Jean-Pierre Jordaan with a 34kg beast of a couta

Jean-Pierre Jordaan with a 34kg beast of a couta

Jean-Pierre Jordaan with a 34kg beast of a couta speared at the Patingo, a few clicks out of Richards Bay. Jean-Pierre is the son of legendary Koos Jordaan so those big north coast cruisers better watch out!

It certainly is big ‘couta time now, and reports of great catches like this one, keep filtering in. I don’t think anyone will ever better the 46 kg (gutted) monster by Roger Davison on live bonnie. He was fishing on the backline off Hibberdene when the huge fish struck. And reportedly it fought like hell! And then imagine having a 50kg + ‘couta on your ski with you?!

A few 20kg class fish were caught on the Niteshift recently, in the Port Shepstone area. But there is just so much bait in the water all up and down the coast, that it’s very hard to entice a strike. Catch 22?

Shaun Govender was fishing Orange Rocks this week when some really big tuna (for the south coast) were clearing the water as they blasted through the panicky bait. Red eye sardines and mackerel have invaded the maasbankers territories and while they are not thick thick or boiling, they are spread out over large patches of ocean.

No bonnies around though, although we caught a sarda sarda and put it out live, it was mangled after a shallow turn over a reef, maybe by a rockcod? The rockcod have made some surprising appearances on the end of surf anglers fishing the Block. A spate of catface, some beeeg ones, were pulled out.

Spearfishing hasn’t been that great through the International event on the KZN south coast. Lots of rats and mice were pulverised, some guys missed a few gamefish (wahoo and snoek) , but nothing really fantastic or anything happened at all.

Well back to low tide mornings, so it’s surfing now…there is no moon left and the tides are getting bigger and bigger.