Snoek action at Ballito
We have been told of good Natal snoek fishing at Ballito over the past week.
Kosi Bay had an amazing run last week, producing a good few sandsharks over the 100kg mark. In the same area anglers had good fun with the edibles such as stumpies and kingfish, with the odd springer in the mix.
Cape Vidal has had an influx of edible fish, and although the banks are a bit sanded up, small white baits are producing the goods.
Richards Bay has also been fished a lot, with blacktip sharks, big diamond rays and some very impressive shad being the most commonly caught species.
Lower down the coast at Mtunzini the game was on with countless catches of diamond skates and brown rays. This is common after three days of the northeast and with the winds we had last week, there were no exceptions. Some clubs managed to catch more than five tons of flatfish, with certain anglers managing over one ton by themselves.
Further down at Zinkwazi anglers had a fairly decent grey shark run and begun to run out of bait after their frozen bait was used up. A small Christmas tree trace baited with mackerel scraps and chokka tentacles was all that was needed to entice a few small blacktail to feed, which all worked extremely well for the grey sharks too. This can serve as a reminder that one should always carry more bait than they expect to use, rather than too little bait and end up running out. Diamond rays and brown rays were also a popular target species over the last week, most of which were caught on smaller baits such as mackerel cutlet or red-eye head baits.
Tinley Manor had some large surf conditions for a lot of the week, which meant that there was fewer anglers gracing its shores. There were however some good reports from this area which consisted off some large flatfish and also some good blacktip sharks.
Ballito was the spot to be if you were planning on doing a bit of spinning over the duration of last week, where plenty of Natal snoek were landed on spoon off most of the popular spots. There was no shortage of size either, with Mark le Roux landing a beast of a Snoek of 8.3kg - measuring a whopping 1m long. A few others ranging between 60cm and 90cm were also landed on a variety of spoons. The pink or chrome spoons seem to have done most of the damage.
(File Photo: Gallo Images)
Twitter - @SportswaveAndre @kingfisherdaiwa
Cape Vidal has had an influx of edible fish, and although the banks are a bit sanded up, small white baits are producing the goods.
Richards Bay has also been fished a lot, with blacktip sharks, big diamond rays and some very impressive shad being the most commonly caught species.
Lower down the coast at Mtunzini the game was on with countless catches of diamond skates and brown rays. This is common after three days of the northeast and with the winds we had last week, there were no exceptions. Some clubs managed to catch more than five tons of flatfish, with certain anglers managing over one ton by themselves.
Further down at Zinkwazi anglers had a fairly decent grey shark run and begun to run out of bait after their frozen bait was used up. A small Christmas tree trace baited with mackerel scraps and chokka tentacles was all that was needed to entice a few small blacktail to feed, which all worked extremely well for the grey sharks too. This can serve as a reminder that one should always carry more bait than they expect to use, rather than too little bait and end up running out. Diamond rays and brown rays were also a popular target species over the last week, most of which were caught on smaller baits such as mackerel cutlet or red-eye head baits.
Tinley Manor had some large surf conditions for a lot of the week, which meant that there was fewer anglers gracing its shores. There were however some good reports from this area which consisted off some large flatfish and also some good blacktip sharks.
Ballito was the spot to be if you were planning on doing a bit of spinning over the duration of last week, where plenty of Natal snoek were landed on spoon off most of the popular spots. There was no shortage of size either, with Mark le Roux landing a beast of a Snoek of 8.3kg - measuring a whopping 1m long. A few others ranging between 60cm and 90cm were also landed on a variety of spoons. The pink or chrome spoons seem to have done most of the damage.
(File Photo: Gallo Images)
Twitter - @SportswaveAndre @kingfisherdaiwa