Tuna and dorado off Ballito

Northern stretches of the KZN coast have been relatively productive recently, with anglers catching more couta by the day. The weather over the weekend did not pan out very well, but most boats managed to launch during the week and had quite a few catches to brag about. Couta and dorado seem to have been all over the show, allowing the vast majority of boats to go home with multiple catches. Most of these fish were caught on live baits, however some of the larger fish off the Cape Vidal area were caught on Rattler 150s on the 40m mark. Marlin have not been scarce and some lovely specimens have been landed, including the new South African record black marlin caught by Franscois Engelbrecht. It weighed 396.6kg. This was the first salt water fish ever caught by Francois! This goes to show that no matter how much you know, how much you do not know, or how much you think you know, fishing is fair game and any angler has the opportunity to hook into record size fish. For the anglers who had dinner in mind instead of records, there were plenty of yellowfin tuna around between Richards Bay and Zinkwazi, which were caught almost entirely on lures.

Ballito anglers had a slightly different approach and have managed to boat good numbers of dorado and tuna on live bait. Less is more when targeting these fish, so eliminating as many components on your trace will end up increasing your catch rate. A straight single hook onto a fluorocarbon leader or even a size 2 or 4 treble hook does extremely well.

Blue Lagoon has seen some large Natal snoek, but few of them. The best results have been seen on the outgoing tide in slightly off coloured water. Tuna and dorado have both been caught in the deep off Durban, on live bait on the bait marks and on Konas or Rattlers off the ships. There are still plenty of dorado around and the size of these fish is definitely increasing. Fishing near the ships with a live bait will get a larger fish most of the time. All of the bait marks such as the Caissons, the Barge and the Containers have been holding some excellent tuna up to 35kg.

The Bluff had some good game fishing last week, with most of the game fish species caught mainly on feathers or Rattlers. H2o feathers worked wonders and have been accountable for three sailfish off the Bluff in one week.

Greenpoint and Hibberdene saw the odd snoek and couta, lacking in numbers but making up for it in size. Wahoo catches have started to increase on Aliwal Shoal, having been caught on live bonito mainly. Unfortunately, big seas made weekend anglers change plans and the usual bunch were not able to see what the tuna were up to at Shelley Beach.

A reminder of two big competitions this year. Couta Classic in April and Quattro King of the Sea in May.

(File Photo: FreeSpool)

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