GT action at Sodwana Bay

North

Sodwana Bay has produced good catches of kingfish (GT) over the last week, some of which has been fairly large. Big open-faced poppers and live bonito are working best at the moment, but they have not been fussy and have taken even couta baits at times.  Ensure you have enough pulling power when targeting these fish as they will always try to cut you off if hooked shallow and near a reef structure of some sort. Couta have still been plentiful on the north coast, along with tuna and large bonito too. The odd marlin has been reported as well, but rough seas limited the amount of launches in this area. Richards Bay has seen good couta fishing over the last two weeks with decent size fish being caught. Catches average between 20kg and 30kg. Big baits such as bonito and wala-wala are working best. Spearfishermen have had huge success with the couta and hauls of 4-10 fish are not uncommon. Bottom fishing in the Richards Bay area has also been productive, with hauls including rubberlips, geelbek, rockcod and slinger.

Central

Westbrook down to Durban has produced decent bottom fish in the last week with decent sized reds, rockcod and the odd musselcracker being caught. Sharks are proving to be a problem though. Durban has seen a few Natal snoek in small shoals which have been difficult to target with only a few of the more patient anglers being successful. Smaller strip baits and spoons casted extremely long distances and fished at the correct speed have been successful. A report of a great mornings fishing sent in to us by Mike Dyer: “Yesterday morning I decided to go for a paddle at uShaka with the intention of restocking my bait supply. The night before I decided to pack a trolling rod in...just in case. After smashing the maasbanker, I put one out under a balloon...just in case. I was about 300m past the shark nets in front of Addington, just starting to catch a few nice mackerel when "just in case" came to visit. To cut a long story short I was towed to the shipping lane, nearly fell overboard when i was gaffing it, nearly lost the gaff (luckily it floats) but eventually landed my first YFT off the ski (14.1Kg weighed).

South

The KZN south coast has been relatively quiet over the last few weeks. Greenpoint is still producing the odd Snoek on fillets, Aliwal Shoal is still producing a few Wahoo on live bonito and fast trolling lures. Protea is producing a few yellowfin tuna, although they are not too big. These fish have been caught on Rattlers and also chunking on the bait marks.

Reminder - Quattro King of the Sea deep sea fishing contest at Pumula on the KZN south coast this weekend.

Andre Bloem and Jean Deysel will both be fishing in the annual event this year.

(File Photo: Caroll Dewar Hermann)

Twitter - @SportswaveAndre @kingfisherdaiwa