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Part 3: Fishing in False Bay By Rob Naysmith
F
OLLOWING on from the outstanding example the KwaZuluNatal anglers have set in sharing their wealth of knowledge and expertise of their coastline, we jump hastily to Cape Town. Not that there is any pecking order, but there is only one summer a year, a summer that will be upon us by the time you read this article... Unlike the areas up our east coast, the Western Cape is basically a summer fishing venue for most of our species. As a major holiday destination, many anglers arrive with huge dreams of superb fishing but leave empty handed; we’re about to change that. And for all the guys new to fishing down here and keen to learn, this is for you too.
The first thing you will notice when fishing in Cape Town is that there are considerably fewer species to catch than further up the east coast. However, that’s made up for in the quantity of fish.The other notable aspect is that the fish species are more numerous during the summer months while the number dwindles down to a mere two or three that one can target with any measure of success during winter. We will start the Western Cape with what is undoubtably the most popular fishing venue — False Bay. It offers safe launch sites, numerous boat clubs and generally calmer seas than out in the Atlantic Ocean. Cape Point in the west and Cape Hangklip to the east define the entrance to False Bay.The ‘bay’ itself can be envisioned as a big rectangle with
Muizenberg in the north western corner and Gordon’s Bay to the north east. The fishing changes quite considerably from the entrance points to that inside, between the two towns, so much so, in fact, that seldom does one find the same species in both areas. False Bay is the last refuge where one still experiences the final warmth of the Agulhas current close to land. As an example, the sea temperature can be a relatively warm 20°C in False Bay while it’s an icy 8°C on the Atlantic side of the peninsula. This warmth difference is due to an eddy of Agulhas current being swept into False Bay by the dominant summer south easterly wind — the Cape Doctor. With it come a few fish species usually only found on the east coast. However, these are strays and invariably
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