Nature regulates itself in what it gives us.

[willem wikkel spies]

I have been fishing for quite some time, lol.

Ive got the T-shirt, so thought and then i lost it, that i know now.

The past 28 years of fishing has placed smiles on my faces and also caused so much frustration that i wanted to give up.

To blame netting, water spilling, elnino, lanino on it is just looking for a excuse that does not fit the shoe.

It must be noted that the fishing community has grown over the past 28 years.
more and more anglers are targeting the bigger game fish from shore (kingies, garrick, salmon, natal snoek, cuda etc).
This would indicate that our fishing stocks is much more under pressure then 28 years ago. which it is, but:

over the years i have found that:
some years i would catch plenty of fish, specifically one specie (garricks).
the next year, i will fish the same period over the same month, but then i would get more of another specie (salmons).
the next year, we get another specie (kingies).
the next year we would get about zero fish.
the next year we will catch many flat fish.
the next year we will catch plenty of sharks.
and then the cycle will start all over again.

we dont change our tact ticks we fish the same type of water and area, but our luck is down.
so how is this then possible?

its easy, its all up to nature:

Nature will give you, what it thinks is enough.
Nature will give you what it can give.
Nature will also withhold its bounty from you, when it wants to.

so, keep your head up.
stay positive.
keep on trying.
you will be rewarded.

just my 2c

 

[Pylstert]

Fiction, conditions change simple and fish stocks get depleted

 

[Marthin]

Also humbly disagree. The old as dit pap reen moet jy skep mentality is the issue... When the stars weather and everything else aligns and you do get that day where every cast is a fish, especially certain species, over time if every time it happens die hoenersehol gets ripped, every time it does come along it will gradually be less and less.

 

[DJP]

::balance:

 

[DJP]

Willem net vir jou

KZN State of the Coast Report
The 2022 KwaZulu-Natal State of the Coast Report (KZN SOCR) has been finalised and is now available. It outlines which pressures the various KZN coastal and marine ecosystems are exposed to and better informs future management decisions. A summary of each sub-system is provided in a set of fascicles which can be independently reviewed and updated to track progress in coastal management. Overall, the state of the KZN coast is concerning with 23 of the 35 sub-systems identified as being in a moderate state and 11 in a poor state. The KZN SOCR is available for download here https://www.coastkzn.co.za/themes/state-of-the-coast-kzn/kzn-socr-overview/

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

So yesterday I am at a cafe to get a coke while my cars brakes are serviced and I'm discussing with someone outside the shop, that the daughter of a chinese business owner nextdoor has just been kidnapped/hijacked..And as I am saying, yoh this is the state of the nation, a cop parked at the red robot throws his coke bottle out the window and as I am running up to him with his bottle to return his lost property, robot goes green, and he just drives off, so I flip him the finger and give him some choice words about his ma se while he is driving away...and I think that reflects perfectly the state of the nation today, actually.

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/durbans-fisher-folk-left-financially-stricken-after-beaches-get-contaminated-b562c80d-f18b-49be-ab89-87fb173647d0

There are just so many things wrong with this article, and the quality of journalism by IOL. No one stops to ask whether the folks interviewed are actually allowed to do what they are complaining about not being able to now do.. It is called poaching actually.

And doing it within a "crew", for ten years, is multiple crimes being commited, and an organised syndicate as far as the law goes..But hey lets just give the municipality lip, who has nothing to do with fishing licences, or the weather, why they cannot poach every day like they used to..LOL WTF?! And then consider the entire topic is about taking breeding stock out the sea that have migrated up to KZN to fatten up on sardines and do the annual spawn, the very fish that should not be targetted and the time when they should not be targetted.. Where is DAFF in all this, no change to recreational licence limits or anything in years, though big changes in stock levels, and knowledge, and also levels of poaching, ignorantly or not.

Nevermind that the municipalities are useless and sewerage is just "not" pumping away and just flowing into the rivers and sea.
Quotes below..
“There are a lot of fisher folks who rely on fishing and the ocean to provide. When I say fisher folk, I mean men, women and children. Sometimes, from one household, the mother, father and children will fish."
“Take Isipingo, for example. There are residents living in close proximity. Most of them walk to the beaches to fish. Now, they are unable to go out and catch because of the condition of the water."
“During the sardine season, lots of other big fish come in with them. That gives an opportunity to fisher folk to make a big catch so they can earn more than usual. That did not happen because the beaches had to be closed,” Narayanasamy said."
<<<Last one, yup thats where our breeding stock of leeries dissappear to every run as we have long noticed on stock levels, we will spend a few years dilligently releasing every leervis watching them grow up and the stock improve, and it just takes one good sardine run and bang stock reduced again back to where we started, and we start looking after them again and another run and so it repeats. When will the folks in KZN realize it is a shared stock and if those in E Cape treated the fish the same as them, there would be no young blood coming up to breed every run, they'd all be dead.>>>
"
The 68-year-old father was retrenched around ten years ago and has been fishing to earn a living ever since.
Because the waters in Durban have been contaminated, Govender and his two other friends, who together carpool to fishing destinations, said they now have to travel around 40km south, to Scottsburg or further down to Umtwalume, to fish.
But their days down south have not been filled with luck, as they walk away empty-handed on many occasions.
Usually, Govender said they would use R100 for fuel to travel from Chatsworth to Isipingo to fish, but they now use R400 on average for fuel.
Coupled with the rising cost of fuel and bait, putting food on the table has not been the easiest task of late for the 68-year-old.
Regardless of this, Govender says he still piously pays his fishing and bait licence, which is R76 each, respectively.
With just two weeks left before the shad season closes (December to September), Govender said that they are going out this Thursday to try and make up for the lost time.
The crew have been unable to fish for the past week due to the raging waters brought in by the spring tide.
“We used to fish locally, at Isipingo and Toti (Amanzimtoti). It was close, and the cost of petrol was minimal. Now we hardly catch anything because of the contamination and pollution.
“About 20% of what I used to catch, I would usually keep for my house, and the other 80% I would sell."


