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.

Angling
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. Earlier this week there were reports of sardine activity far out to sea in the Transki area, thousands of Cape Gannets were seen in the area but no confirmed sardine sightings. Anglers should be aware that a quick late run could take place but should not get your hopes up.

The water up and down our coast has been quite dirty due to the big rains that we had recently but as the sea and daily temperatures raise the first of the summer fish start filtering through, namely sand sharks and skates. Fishing on the North Coast has now picked up considerably as shad and garrick are being reported as far up as Cape Vidal but the main concentration of these fish are in the Tugela and Mtinzini areas where anglers were getting some good catches. Last weekend the water on the North Bank however has been very dirty with lots of weed and a south to north current, so not very good for fishing at the moment but this will change as conditions improve. A few big daga salmon and grunter have been reported in the St Lucia areas.

Locally, fishing in the Durban area has been going very well with shad being the main target specie. Anglers fishing from Durban’s piers and the Umgeni areas report good catches of shad and the odd garrick has been reported along the Umgeni North Bank area as well as geelbek at night over the high tide.

The South Coast is also fishing very well with shad obviously being caught freely at most spots like Toti and Isipingo. Almost all well-known along this stretch is producing some good garrick as well as the odd kob, most fish are being taken on live shad. A few nice size bronze bream have also come out in this area when the water was a bit cleaner.

Fishing in the Transkei has been very good especially for kob, most of the rivers down there have come down making the water dirty, producing ideal kob water. Dean Pretorius from Port Edward is fishing in the Mezeppa Bay area and has just sent in a picture of a magnificent pig nose grunter of 94cm, 13.9kgs that he tagged and released on Monday morning.

This weekend sees the NCAU Common Venue taking place, good luck to all the guys for this round.
Ski boats are still enjoying a good run of the annual daga and geelbek season. These fish are being caught on the deep-water wrecks in and around Durban and to date some very good fish in the 30 kg range have been boated. Boats fishing for general bottom fish are also getting some fine ‘reds’ and big rock cod.

Fishing skis on the other hand have just about finished the game fish season although there are still some snoek around. When a window of good weather presents itself, anglers travelling up to the Cape Vidal area can expect to find some couta and snoek but the weather between now and December is unpredictable and can make fishing ski angling very frustrating. With the rains that we have had there is a lot of debris in the water especially around river mouths so try and stay away from these areas when targeting snoek. The snoek that have been coming out seem to be on the bigger size so a good idea might be to step up your traces a bit.

With the amount of snow that has falling from Nottingham Road to way inland, the trout scene has been quiet with not much news coming in. But if you have to venture out this time of the year make sure you have a few egg patterns and flash black nymphs in your box. If under-sided on what to take, pop into The Kingfisher, Guy, Peter or Ray will be more than willing to help you.

The Yamaha Skeeter BETT KZN 2011 was fished over the weekend at Inanda Dam, Grant Hewitt informed us that fishing at this event was exceptionally difficult as they were fishing post front conditions with a dramatic rise in water level as well. Even with these challenging conditions some anglers fared well and were able to make on the day changes to still locate some decent fish. Unfortunately most anglers though failed to crack the code only boat one or two fish and in some cases-no fish!! For the year to date results check out www.kingfisher.co.za, under fishing report dated 4th/5th August.