Kob and snapper at Umkomaas

Bluff - A somewhat quiet week for the anglers on the Bluff, despite the amount of karanteen and shad in the area. Anglers sliding have had little to no success.

Toti and Warner Beach - On a good day the shad seem to be plentiful, but other than that most anglers will be lucky to get one or two. A few lonely garrick have found the hooks of anglers using live bait.

Umkomaas - Umkomaas River mouth has produced good numbers of smaller kob over the last week, and along with the kob have been the snapper salmon. These fish are all taking small chokka and red-eye baits. Many anglers have caught grunter as well as the odd flatfish.

Scottburgh - The odd blue ray has been landed off the point and quite a number of grey sharks which have been caught on shad cutlet baits and mackerel head. An angler using McArthy Paddletails landed a decent sized kob to the left of the point during the week.

Port Shepstone - There has been an abundance of shad, bronze bream and kob in the Port Shepstone area, along with a few good size shad up to 4kg and a number of garrick around as well. Excellent catches of stone bream and blacktail have also been reported.

Trafalgar - Along with the plenty of bronze bream that have been landed along the Trafalgar stretch, the blue rays have been wild and most anglers to spend time in the area have landed a fair amount. There have been good reports of brusher from this area too.

Port Edward - This week began with perfect seas, skies and no wind and needles to say, the rocks were packed with fishermen. Shad have been coming out continuously accompanied by a number of garrick, all caught on live shad. Large kob are also on the bite and one weighed here was 22kg and was caught by local angler Gerrard Powell. The shad season comes to an end in two weeks’ time at the close of September and from then till the first day of December one will have to resist the temptation of keeping shad. Penalties for not sticking to the law regarding this are severe and yet, as with excessive bag limits at the moment, many take their chances in the hope of not being caught.

Over previous years, garrick have been around well after the closed shad season, so rather go for other species as live baits such as blacktail and pinkies. A common practice is to go to the river mouths and net a few mullet which have proved to be excellent live bait for garrick and other predatory fish. Shad caught out of season must be returned to the sea without any hooks attached. Ardent fishermen begin to target other species of fish during the closed shad season, the most popular being bronze bream and catch reports of this delicious table fish begin to flow in.

(File Photo:Gallo Images)

Twitter - @SportswaveAndre @kingfisherdaiwa