Tag: Wayne Gerber

Angling around Algoa Bay

By Wayne Gerber

[Originally published in the May/June 2024 issue of SKI-BOAT magazine]

WHEN you’re talking fishing around Algoa Bay, there are two things synonymous with this area – chokka (calamari) and big kob.
We have one of the most stunning coastlines which has a unique beauty of its own, with its beautiful rolling sand dunes along the Woody Cape area in the north of the bay and sandstone cliffs off Cape Padrone. The ocean around here explodes with its bounty and has the most unique and diverse range of species found along the South African coastline.
The shallow reefs to the north of the bay are known as “The Bushes”, but they have now mostly been incorporated into the Addo Marine Protected Area (MPA) which was promulgated in 2020.
The Bushes reefs are home to Scotsman, poenskop (Black Mussel-cracker), dageraad, red Roman and by far the greatest number of basterman (soldier or santer) all around South Africa’s coastline. We are also blessed to have some great tuna fishing offshore, and some spectacular specimens have been caught over the years. The Port Elizabeth club’s current yellowfin record stands at an impressive 102kg, and this year we are already up to a 76.3kg fish.
The controlled fishing area in the northern sections of the bay still holds some good fishing and, with the spill over from the restricted fishing areas of the MPA, there are some good specimens of dageraad and kob and some beautiful red romans among other species in this area.
Due to the odd shape of the MPA care must be taken to ensure you stay in the areas where it’s legal to fish. Unfortunately most of our historical kob grounds have been swallowed up by the MPA restricted zone, but there are still some good specimens to be found in and around the Sundays River mouth area.

Beautiful yellowbelly-, catface- and brown rockcod are found in this area, and although ours are not the largest, they certainly can be plentiful at certain times of the year.
Our waters also shelter red steenbras and geelbek that are found everywhere from the shallow reefs and warmer water all the way out to the deeper reefs on what we commonly call the south-west grounds, up to depths of 80m. Good class linefish such as dageraad and Miss Lucys are also found all the way from 12m depths up to these 70m deep reefs.
We also have the amazing Bird Island area where some of the best yellowtail fishing is to be had. These fierce warriors or reef donkeys putting up an awesome fight and, pound for pound, I rate them as the strongest fish in the sea. They are certainly not gentlemen, and will happily bang their heads on the reef (and in the process injure themselves) to cut the line, rather than give up.
They are beautiful fish to boot, and by far my favourite fish to target. They usually enjoy a livebait or a mix of a whole pilchard and a strip of chokka, and if you can keep your squid alive to use as bait then that would be first prize.
Our fishing area extends all the way up to Boknes, Cannon Rocks and includes Port Alfred, but to concentrate on the area we fish predominantly we will, for the sake of this article, stick to the Algoa Bay area.
Algoa Bay or Port Elizabeth (now officially Gqeberha) has two deep sea angling clubs, but only Port Elizabeth Deep Sea Angling Club is affiliated to the national body, SADSAA. The email contact for any enquiries is <denise@pedsac.co.za>.
For anyone wanting to fish these areas, note that only club members may launch out of the Port Elizabeth commercial port, as it is governed and managed by Portnet and their rules and regulations apply. There are, however, temporary and seasonal December memberships available for visitors to the area.
The next area that is very popular for our anglers is called the Rye Banks. This set of reefs 12 miles east-south-east of the port is frequented by a lot of the local boats from all clubs. It is not a long run in Algoa Bay fishing terms, and is a set of immaculate shallow reefs or banks that holds some yellowtail and a wide variety of other species.
The most commonly fished area is on the deeper southern side where some good quality carpenters and romans are found, along with the odd geelbek that frequents the area in the autumn to winter time.
The geelbek usually make their appearance from March through April and May, and used to be prolific in earlier years. Some very good size fish are still to be found after a good south-westerly wind with some long rolling ground swells. The banks also holds a fair number of Miss Lucy’s and even some Scotsman and the odd nice basterman.
The Western Grounds are, as the name suggests, found on the western side of Algoa Bay and start from the point at Cape Recife stretching all the way up to Sea View. A myriad species can be caught there, including poenskop, romans, Scotsman, Miss Lucy’s, kob, geelbek and rockcod on the shallow and midwater reefs. Hake (stock fish), gurnards and the odd kingklip are found on the deeper shale and muddy bottoms. Carpenters are a pest at the best of times, but some really good quality carpenter can be found on the deeper banks which we commonly refer to as the Crayfish Banks.
Take note that there is an MPA in front of Sardinia Bay which protects a few shallow water reefs and the shallow water reef fish. In the deeper waters there are pretty good stock fish to be found, and although it’s not a great fighting fish, it surely is one of the best eating fish in our waters.
Our deeper waters, all the way up to 120m, can be found up to 22 miles offshore, after which you hit the continental shelf drop off and the Agulhas current. This is where our tuna area starts, but they are not limited to this area and have been found as close as one mile off Cape Recife.
Tuna frequent our waters almost all year round, and we have some amazing tuna at times, with most shoal fish being in the 20- to 25kg range. The larger gas bottles all the way up to a 100kg-plus are usually found in late autumn and early winter.
The tuna fishing is hard work, as they are usually far off shore – up to 40 miles – and one always needs to take the sea conditions into consideration as the warm Agulhas current sweeps around the corner at Bird Island. The edge of this current is where most of our tuna fishing is done and is the most productive.
Port Elizabeth also has an area we call The Canyon which is very popular with the locals. As the name suggests, it is an area where the ocean floor drops from 200m all the way down to over 1000m deep.
This obviously causes some challenging sea conditions but also brings great rewards. The area holds a number of pelagic species such as dorado, marlin and, recently, even some wahoo.
The weather patterns seem to be changing generally, and in this part of South Africa we are getting a lot more of the tropical conditions in our offshore current area. I believe this is the reason we’re also seeing a change in the species we find in the area.

