Good shad fishing in Durban

North

All areas up to the Mozambican border have fished extraordinarily well and have seen plenty of action. Most of these catches have been in the mornings and have been feeding on mackerel cutlets and chokka baits. Kosi Bay has had a good run of wave garrick, bonefish and stumpnose with impressive numbers of pompano moving down as well. Anglers using sardine head as bait have been relatively successful with pompano in particular. The water has been slightly warmer and very little side wash. Cape Vidal has seen fish, however the bay is still fairly sanded up and anglers found themselves catching fish north and south of the bay. The bay has produced a number of wave garrick up to 1.5kg and a few stumpnose. The fish in this area have preferred prawn and chokka baits. The latter parts of the week and coming weekend look to be ideal conditions for those who are looking to catch kingfish. Richards Bay has been fishing well on the north side, particularly near Hlabane which has been producing excellent numbers of rockcod and stumpnose.  Larger baits have worked well for the rockcod and bigger stumpnose, with smaller baits working a charm for the pompano. South of Richards Bay has seen fewer fish but has still been fairly productive. A few flatfish have been around and have fed in the north easterly winds. The bulk of these fish have been brown skates and honeycombs which have stuck around a bit in the warmer water. Some anglers fishing with light tackle for pompano and stumpnose have accidentally hooked into some massive flatfish which could only have been large honeycombs. Needless to say, most of these fish were lost, which had anglers running to their heavier rods to get a bait ready. Tinley Manor also had a few anglers catching flatfish. However they were few and far between with pompano being the main target species in this area. Ballito fished well with some nice size grey sharks in the region of 20kg. One angler using a Daiwa Saltist 4500 spinning reel and a Poseidon Coastline Medium 12'6" rod managed to land two grey sharks over 20kg as well as four between 10 and 20kg. Mackerel head did the trick for the excellent catch, as well as large chokka baits when the mackerel had run out. Pompano have also been found in the shallows around Ballito feeding well in the late afternoons. Small shad have been caught off Sheffield and in the general Ballito/Salt Rock area. Spoons have worked well, but the larger fish have been taken on bait.

Central

Blue Lagoon and the Durban piers have had good shad action and have produced numbers of shad just making size throughout the week. Smaller grunter have also been plentiful and of course good numbers of pompano as has been the case over the last three weeks. With so many anglers targeting the pompano in areas such as Addington and Blue Lagoon, there has been a fair amount of by-catch too, which includes stumpnose, grunter and the odd flatfish.

South

Amanzimtoti has been quiet apart from the odd pompano, threadfin mullet and a shad or two early in the mornings. Umkomaas saw many anglers spinning in the mornings, which have landed a variety of fish such as wave garrick, shad and kingfish. As expected, the ground fish have been plentiful and will continue to bite throughout the week. Grunter and pompano have been caught on sea lice or on smaller chokka baits. Scottburgh has seen good action at night in the form of grey sharks and bonefish. The anglers spinning in the mornings have had good fun with Natal snoek and kingfish on light tackle. The shad have been around, but of the smaller variety. Most snoek have been taken on smaller spoons like the Pro Jet Spoons and the shad on Falcon Spoons. Port Shepstone has seen good numbers of kob which have been caught on McArthy Paddletails early in the mornings. Most fish have been caught before the sun has risen and when the conditions are right, anglers have hooked into as many as ten fish per session. Margate had much of the same and had plenty of action, aside from the kob being caught, good numbers of bronze bream and shad have been reported regularly. The kob in this area have been smaller, but have also been found feeding aggressively on paddletails. The winter fishing season is on its way and good signs are here with shad on the bite well and a few reports of garrick have also been received. In the Port Edward area, Lucky Dip and the nearby beach area are the hotspots for shad. At this time of the year, people are on the lookout and town talk is all about our annual sardine run, let’s hope it’s a good one. Port St John's was fishing well with high numbers of shad and bronze bream, which have been caught early in the mornings and on and off throughout the day. There have also been some lovely grey sharks coming out, most of which have been over 50kg. The lower side of Port St John's has produced a number of large shad on sardine and also some good kob on chokka baits.

Reminder - Quattro King of the Sea at Pumula on 23 and 24 May 2015.

You can contact [email protected] to enter the Pumula fishing event.

(File Photo: Gallo Images)

Twitter - @SportswaveAndre @kingfisherdaiwa