Marlin action off Umkomaas

North - After heavy winds and big seas, not many boats managed to launch during the course of last week. The anglers who managed to get a gap and launch in decent seas did manage to hook into some lovely fish in the Sodwana Bay area. The main species caught was couta, followed closely by dorado and surprisingly sailfish. The amount of sailfish in the Sodwana area has been phenomenal over the last month and only seems to be improving day by day. Most of these fish have been caught while targeting other species such as dorado. Wahoo have made a surprisingly high count this week and have been caught by anglers targeting couta on live baits mainly.
Some nice marlin between 60-120kg were landed by both boat and jet ski anglers over the weekend, which is an uncommon occurrence, especially off the jet skis. There seem to be a large number of billfish around, so this would be the time to target these fish if it is on your bucket list. Anglers have been launching from Richards Bay harbour on any day fishable in order to target billfish and tuna, and have had some excellent catches. Dorado have also been plentiful in these areas and seem to be much bigger than before. Most of the bigger tuna which have come out over the last week have all been on live baits and have been mostly from Zinkwazi down to the Westbrook area.

Central - Some of the bigger tuna have been landed from Westbrook down to Durban. These have been with the dolphins and have been hooked using either live bait or Rattler Poppers etc. The beauty of live bait fishing is the angler is playing an open field and has the ability to fish one bait and target a variety of species at the same time. Durban has had some very good days of fishing over the last week and anglers who braved the less than desirable conditions were rewarded with some good fish. Umdloti had everything from dorado to couta, sailies and tuna. The problem was the sharks. Other than that, many fish were landed. In these situations anglers need to remember to use slightly heavier tackle in order to avoid wasting fish. Number One saw some small tuna early in the mornings and anglers who traveled to the ships caught some very nice tuna and wahoo.  

South - Aliwal Shoal has produced a mixed bag of game fish over the last week. Species like Natal snoek, couta, tuna and kingfish have all been landed. Artificial lures produced good results in the deeper water, while live baits produced some very nice results in the shallows. In the dirtier conditions which we have been experiencing recently, a small green duster in front of your live bait will improve your chances of getting some action.

The catch of the week will most certainly go to Mick Clark from Umkomaas. He managed to land and release a good marlin launching from his home grounds at Umkomaas.

Reminder - Imperial Nissan Zululand Couta Classic at Mtunzini on 25 and 26 April 2015.

For more details on this KZN north coast deep sea fishing competition you can contact Hylton on 078 854 9358 or Rod on 083 587 3990.

May will see Pumula on the KZN south coast hosting the annual Quattro King of the Sea fishing contest.

(File Photo: FreeSpool)

Twitter - @SportswaveAndre @kingfisherdaiwa