It was great to see all the coastal towns come alive this festive season for the first time in more than two years!
The beaches were packed with holidaymakers and anglers alike, all enjoying the beautiful hot Cape weather we experienced in December and are still experiencing in late January (while writing this article it’s a cool 38°C outside with a stiff 20-knot easterly wind blowing, good colour in the water … beautiful fishing conditions!
I think it’s best we leave 2021 behind and focus on the fishing and all there is to look forward to in 2022!
Happy new year to all anglers and readers alike, may it be a great year with many fish caught, tagged and released!
So far, the summer season has been a strange one in terms of weather patterns; there have been numerous north-westerly winds and smaller fronts coming through, with only a few days of good south-easterly patterns.
This has made choosing the conditions and finding the fish a little tricky. Those who have toiled hard and put in the time have been rewarded with some great fish.
Most anglers hunt kob and elf at this time of the year, when the south-easterly wind blows for a few days and one can expect to find anglers on the beaches early in the morning and in the late afternoons wading and casting their baits into the deeper holes and gutters where the kob hunt.
Live baits, chokka baits, fish baits like sardine, maasbanker and mullet are common baits that consistently produce good catches.
Fishing with bait can really be rewarding and fun, but nothing beats catching a big kob or blou elf on light spinning gear. We are talking about 2 m to 3,6 m rods, 4 000/5 000-size reels and 7 kg to 9-13 kg braids.
Fishing in this manner is growing in popularity, a very active way of fishing and the rewards of getting a proper fish on spinning gear is just epic.
You will see more and more anglers starting to target kob, leervis, elf, and many many more species on spinning gear. We are looking forward to fishing more micro and slow pitch jigs this season and look forward to seeing the results when targeting winter species such as belman and steenbras.
The ability to be able to fish super small and light lures is mostly due to innovation and how technology in rods, reels and lines has opened up a whole new world of possibilities to lure anglers.
You can now cast a 4,5 m micro-jig on a 3,3 m rod with 9 braid into the zone, where in the old days you would never dream of casting a 15 g weight on a multiplier with nylon. This is only one example.
This is a topic and discussion all on its own and we will get stuck into spinning and tackle and gear in future articles.
We look forward to an awesome 2022 and we really would like to reach out to all anglers to please think about the future of fishing.
We can all see what is happening to nature and the world we live in and we simply have to be more conservation minded.
We simply have to release more fish, we have to educate others to not only stick to outdated bag limits and sizes but to use your own discretion, one or two fish is enough to feed a family.
Lets not get greedy and keep everything we catch. If we carry on killing off our fish species like we currently are there will be nothing left for future generations. Please: limit your catch, and don’t catch your limit.
