Kob and garrick action at Umdloti

With most of the action happening down south with the sardines, the north coast spots have been relatively quiet in comparison and seem to be slowing down somewhat.

Kosi Bay seems to be struggling for larger fish but has yielded a variety of smaller edibles such as bonefish, pompano, shad and stumpnose.  

Further south at Cape Vidal, however, things took a slightly different turn and provided hours of good angling with excellent sized fish such as cave bass and stumpies, as well as some very nice pompano. Chokka and red-eye mix baits have worked well, however fresh sardine will do well at this time of the year too.

Maphelane had a decent week seeing some lovely stumpnose as well as a few shoal size kob landed.

Richards Bay also struggled to produce quality fish and has only had spinner sharks and the early morning shad to bring to the party. In these quiet times, many anglers overlook the Richards Bay harbour and its excellent reputation to produce some serious fish including shark, garrick, kob and a variety of kingfish. Anglers who fished the harbour managed to get stuck into some lovely fish including some good sized grey sharks, hammerhead sharks and also a few nice kob.

After being a bit on the quiet side, Tugela Mouth has suddenly come alive with action and reports are coming in thick and fast of kob which are now being landed in good numbers daily. Apart from that, the garrick have also begun to show face and as many will know from experience, this is one of the more productive areas to catch garrick in the winter months. The most popular gameplan for this area is to take three rods with you on your trip to Tugela. Most anglers will fish for garrick on a heavy rod with a live shad as bait and at the same time, plug in the general area of the bait in order to draw the garrick in. As the sun starts to set, the two garrick rods are packed away and the medium rod is brought out to either cast smaller kob baits or to slide a smaller bait such as a mullet. Paddletails such as the McArthy 5" or 6" are also extremely productive in this area and are highly recommended as they are able to catch a variety of species including garrick and large shad too.

Ballito is where the action starts. The Dolphin Coast has come alive over the last week with gamefish from the surf as well as species such as kob and brusher. For the anglers targeting inedibles, the main action has been with the spinner sharks and grey sharks which have been plentiful. Natal snoek and kingfish on light spinning tackle is the talk of the town at the moment and with the gamefishing that we have been experiencing over the last week, it is going to be some of the best surf spinning that our country has to offer at the moment.

At this stage of the year, all areas around Salt Rock and Ballito begin to produce good numbers of shad in the mornings and afternoons. The bite has improved and will remain at its best for the next month or so and thereafter remain right up there as one of the best shad spots for the next few months.

Tongaat River Mouth has begun to fire on all cylinders and has been on top form with not only pompano, but now garrick as well, and with multiple catches over the last week. This is definitely a place to take into consideration for the upcoming weeks.

Umdloti has been one of the less popular spots for spinning over the last year, but has all of a sudden come to life and has produced a good number of fish including some lovely garrick and kob. The shad have also been on the bite in this area and even the odd snoek.

(File Photo: Gallo Images)

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