LOL..Completely ignorant, both fisherman and journalist, that it is all ILLEGAL, well 80% of, and for good reason. Where is DAFF, where are the cops...LOL And like I have always said, it starts with education, and then enforcement. Zero education and zero enforcement and you get this as a result.
"IOL reached out to the municipality on Tuesday to ask how they can justify collecting annual fishing and bait fees but not maintain the beaches which enable subsistence fisher folk to earn a living."
IOL ag IOL...:doh

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2022/why-u-s-seas-are-underfished/

"The wildly diverse fishing industry may be the only food product that relies on the cycles of nature. In 2020, the global fishing industry reached an all-time record of production worth an estimated $406 billion, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The industry changed after the fish stock collapse in the 1990s, which was partially due to overfishing. In the U.S., an estimated 90% of fisheries are now sustainably managed. As of June 2020, 47 fish stocks have been rebuilt. Now, underfishing, which occurs when fish are harvested at a rate lower than would produce maximum sustainable yield, has become common in the U.S. America imports anywhere from 70% to 85% of its seafood, according to NOAA. In 2020, the national seafood trade deficit was $17 billion. Some supply chains are murky. Many countries don’t have data on trends and stocks because they don’t have management systems in place, according to the FAO. The United States imported $2.4 billion worth of seafood from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in 2019, accounting for about 11% of total U.S. seafood imports, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. Watch the video above to learn more about the U.S. fishing industry, market forces at play, the difference between overfishing and overfished, the role of climate and crime in global supply chains of seafood and what solutions may be on the table. "

Food for thought..

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

Sorry for reply bomb...but..

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/sustainable-fisheries/status-stocks-2020

Read that..shows what a proper fisheries management should look like..Not like the illusion of management that we are stuck with..

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

https://www.iol.co.za/ios/news/the-mngeni-river-is-filled-with-muck-3f2bf1ad-af78-4225-9d9a-052c9e48bcad

I don't think nature can regulate itself too well with us around creating these states of affairs..Personally I think nature in SA is in a slow and steady state of collapse and decay. I was at the aquarium last week and saw more big breeder size poensies, than I have ever seen in the wild. Bigger steenbras or white stump that I have ever seen.. And when I read the old books of when the sea in SA was filled with shoals of big fish like that as far as the eye could sea, I want to cry..And they then thought that the sea would never empty and nature would always make more than we could take. Eish.. Some of the stories I've heard from the old timers would make you want to cry..stories of plett in the old days..oh my..how have we stuffed things up.. In the old days it wasnt a year of this or year of that..it was just relentless shoals of large fish, shoal after shoal...they though it would never end..When I see those huge white stumpnose in the fish tank, I understand the old stories of how in the old days the line boats often never had to leave the harbour in the morning as through the night after getting ready to leave at sunrise, the crew on the boat caught so many big stump at the dock that the boat was already full by sunrise. Until the trawlers arrived in false bay and SA's sardine industry got off the ground, and that was that..Soon, a few years later they had to leave false bay and trawl elsewhere as the endless shoals of sardine, in the bay, eventually were gone..only then did they start to trawl outside the bay..I can count the times on one hand that I have actually seen a shoal of sardines in the bay in my life..Nature tries to regulate itself, then we come along with all our poo, or a big net..or lots of hooks and a careless attitude, the human onslaught..and so it goes..

One just has to look at china, if nature regulated itself against overfishing, then their fleets would not be overfishing the rest of the worlds seas at the moment, but the fact that they are, is indicative that they have already emptied their own waters.

 

[willem wikkel spies]

Interesting views.

Anglers are increasing by the day!
poachers are increasing by the day.

we keep on disposing of our plastic and rubbish in the ocean.

yet we still catch fish.
be it boat anglers.
rock and surf anglers
spearos.

fishing is not catching.

 

[Pylstert]

And the fish are getting less, there is no special control mechanism within nature to stop overfishing.

 

[Marthin]

On a positive note, the number of small gallies caught this winter in areas that are the usual spots where there are always people fishing. I may be naive but i do think the rise in catch and release has some part in the number of small fish we are seeing at the moment. Maybe I was lucky on the days we went out, but seeing my kids catch 14 plus gallies in a day at spots i know are very popular must be a good sign.

The same goes for Musselcracker. The current season at Gourits is truely insane, but here on the downside most of the fish i've seen in photos are being kept. Rean has also reported a multitude of small steenbras being caught in false bay, that should also be seen as a positive.