5 July 2024 Ocean Conditions Report KZN 7 am and 9 am updates
5 July 2024 Ocean Conditions Report KZN: Good morning and welcome to today’s Ocean Conditions Report prepared right from the beach.
9 am
This is the 9 am Report from Ajay in Mzamba in the Transkei…
7 am
And the first report of the day by Adam at 7 am this morning in Durban
Yesterday’s big buster southwest wind will have had a grand impact on the ocean conditions today. There is a rolling south swell and the morning will paint a very pretty picture.
More wind from the south all day. Getting quite feisty after noon.
Sardines
So if you are also on the hunt for sardines, things are looking quite ok. That rolling south swell is just what the sardines use to get mobile against the prevailing north-to-south Agulhas Current.
It has been an incredibly warm year for KZN water. It’s got to drop sometime soon!
Spearos
The warm water brings the couta. And the spearos are revelling in the same warm water. Here is a great story from this past week…
Ocean Conditions Report includes some spearing news today…
Plus a video report from The Bear of the Master Watermen website.
But ok stay tight to The Sardine News. We are also on the move today. We will be starting in the Umzumbe area since there was a large shoal being hammered to pieces of the Wild Coast Sun late yesterday afternoon.
8am 3 July 2024 Sardines and Conditions Report for KZN
8am 3 July 2024 Sardines and Conditions Report for KZN: thank you for tuning in and here be your early Wednesday morning Sardines and Conditions Report for KZN.
8am 3 July 2024 Sardines and Conditions Report for KZN
8am 3 July 2024 Sardines and Conditions Report for KZN
The stable weather and sea conditions continue through the neap tide cycle as reported today. Right from the ocean. Adam and Nigel are out there catching delicious Natal Snoek right now!
Nigel with his first fish from this idyllic KZN Winter morning off the Blue Lagoon.
Sardines’
Are very hard to find right now. We scoured out every beach and vay from Mzamba in the Transkei all the way to Port Shepstone. We saw many sardines. But way out to sea. Where the dolphins and other predators were simply gorging themselves on the confused and exhausted sardines.
These sardines still don’t know where they went wrong and are just forging ahead in the hopes of breaking through into the sardine Eden. Like the rest of the population who went the right way. Up the West Coast. To spawn and breed and repopulate.
Shad
The shad are distracted by these wayward sardines that refuse to come close. And they are also out there chasing the shoals. Making for some very frustrated mombakkies looking fisherfolk up and down the coast.
At least the beaches stay clean when the shad fishermen aren’t trashing the places.
Garrick
The Master Watermen website has shown some outsized garrick falling to the spear. On average, they certainly seem to be bigger this year so far. However, some real small ones are also being caught and kept. Which is not going to work for next year’s garrick visit. And another reminder that the bag limit is 2 per person.
Kob
There are kob of all sizes lurking everywhere, mainly in the shallows. Wherever shad were biting in the daytime, you will find kob there in the night time.
We also caught this lovely pan-sized koblet in the Umzimkulu Estuary this week. By Wouter and caught on a lure.
Conditions
Are going to continue to ve excellent. And this cold front that has been promised to us will hopefully be on time tomorrow. And will airbrush the ocean into perfection all over again. And the cycle continues.
30 June 2024 7 AM Durban Beachfront Update by Adam
30 June 2024 7 AM Durban Beachfront Update by Adam: over to Adam for today’s on-the-spot update broadcasted directly from the Durban Beachfront. Where it looks like it’s all happening.
Over to Adam for his comprehensive roundup and forecast for today…
Durban in the Morning
Morning guys, it’s Sunday the 30th of June 2024, time is just past 7. 30, as you can see we’ve passed a low tide just after 4am, we’ve got the incoming tide now, next high tide will be around 10. 30. Windguru shows settled conditions, very little wind, low swell, long swell period, so lovely fishing conditions.
Current wind is 10kmph. Northwest. Temperature is 17 degrees. Pressure is 102. 2 and stable. Wave net is showing water temperatures off Durban is dropping. Still a little too warm for the sardines but at least it’s in the right direction. Sardine action yesterday. There was netting at Pennington and Scottborough.
Still plenty of sardines around. Lots of shoals in the deep. Next, we’ll have our sunrise view. So these are the conditions off Durban. Beautiful settled conditions. Not much of a wave for the surfers but Lots of boats launched today. There are still about 10 boats out at the bait spot at the North Breakwater.
And I counted about 15 boats fishing at the Blue Lagoon, Virginia area. I don’t know if there’s Garrick action there, or if everyone’s trying for snook this morning, but lots of boats on the water. I’ll be heading out to sea later, and stay tuned for more updates. If we come across shoals of sardines out at sea, we’ll definitely post to thesardine.co.za.
A Week of Sardines by Kevin in Qora 28 June 2024: thank you Kevin!
