Sardine run could be building off Transkei

It looks as if the annual sardine run could be taking shape as there is quite a lot of activity along the Transkei coast, particularly in the Waterfall Bluff, Port St Johns and Mazeppa areas.

There was some hope among the local fraternity as the shark nets were lifted in the Port Edward area earlier this week.

This was done purely as a precautionary measure by the Sharks Board because there was some scattered sardine activity in the Grosvenor and Waterfall Bluff areas.

On further investigation, some of the activity was found to be big shoals of cigar scads. There are still no confirmed sightings close to shore.

The winter fish have settled in quite well and most of the well-known angling spots are producing shad and garrick, although the latter have tapered off a bit.

The Umkomaas stretch is also producing some quality shad, grunter and some shoal-size kob at night. The odd snapper salmon is also being caught in the river mouth area.

Anglers fishing from the Sandspit at Port Shepstone are still catching garrick and shad during the day and the odd kob at night, but the numbers seem to be dwindling.

The same can be said for the Port Edward area as Terry Nel of Tacklenet reports that, although shad are plentiful, the garrick have become a little scarce.

Anglers fishing from Durban's South Pier this week got stuck into some kingfish. These fish were all being caught on small plastic squids and a number of these fish were over 6kg.

Grunter are slowly starting to come on the bite along the Umgeni stretch and anglers there have caught a couple around the 3kg mark during the week.

Skiboat fishing off Durban and surrounding areas has been quite good recently with snoek being the main target. These fish have made a welcome return to almost our entire coastline, but the main concentration has been along the Umgeni stretch where boats are having a ball with these fish, weighing up to 8kg.

There are also some big tunny coming out in the vicinity of the Barge at Umhlanga. Some of them have weighed 40kg, but sharks are joining in and having a free meal if one does not get the fish out in a hurry.

There seems to be some confusion on bottom fish and bag limits. The new fishing regulations are now firmly in place and you have to adhere to them.

Fishing ski anglers got stuck into the snoek over the past weekend, particularly in the La Mercy area, which is traditionally active at this time of the year, but until now has been very poor with virtually no couta being reported.

Most anglers had four or five snoek each and the average size was around 4kg.

On the lower South Coast the only worthwhile catch on Sunday was a sailfish of 29kg.

Source: www.themercury.co.za