryan Williamson got 4 bill fish last Sat and 6 on the Sunday….I stand to be corrected but I think there was a record broken somewhere there. In between there are some bigger dorado, but the big tuna haven’t started just yet!

I’m sure the snoek are around but very few anglers would be targeting them while the other game fish are around.
From the shore the angling only gets better from here, well for the inedibles that is.

I managed to get a lovely honeycomb ray of 45kgs and a rough tail ray of about 70kgs the previous weekend. Last week Thursday I went with Juan and Alex from The Kingfisher and dropped tuna heads past the backline using my Stealth ski. Juan tussled a fish for two and a half hours before landing a behemoth of a stingray. The fish was estimated to be around 130kgs and official title was a round ribbon tail. Juan was using a Saltist 50 on a Poseidon HMG Heavy. There was lots of sweat and tears involved…good viewing for the 50 or so spectators. In general the flat fish have been quit abundant this summer. If you plan on targeting these fish try to fish after a full day of north east wind, extremely hot weather conditions and discoloured water.

The grunter are still in the harbour in numbers, amongst them some anglers have been hooking skates as well. The artificial in the harbour has been producing some nice catches of kingfish, seapike and springer in the right conditions.

Down south coast there have been quit a few hammer head sharks off the points. Peter Marriot managed to land a couple lovely size shad somewhere down the coast last week, in the 3-4kg range.

Aliwal Shoal is producing fish as always (Mostly wahoo, dorado and big couta) but not as much as normal in the past week. Port Edward’s wreck is has been producing Cape yellowtail as usual for this time of the year.

The women’s nationals is currently taking place up the north coast by Mtinzini area as I write this so we’ll get a good indication from them if the diamonds have started to move in. So far the banks have been producing sandy’s, honeys and brown skates but the diamonds haven’t arrived yet. Mid February would be a good guess.

As you can hear from my report, edible fish from the shore have been quit scarce.

Looking ahead at the weather now it looks like if you want fish this weekend, then do so early Saturday morning as there is a cold front coming through midday. If you are going out on the boat be sure to watch the weather closely as this cold front may easily come through a little earlier.

Sunday could well be a day of rest! To check out the weather yourself go to www.windguru.com

, go to Durban and you’ll have a full 7 day report. It’s generally accurate for the first 3 days or so.