Fishing in Winter off Dbn?

[stephenrplumb]

I was in KZN last week and only managed two days out. The first one was last week monday, but the boys only bothered rolling out of bed at 08h00 so we only got onto the water at 09h30 so hopes were not high, although we did see loads of Sards and a few dolphins. We headed out to mark off isipingo  that a friend shared with me. Around 90m of water. Dropped sardines etc and nothing. Not a bite, just some nibblers that kept eating the Sards.


Then on Saturday I just took my youngest at we hit the beach well before first light. Our plan was to trawl for Snoek around the blue lagoon mouth. We had some smallish sard fillet baits and a couple of small lures that we had picked up at Basil Manning. We trawled through loads of bait balls, spending a few passes around the Blue Lagoon Mouth and then carried on around 10-12m depth through to umhlanga and onto the umdloti. We then went back to Umhlanga barge and dropped loads of chum and a few live baits to see if there was a Tuna. Again, not a nibble.


That seemed to fail, so then we trawled back to no1 and went over a few marks there with some lures in tow and then finally after the whole day, back to the beach with nothing at all to show.


Are we doing this all wrong, or should we just not bother in August?


Is bottom fishing something to only be done around first light/last light (we are not night rated?) I am wiling to concede a lack of skill and experience, but can things really be this bad?

[maganything]

Hi Stephen,


Bottom fishing is not as easy as everyone seems to think, especially off Durban. The geelbek have generally been biting 30mins before first light, as the sun comes up they go off the bite. It has been like this for the last 2 years. You will get the occasional one during the day.


I have found with bottom fishing, it is better to drop anchor on a mark if there are no showings, by doing this you "bait" the area and your bigger fish will move in. It can sometime take up to and hour to get a bite.


If you see good showings on a mark then i would do a drift over the mark and see whats happening.

[stephenrplumb]

Eish - so not too promising then. I am coming down this weekend again, so may give it a try, but I hear there is a big cold front coming through so not going to bother going out if the weather is k*K again.

[Umpa Lumpa]

Eish - so not too promising then. I am coming down this weekend again, so may give it a try, but I hear there is a big cold front coming through so not going to bother going out if the weather is k*K again.

Yep, prop polishing weather this weekend, must be brave or doff to launch this weekend.

[stephenrplumb]

We did actually had a nice little dive attempting to spearfish off north pier yesterday pm. It was nice clean water, but not many fish. I did manage to spear quite a few plastic bags so it was somewhat successful. Did see loads of Mullet shoaling, so that was nice to see. Did not bother with the boat as it was not great weather.