?How’s it, everyone? This is Kevin at Qora Mouth, just north of Mazepa Bay in the southern Transkei. Well, what a beautiful day down here. Slight breeze blowing, beautiful warm day, and life is good in the Transkei. But anyway, let’s talk sardines. That’s what we’re here for. As we’ve heard, Multiple nets have come out this week.
Pennington, Winklespruit, and we’re hearing of shoals of sardines stretching the whole way up the south coast. There might even be some reports of around Ballito Bay that there’s a lot of dolphin activity. Whether that’s just bait balls of other bait fish, or whether that actually is the sardines, we haven’t had confirmation of yet.
But we can say that these sods have done exactly as we forecast they were going to do. So let’s really just try and break that down quickly for those people that haven’t watched any of the previous videos. So when these shoals of sardines, and this is obviously the mother load that has come through this winter time, and what they do is that they travel in a cold plume of water up the east coast of Africa, and if the water gets too warm as they reach the Durban area, then what they tend to do is that shoal, even though it might be fractured into smaller shoals, they do definitely move out into deeper water where they seek a little bit of colder water, but they’re migratory instincts are still telling them to head north.
So they’re not going to head out into the deep and jump on the current and head back to the Agalus Bank, because we’re still right in the middle of winter. So they’re heading north either way, and for about a week they headed out deep, and that’s because the water around Durban was around the 24 25 degree mark, which is way too warm for these sardines.
What has happened now is that in the last 3 4 days that temperature dropped drastically down to around 19 20 degrees and apparently it’s very stable now around 20 21 degrees, which is perfect for these sardines. We did also have a south swell that came through here down in the Eastern Cape. And that south swell is probably hitting Durban around now.
It’s been pumping the last two days here. And it’s now a decreasing swell. So that south swell is starting to dissipate down here by us. But it’s probably just reaching Durban by now. And as we know from previous videos, this is Ideal situations for the sardines because they, they move very close in shore because the closer they get in towards the land the more energy is released by those south swells due to friction with the shallower water and then those sardines come right to the surface right next to the coast and they start using that energy to help them move forward against the current because the current is the north to south. The Benguela current and the south swell is moving from south to north. So yeah, that’s exactly what’s happening. And yeah, I think chaps, we can expect a lot more next nets to be coming out over the next week or so. I don’t think this is the end of it. I think this is just the beginning because there’s so many shoals offshore and yeah those are all going to move closer and as they start moving up the coast past Durban around the bluff they’ll keep marching up the north coast until they reach warmer water which is when they will then dissipate or move out into the current and that would be in about two to three weeks time.
So anyway lots of actions still ahead chaps. Well done to all the netters. You guys having a bumper season and we’re so happy for you because we know you wait all year for this kind of a situation to happen and thank you for the public that we’ve had reports that the public are really you know listening to what we’re asking and they’re staying back giving the netters some room so the netters have actually thanked us for for just bringing it to your attention so yeah Life is good guys.
Life is good. This is the Sardine Run 2024. It’s in full swing. So let’s keep it real. As we always say, conserve and protect. Keep those beaches clean. If you’re out there watching the sardine action and you see some trash on the beach, please just pick it up. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t yours. It just means that we’re keeping these beaches as they should be, pristine and beautiful for everybody to enjoy.
So cool guys. That’s all we got for today. And the weekend is upon us. I hope you guys all have a safe weekend. And I hope all those families that want to see the sardines, I could say that the best areas to go to are going to be between Pennington and the Bluff. You don’t need to go very deep south coast now.
I think these sides have all moved up much closer towards the Bluff. So any of those areas, I think you could expect to find something happening and at least get to experience the sardine run, even if it is from the top of the beach and watching what’s going on. Anyway, thanks for watching. That’s it.
Over and out from me. We’ll keep you updated as things change. Cheers.
SARDINES netted at Winklespruit NOW! 9 AM on the 27 June 2024
SARDINES netted at Winklespruit NOW! 9 AM on the 27 June 2024: Go get ’em!
The Sardine News breaks on YouTube first. If you go to https://youtube.com/@thesardinenews you can Subscribe so you never miss a single shoal of sardines!
Good morning. It’s 7. 30 a. m. Thursday, the 27th of June, right now on the high tide and the next low tide will be at 1. 26pm. Moving on to Windguru. Shows partly cloudy conditions this morning with nice settle sea. Current conditions off Durban, wind blowing westerly 13 kilometers per hour and air temperature 18 degrees.
Our atmospheric pressure at the moment is 1032 hectopascals. WaveNet shows sea temperature. It’s still quite warm, around 21 degrees. We’re hoping for the water temps to drop, and for the sardines to move closer to the Golden Mile. And next, we’ll have the sunrise view. And here we have a view of the Golden Mile.
The sun is up, but it’s overcast today, so it’s not peeping through. But lovely settled conditions. We had reports of shoals, patchy shoals, swimming past the bluff yesterday. There were a few shoals off Amshloti even. So, the fish are out in the deep, uh, they could be mixed red eye sardines and sugar mackerel, but there’s definitely sardines in the mix and on the way as well.
Keep watching and keep listening, thesardine.co.za.
