Koggala Beach Park, An Awesome Fishing Site

Koggala Beach Park is just a small ordinary recreational area situated along the beautiful coastline of the southern corner of Sri Lanka, close to the historic city of Galle. I often pass by the park but never really developed an interest to enter and check out the amenities or activities that it is offering. I am more fascinated by the stilt fishing which can be seen not very far from the park as I traverse the coastal road. It is such an astonishing sight with the local fishermen perched atop their stilts on the shallow water while pole fishing for the tiny but tasty smooth belly sardinella and other small reef fishes.

However, when I stumbled upon a UK based fishing website which ran a story about the fishing adventure of a British tourist in Koggala during his short visit in Sri Lanka, my interest was suddenly awaken. He mentioned about experiencing a barracuda bite while shore fishing using a live sardinella fish, caught by the local stilts fishermen, as bait. That part of his short tale is convincing enough for me to consider going to Koggala to verify the fishing activity. And the park, I thought, is a good starting point.

The beach park is clean, well vegetated and properly maintained. It has such amenities as children’s playground, boutiques, bench, tables, rest rooms, gardens, lawn and of course a magnificent beach. And what makes this park a special treat for me is that it is in fact a fishing site. The stilts used for the famous stilt fishing stand right in front of me on the waters.

But that isn’t all. The beach, it appeared, is also a potential spot for one of my favourite passion: Shore Angling. There were in fact about 3 shore anglers busy castings from the beach.

Eager to learn how the locals are fishing from the shore, I immediately approached them to investigate. Probably sensing we are sharing the same hobby, they, without hesitation taught me their method of fishing using small shrimps and sea weeds as baits.

They cast as far as they can and slowly retrieve the offering hoping to get a bite. They can catch several varieties of reef fishes and at the right condition, long nose emperor, trevalley, grouper and barracuda. The condition that day, according to them, isn’t very good for fishing but still gladly showed me some of their modest morning catch.

With fervent desires to learn something about stilts fishing, I decided to wait if someone would come to fish from the vacant stilts. Unfortunately it seems there is no sardinella in the area and thus no stilt fisherman is bound to climb the stilts that day. Not willing to go home without seeing the famous Sri Lankan scene of stilt fishing, I checked the far end of Koggala and found about 4 fishermen sitting atop their stilts and enjoying pole fishing.

I was not able to see the rig and bait they are using but was lucky enough to take photos of their collective fresh catch which they sell from the roadside. Delicious little sardinella. :-)