Dr halibut hoffman
Moderator
I have written to the publishers who should own the publishing rights to Biden's "Sea Angling fishes of the cape" and never received a response and by my research the book which is out of print should be older than the copyright extends for so I will as soon as I get chance start a thread with the contents of the book scanned in for everyone to read and understand what we have lost. The stories of tunny sound like fiction! If anyone has any objections, here is your chance to object, I will not post in a PDF format but post it in image files out of respect for the publisher as it will be easier to read online than to download.
Anyway the SBT stock is slowly rebuilding..in the times of before the stock collapse you could catch them from the side in hermanus. LOL. Reports of small fish (30lb class) in old days apparently could also be atlantic blackfin tuna which was positively ID'd once form false bay or surrounds. That local stock wiped out long ago. There are reports from knowledgeable folk of shoals of SBT of 500lb and shoals of yellowfin of 400-600lb a century ago and as far as we know the YF only get half that size at best so who knows what used to swim around our ocean!!!
The entire stock of SBT spawn in one large bay between NW Auz and indonesia and was wiped out in days past by netting the spawning stock there along with the big eye and their babies..They are appearing offshore more and more, only the large adults at the moment. They take twice as long to grow as YF but live twice as long or more and get twice the size..
https://www.daff.gov.za/docs/media/Media%20Alert%20on%20hosting%20of%20annual%20CCSBT%20Meetings.pdf
""SBT is one of the world’s high value fish species and its primary market is the Japanese Sashimi market. Subject to the high fat content of SBT flesh, premium prices are obtained in the Japanese Sashimi market. South Africa’s SBT allocation for the 2018-2020 fishing seasons is 450 tons.
The SBT stock is in a rebuilding phase and the 2017 assessment indicated that the stock’s spawning biomass level was about 13% of the initial spawning biomass. This is a significant improvement compared to the 5% level that the SBT stock was assessed to be at in 2011. The interim rebuilding target of 20% will likely be met long before the target year of 2035. The rebuilding of the stock has been guided by the CCSBT’s Management Procedure (MP), which is due to be replaced in 2020.""
Anyway the SBT stock is slowly rebuilding..in the times of before the stock collapse you could catch them from the side in hermanus. LOL. Reports of small fish (30lb class) in old days apparently could also be atlantic blackfin tuna which was positively ID'd once form false bay or surrounds. That local stock wiped out long ago. There are reports from knowledgeable folk of shoals of SBT of 500lb and shoals of yellowfin of 400-600lb a century ago and as far as we know the YF only get half that size at best so who knows what used to swim around our ocean!!!
The entire stock of SBT spawn in one large bay between NW Auz and indonesia and was wiped out in days past by netting the spawning stock there along with the big eye and their babies..They are appearing offshore more and more, only the large adults at the moment. They take twice as long to grow as YF but live twice as long or more and get twice the size..
https://www.daff.gov.za/docs/media/Media%20Alert%20on%20hosting%20of%20annual%20CCSBT%20Meetings.pdf
""SBT is one of the world’s high value fish species and its primary market is the Japanese Sashimi market. Subject to the high fat content of SBT flesh, premium prices are obtained in the Japanese Sashimi market. South Africa’s SBT allocation for the 2018-2020 fishing seasons is 450 tons.
The SBT stock is in a rebuilding phase and the 2017 assessment indicated that the stock’s spawning biomass level was about 13% of the initial spawning biomass. This is a significant improvement compared to the 5% level that the SBT stock was assessed to be at in 2011. The interim rebuilding target of 20% will likely be met long before the target year of 2035. The rebuilding of the stock has been guided by the CCSBT’s Management Procedure (MP), which is due to be replaced in 2020.""