It’s that time of year when we start saying goodbye to the nice warm sunny weather and south-easterly winds and say hello to the north-westerly winds and cold fronts that batter the Cape coast during the winter time.
For a lot of anglers it’s the start of the winter fishing season, a favourite time of the year for me and many others, as we start to see more and more “winter” species arriving in our local waters. I say winter species in inverted commas because many beautiful kob often bigger are caught each year in the winter. I have caught smooth hounds in Strand in July on live baits. There are definitely summer species to be caught in winter.
But before we worry about the winter fishing and cold fronts and freezing toes, let’s talk about the awesome surprise that came this Easter – the sardines of False Bay. When the sardines come close to shore the excitement gets real, the sardines attract not only people but a host of marine activity. Seals, dolphins, sharks, birds and, most importantly for us anglers, fish of all shapes and sizes.
The arrival of the sardines in False Bay over Easter brought with it some awesome fishing for boat and shore anglers a like.
The guys on the boats and paddle skis caught some really beautiful yellowtail in the week leading up to the sardines arriving, as though they knew what was coming or the sardines have been in the bay but sitting deep. Some nice yellowtail of close to 15 kg were caught with most averaging 8 to 10 kg, a few guys moaned about getting reefed by even bigger fish. It’s always nice to hear of fish like that being caught in Strand.
With the sardines being pushed up against the Gordon’s Bay mountain and into the various bays up towards Rooi Els it presented a great opportunity at throwing plugs and spoons towards a shoal of feeding yellowtail or bonito, really gets the heart pumping. One never knows if there will be a yellowfin tuna close by, the holy grail of spinning and one fish every angler dreams of catching from the shore in there lifetime. Not something that happens very often, but with loads of sardine and the correct conditions it is certainly possible.
One fish that use to be commonly caught at this time of the year was the Cape salmon or otherwise known as geelbek, these fish have been very scarce in the last few years.
Anglers use to enjoy good catches of geelbek in the past it was one of the favourite fish among those making pickle fish for Easter. Favourite areas to target geelbek are the Strand reefs and especially the Hangklip area. This year with the influx of sardines and other baitfish the geelbek followed.
The stats show that since the 2000s there has been a steady decline in both sardine and anchovy numbers in False Bay. Will we see a total collapse of the sardine stocks? This has happened in Namibia, so I don’t see why it won’t happen here, or maybe it’s already happened and we are none the wiser.
The hype of the sardines didn’t last very long unfortunately, the weather conditions and water changed and just like that the sardines were gone overnight. Hopefully we see them pop up again in the next few weeks, only time will tell. For now it’s time to start preparing for the upcoming winter season, with species such as white steenbras, belman, big galjoen, wildeperd and musselcracker to be caught who can help but get excited.
I can’t wait to feel the icy early-morning chill on my face when I head down the beach in search of that elusive steam train, frozen fingers and freshly collected worm and prawn baits and you are good to go.
Maybe the stench of well-matured red bait is your thing, then the rocks and churning waters are where you will go in search of that prized fat galjoen.
Whatever it may be, don’t be fooled into thinking that winter is a quite time and the fish don’t bite, winter is a time when the edible fishing really hots up. Yes you may not get as many sharks or kob in winter but there are a host of beautiful species to be targeted.
Get on your buffs and beanies this upcoming season, grab your favourite winter outfit and get out there and wet a line. You may just be pleasantly surprised as to.what you catch in the cold while most are cuddled up in there warm beds.
If you need any advice, bait or tackle, please pop into Fishing Republic, situated at 73 Beach Road, Strand. You can find us on Google maps or visit our Instagram or Facebook page, “Fishing Republic”.
