Bluff kingfish and bream action
Kosi Bay - A lovely kingfish of 25kg was landed on a live wave garrick and it is nice to hear that the fish was released to fight another day. We also have news of bonefish success. It seems they cannot resist the smaller prawn or chokka baits. A chokka tentacle with prawn mix on a Mustad big gun size 2 works wonders for these smaller edibles. Very clean water at Kosi Bay and surroundings recently.
Cape Vidal - This area has produced lots of small reef fish such as snapper, cave bass and rock cod, which are falling victim to baits such as red eye and mackerel. An abundance of eel-tail barbel and fish-tail barbel are also taking a variety of baits. The eel-tail variation being the better of the two for the table.
Richards Bay - This spot still fishing well for shad, spinner sharks and flatfish of various types. Most fish are being landed on fleshy fish baits.
Ballito - Due to the large swell over the last week and weekend, this area did not see many anglers on its shores. Most fish landed were small shad that were targeted off the rocks. Late evenings and night angling seemed to be the more productive times to fish.
Durban Piers - These have surprised recently with a massive variety of fish ranging from black tail to grunter, sharks and just about everything in- between. Shad have moved through in numbers and more anglers seem to be landing these fish by the day. With the colder water, the sand soldiers have arrived and are eating many baits being cast into the deep. These small reds make excellent live bait or even cutlet baits.
Bluff - Anglers here seem to be getting it right, with reports of decent fish becoming more and more regular by the day. Live bait anglers have been hooking into good sized kingfish of up to 12kg. Most anglers have been using Mustad Hoodlum 8/0 hooks for their sheer strength when fishing for these Kingies, as the rocks and reefs tend to require a hit-and-hold approach. The slightly thicker shank also means less fish will be lost due to hook pulls as the thicker shank does not tear though as easily. Anglers have also been landing a fair amount of bronze bream on prawn and chokka baits. Time to visit the fresh water section at your local tackle shop and stock up on aniseed or banana flavoured dips for the winter. Bronze bream tend to prefer a flavoured bait.
Isipingo Beach - This is a relatively unpopular spot compared to some of the favourites along our shoreline, but anglers have impressed with the size of the shad landed over the last week. This weekend seems to be settling down somewhat and so we will hopefully see more good fish being landed.
Warner Beach and Toti - These areas fished well for those who spent the necessary hours next to the water. Anglers landed grunter, pompano and bronze bream in numbers using cracker, chokka and prawn baits.
Umkomaas and Scottburgh - This stretch produced dozens of juvenile grunter, the odd pompano and shad too. Closer to Scottburgh, grey sharks and blue rays have been landed in the late afternoons.
Northern Transkei - Decent size were landed here, while anglers also caught both garrick and pig-nose grunter. McArthy Paddle tails fished slow down deep seem to be getting the better bites. Garrick have been landed on live baits, but are now being successfully caught on dropshot as well.
The KZN south coast will host a big deep sea fishing competition this coming weekend.
Pumula will serve as base for the fifth annual Quattro King of the Sea contest.
The target species are wahoo, couta, Natal snoek and yellowfin tuna.
Alain Tardin and I will both be in action off Pumula.
(File Photo:Gallo Images)
Twitter - @SportswaveAndre