Sardine Shoals Hit Durban

Sardine netters at Vetchies in Durban this morning.

The first Sardine shoals have started to appear in the Durban area this weekend. These small pilot shoals are fairly sporadic and can pop up any where. This morning they came into the Durban basin and the sardine hunters tried there luck at netting them at Vetch's beach.

Last year the Sardine shoals came into the bay in force and it was a frenzy for a few days down on Durbans south beaches.

This year the shoals coming up are not really that big and the guys have had not too much success netting the sards down the coast.

It will be good if the conditions will settle a bit and we can get some diving in .... especially if the pockets of Sardines are around.

Coatesman

Spearfishing Update

Benjamin Bucher - 37kg Wahoo shot at 7mile - Sordwana Bay

Its been a bit crazy getting back to work after the long weekend at Sordwana for the Blue water Classic Compie.

Andy Henwood took the first prize on points, totally out preforming all the other guys on both days.
The diving was hard and many guys did not shoot a fish the whole weekend. Ben Bucher came second in the biggest fish category with his 37kg Wahoo. But I think he won the comp on envy!

Darrell sent through this report of the south coast:

Dont know if there`s been much diving the past few days??, certainly not inshore my side with this big cold front which just passed.
The august winds are on time too, so its a case of the `early bird` when the swell drops off.
I`m sure theres still some garrick about and the `sards` have probably disappeared though we hardly had action on the middle- south coast.
Last I got in was last Tuesday with `green but clean` water and saw a couple of snoek off the cuda court area in hibberdene, whilst my gun was snagged in a cave.
There are a few brusher making an appearance as the fishermen caught a few over the weekend along the Hibberdene-Umzumbe stretch though they were under 5 kgs.

Shane from Freedivers gave me a call to say his Bluewater Classic Comp was a successful comp. at Sodwana with a few sailfish coming out and one really big 30+ Kg wahoo amongst other fish as well.
Gary Gillon meanwhile was up at vidal and reported things quiet but they did manage one decent cuda and a 24 kg wahoo.

cheers-

Darrell

The diving here on the North Coast has been dismal and there has not been any diving for the last week or two. The Sardines in the Durban area, and the even the odd day were sardines have been netted. So hopefully if the conditions let the boys get in there will be some good reports soon.

Coatesman

Sardine Run & the Spearfishing

32kgs daga shot by Brett Kauffman

The north coast has some Sardine action over the last few days, but there has been very few reports of good fish coming out. The conditions have been fairly good so most guys have given it a go some where along the line. For the most part the odd Garrick and Snoek have been shot. That was until I got a mail with Brett Kauffmans Daga he shot yesterday off Westbrook.

This is what Darrel Hattingh has to report:

Splendid,splendid !! is how it has been this whole week. As I write the viz. is still 10-15 meter with a knee biting swell.We`ve had a great winter this year I think despite a bit of big swell and one or two weeks bad weather.

Fish have been few and far between with lots of clean watter but barren stretches though ,and it seems the gamefish are grouping in mass and following the sardines which last I heard were beaching up the north coast ?

However, I was rewarded yesterday when i jumped in off the first point north of Hibberdene main beach at around 9.30 and swam into a huge shoal of big,big snoek travelling south in about 6 meter depth - what an awesome sight in the 15-20meter viz, they were ambling lazily along in mid-water and between 60-80 fish I would guess-thought they were couta at first (could have been some sort of mass migration as last time I saw such big snoek was at Vidal in the eighties) anyway,i picked off one of the closest as they idled past,tracking it with my 1,1 freedivers railgun and popped it a good shot, by the time i strung it there were still snoek passing underneath my legs - some of them i`d guess in the 10-11 kg range as mine weighed 9 kilos !!

Saw Marc Lange who launched at hibberdene and they got some garrick and a few bottoms.

send me your reports please,let`s see what`s been happening??

cheers-

darrell

There is still a chance that the sardines will appear again ... hopefully this time with all the game fish.

Cheers

Coatesman

Sardine Run - Spearfishing Action

The South Coast Vanguard and some Sardine Run bounty. 

After last years no show the Sardine Run this year has been with low expectation. Every time I have heard of the sardines making an appearance, I have kind of with half interest waited to see if there is any action on the spearfishing front. There were reports of sardines been netted off Pennington on Tuesday, and I heard of a number of guys packing their guns for an onslaught on Wednesday.

I did not hear any rumblings .... either it was quiet or the guys are keeping it quiet!! Well thats until Alistair sent me this pic of some healthy Cuta. So there were / are fish around!! Its just a real pitty the weather is up to maggots and the vis is not exactly shap!! Well who knows maybe the south coast is clean ..... but now body is telling! (North Coast is a murky 5m)

Sardine Fever!

Coatesman

Epic Winter Morning

Well its not that it was undiveable, I am still nursing the aftermath of the flue. I suppose the upside is that I did not miss out on an epic diving condition ..... except Monday morning ... sob.

The sea was looking lovely this morning, gentle offshores grooming a 4ft ground swell. The tide was high at 7bells and made a point dive possible, but no luck for the surfers.

The swell is dropping and the second system that looked like it might push swell this weekend is heading out to sea. Good news for fishermen and divers, looking to hit the sardines.
The only bummer is that there are going to be some light east winds which could mess the vis up. Not good!

By the look of things conditions will be good out deep this weekend, might be worth looking for some deep shoals of sardines or hit the shoal.

Catch you later

Coatesman

Told you so

Well I did not expect to be eating my words so fast. An hour or so after writing yesterdays report, my mate Rory MMS's me a pic with him and too many Snoek to hold up!

The following sms's:

10min ago at Toti, we all got ten each, biggest about 9kg (no scale). Seething with fish

When I woke up feeling grim, something inside of me said you are missing out yesterday. Knowing the Sards are around and the fact that there was huge swell (now here!) it was one of the window opportunities I saw slipping through my fingers.

Rory sent a mail just to whip me into a frenzy and no where to go:

The resolution on today’s catch was not good enough to send, will get the beach shots downloaded later and forward them if they look OK. To whet your appetite you will find a shot of my kids posing, the 9kg fish is the one in the immediate foreground. The darts the kids are holding were shot first before I realized how many snoek there were around.

Water was epic, clean and warm with small pockets of more or less stationery sards getting hammered by walls of snoek. In a very short time we had maxed out the daily bag limit with fish up to 9kg with the average around 6kg. You could get very selective. With the conditions being so good we jumped in again for a bit of fish spotting and saw a few other species (some high speed tuna coming in from deep and a big iggie mauling the inside wall while my buddy also saw two garrick idling by). As we had switched from hunt to observation mode we now sat watching the snoek barreling in and nailing the shoal –can’t say the trigger finger didn’t get itchy especially watching nice 6-7kg fish floating past within a metre (or less) of you. After each attack there would be uneaten casualties left lying on the bottom with the snoek clearly slashing up way more sards than they could eat. Two things stood out (1) There were no sharks despite 1000’s of dead sardines and all the fish shot (we weren’t the only speoro’s clubbing it) (2) the sardine shoal hardly moved all day even after the wind started cranking.

Now that we are all frothing at the mouth, let me tell you about what the sea is up to for the next few days!

In the words of Spike "UNPRECEDENTED WEEK OF BIG SURF AHEAD"

Gee I guess thats the diving out of the question, and well I looked at the surf in Ballito and the banks are not doing the swell justice. Durban will probably pump ........ but who likes to surf the crowds?

I guess this is a good week to get some work done!

Coatesman