Bait Fishing The Durban Harbour

On the odd occasion I down my fly rod and head out instead with a bait stick in hand. Sunday was one such day.

Alan had invited me to join him on his trusty vessel to do a little grunter fishing in the harbour. Needing to pump some cracker we got to the harbour shortly after 9am, just as the banks were beginning to expose themselves. I have to admit, I felt a twinge of jealousy as I watched a fly fisherman land a small fish while I was dirtying my hands with the cracker pump.

With enough bait in our bucket we climbed back onto the boat and headed for our first spot of the day, nestled under a large container ship. We kitted up a few rods and dropped our baits overboard. While wondering what to do next (since I’m used to continuously having to cast) Alan whipped out a few eisbein sandwiches and poured us each a cup of hot coffee. “I could get used to this,” I thought.

But the relaxation was shorted lived; I’d barely taken my first sip of coffee when I saw one of my rod tips dip. A quick strike and it was fish on, (possibly) a small bluefin. Alan was meanwhile busy landing a few fish himself, the majority of which were also (possibly) bluefin.

Eventually, tired of the rats and mice, we headed to a new spot. Sadly it produced similar results with no large grunter coming to hand. Worried about our bait supplies we quickly decided to move on.

We kept prospecting spots and eventually found a few areas where we picked up some better fish. These included grunter, catface rockcod, galjoen, blacktail, and more. Alan was quick to point out that if you were counting species, you weren’t catching big enough fish. I guess this is true, but it was a great day out none the less. Hopefully next time we’ll get some bigger fish that I can take home to appease the wife.