Artificial success in Durban harbour

The harbour was a dream come true for many art-lure anglers this past week, as the reports came flying in, suggesting an explosion of game fish around the BAT Centre and Wilsons Wharf areas.

The number of pickhandle barracuda on drop-shot and spoon has increased substantially over the last week and many an angler enjoyed the fight of these aggressive predators.

The smaller blacktip kingies and big-eye kingies have also been feeding aggressively off the piers in the mornings and afternoons, taking smaller lures such as 2, 5 and 3" McArthy paddletails fished with erratic action close to structure. 

White or pearl has been extremely productive and has accounted for most of the week’s catches.

For the angler willing to chance a lure or two being sacrificed to the rocks, there have been plenty of malabar rock cod feeding readily on small Strike Pro Arc Minnows or any other diving bait. These fish are known to retreat back to their holes after taking the lure, so anglers are urged to use heavier leader in order to increase the chances of landing a decent sized fish. It is also strongly advised that the angler makes a change of hooks to their lures in order to improve hook-up, decrease the amount of hook pulls and also to improve the ease of hook removal. The recommended hooks for all lures would be the range of Mustad In-line Single hooks which are some of the strongest and sharpest in-line hooks available world-wide. They are available in all sizes to suit any lure and are extremely affordable by any standard.

(File Photo: Gallo Images)

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