SOUTH AFRICA

10/04/2008 02:19 PM - (SA) 
Summer fishing draws to a close 
110408

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The Summer fishing season is slowly beginning to wane, although there are still a few Elf, Kob and Geelbek being caught by anglers who persevere by fishing throughout the night from local beaches and harbours. During the past week the tides were very low during prime times in the evening and mornings while on Monday the water picked up considerably, causing rough seas along our shores and an abundance of seaweed was washed ashore, making only small sections of our local beaches fishable.

Many of the anglers, young and old, new to the fishing game cast and try and fish in incorrect places - namely places which are easy and convenient to get to such as harbours and beaches near to where their cars are parked instead of observing the water and beach for a while.

Another occurrence which happens to most inexperienced anglers when fishing in areas where there is a lot of weed, is that as soon as their line goes slack and picks up some of the shallow lying weeds and debris in the water, they lose long pieces of their line while trying to unravel and remove the weed.

All these weeds which are currently in the shallows and are washing up on our beaches play an important role in attracting and feeding the many prawn, worms and crabs as well as juvenile fish to the surface, which in turn attracts larger fish like Steenbras, Belman, Dassie and other so-called winter bank fish such as Wildeperd and Galjoen, which forage among the weeds and rotten red bait that wash up and decay in the holes and gullies.

This interim period is however still a good time to target fish such as White Steenbras and White Stump-nose which swim all along our coastline searching for worms, prawns and mussels.

Galjoen time

This is the time of the season that Galjoen fishermen also start getting into their stride by frequenting their favourite fishing venues with a variety of special baits.

The older group of shore anglers always believed that the autumn time is the favourite time for the many shoals of Wildeperd that move into the shallows between the reefs and the shore.

These Wildeperd prefer very fresh red bait, prawns, crayfish and white mussel.

The fact that last year's red tide had a devastating effect on many of the worm species, sand prawns and other natural foods that inhabit the shallows, will without doubt have an effect for a long time on our local beaches.

The dumping of sand and stone from areas higher up on our local beaches onto the open prawn and worm holes in the shallow waters on either side of the Strand jetty and on Blakes and Melk Bay beaches, I believe will also have a negative effect on the prawn and worm popu-lations in these areas as will the removing of weeds by means of big, powerful machinery.

These tiny creatures are also a part of the food chain and destroying them could have a serious knock-on effect. During the earlier part of the weekend quite a number of anglers who persevered on Blakes and Melk Bay beaches were not very successful due to the north, north westerly wind.

These winds usually causes fish to move to the Gordon's Bay side of the bay at Harbour Island and near the mountain side.

Good size Elf 
Last Friday a couple of local spinnermen caught a number of good size Elf from a school of fish which were off the reefs between Harbour Island and Camen Beach. This area has now added the name of De Jongh se Klip to the list of top spots in this area and is named after the well-known local De Jongh family who are by now a successful family of fishing fanatics.

On Sunday one or two anglers fishing between Nun's pool and Bikini Beach in Gordon's Bay had some good size Galjoen between 1,5 and 2 kg.

Small boats fishing during the night in the Strand at Die Poort and off Die Gaatjie area reported catching the odd Geelbek (medium size), Elf and Kob, but the fireworks are dying down.

One of the odd catches reported was a single Yellowtail caught off Die Poort on Sunday. Eight boats that fished offshore outside Cape Point during the weekend had mixed results with a few boats having one or two Longfin Tuna and one or two smaller Yellowtail Tuna.

A boat fishing 40 miles off the Point reported that the water was "very mixed".

He explained this was because of the different winds experienced in this area causing up-wellings which in turn formed different patches of cooler and warmer water and fishing near the Point was fruitless due to the temperature (13 degrees) during most of the weekend.

There was however some good news that large Tunny boats fishing about 100 miles off the Point had up to 38 Tunny per boat, but had to return to the harbour on Sunday due to the water getting rough.

The Defence Force Boat Angling Club held a competition inside False Bay during the past weekend, but due to the cool conditions and cool water temperatures fishing was not very good with the best boat catching three Red Roman.

Don't forget to rinse off your reel after fishing and loosen the drag before putting it away and also to service the reel after every three or four outings.

If you're unsure about servicing or fixing your reel yourself, give me a call on (021) 854 - 3831.