TACKLE
The most popular reels we use for bottomfishing are KP or Scarboroughs, and grinders in the shallower waters. Some anglers still prefer multipliers, but I only use those when I am targeting either yellowtail or yellowfin. My preference is KP or Scarborough in the deeper water from about 50m. I like a grinder on the shallower reefs and, as mentioned, a multiplier on the stronger, bigger fish.
The most popular line, of course, would be braid, and we mostly use 50 lb line on our grinders, possibly going up to 80 lb when targeting yellowtail.
I can only tell you what I use, so please don’t take it as gospel. I use a 60 lb fluorocarbon bite trace on the shallow reefs and 80 lb fluorocarbon when I fish deeper. My leader line is monofilament, predominantly 80 lb and up, but I do use 100 lb on the yellowtail.
My sinkers are 6- or 8 ounce on the shallow reefs up to 35m, and I’ll then switch over to a 10- or 12 ounce sinker when fishing deeper. However, I sometimes go as heavy as a 16 ounce sinker when fishing deep due to the strong current and tide we have from time to time.
Hooks? Well, that depends on each angler’s preference, but I use circle hooks – 7/0 mainly – and 12/0 Kendal round hooks for stock fish and deeper water species including geelbek and kob.
I pair my KP 7.5 inch reels with an 8ft Kingfisher Poseidon dorado rod for reef fish and the Poseidon geelbek rod for the kob and geelbek. These rods have a great action and I enjoy fishing them in the deep. I also like an 8 000-10 000 size grinder on a 7ft Okuma jigging stick or flick stick for the reefs.
For the yellowtail I use a Maxel Transformer 60 multiplier reel on a CT Craftsman Power Rap rod. The rod is high specialised, but the equivalent would be a Jigrex, I guess. These rods are short – 1.2m in length – and are built to put huge pressure on the fish to pull them away from the reef. Yellowtail are dirty fighters, so you need to bully them back.
The tuna rods are standard, as used anywhere in South Africa, with the Tiagra 50w being the go-to reel. Most of our tuna are caught on the troll, with a few exceptions, and when the stars align and the weather and current play along, we have caught some beautiful tuna on bait as well.
Marlin are not as prevalent here as they are on the east coast but we do have a couple of them around and they’re caught fairly often. Our biggest marlin caught in these waters was a black marlin caught in 2005 which weighed in at a hefty 425kg. It was caught when it decided to eat a 27kg yellowfin that had been hooked by an angler.
So yes, when I say we have a wide variety of fish, I mean we have the best of both worlds – bottoms and game fish – and we are spoiled for choice in Port Elizabeth.