Durban harbour garrick and grunter

Durban harbour garrick and grunter

Durban harbour has produced both garrick and grunter over the past week.

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With the water still very much on the clean side, gamefishing has been fairly difficult on the banks with only around six garrick being reported throughout the week.

Other species such as rockcod, stumpnose and perch have been biting particularly well around the mangroves and old Royal Zulu area.

Grunter have been on the large side and one boat reported a catch of two fish in one morning weighing in at 5.5kg and 6.6kg in the deeper water close to the mouth. These were caught in the early hours of the morning on cracker shrimp.

St Ives channel was fished regularly during the week and produced good grunter on cracker and sardine fillet. On the incoming tide, anglers on paddle-skis have drifted over the banks and have had excellent success on weightless cracker or sardine fillet fished on a size 2 Mustad Demon Circle. The hook is snelled onto the 10lb leader and the cracker pinned lightly in the tail. A loose drag is to be used and only tightened once the fish has begun to peel line off the reel. A small section of 50lb braid can be tied onto the bend of the circle hook and threaded with 3 luminous beads, to which the sardine fillet can be secured. The beads are held up with either a knot in the last bead or with the addition of a swivel on the end of the braid. This method can also be used when using cctopus tentacle for rock and surf angling.

The tentacle is simply sliced open half way and bound tightly around the beads to stop slippage. This method has proven deadly with grunter as they feed fairly shyly particularly in the shallower water on the incoming tide. This rig simply drifts along the bank with the current and does not drag along the ground thanks to the extremely light but strong Demon Fine Wire Circle hook.

Preferred leader for this application would be 10lb Fluorocarbon or Maxima Untragreen. It is important to snell the hook to ensure a decent hookup ratio, if you do not know how to tie the snell, head down to your local tackle shop knot specialist to familiarise yourself with the different tying options.

Big fishing competition for physically challenged anglers at Durban Naval Base on 1 August 2015 - Call 031 701 7444 for more details.

(File Photo: Office of the KZN Premier)

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