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It’s totally wild down there as GoFish blows it up!

Gofish Cam

It’s totally wild down there as GoFish blows it up!

Gofish Cameras. Totally wild.

When we first reviewed a bunch of underwater recordings shot with GoFish trolling cameras – of fish attack behaviour, that we made out off of the Bazaruto Centre for Scientific Studies recently – some crazy sounds came booming from out of the studio.

More and more gasps and exclamations, hoots and howls from the reviewer – until he crescendoed with an almighty bellow, “COME AND SEE THIS!”

Bull shark on a Mydo trace
Bull shark on a Mydo trace

Myself and Callum Roberts (visiting shark scientist and the reason for us targeting Zambezi Sharks as he completes some serious scientific research work at the BCSS) bounded into his office, only to be exposed to the most eye-widening imagery ever seen by either of us. Mainly Zambezis – the particular troublesome species we have been targeting for spatial monitoring and movement tagging.

But also King Mackerel – reckless and lethal as they were hunting in packs – they operate together. Amazing to see. Even the big ones. And when your livebait starts to panic like it would after a few minutes in these waters, make no mistake your bait is being stalked and charged from all angles. What was amazing is that they turn away so often. It’s about one in ten charges – that the ‘couta actually hits the bait. The pack seems to goad one of them into eventually taking on strike duty. And they all hang around and share the spoils after the striker gets the bait off the trace! Which happened surprisingly often.

The Zambezi’s were the same, as in there was never only one of them. Up to six at a time were recorded happily sitting barely two metres below the propellers, easily keeping pace with us as we dragged a dredge and a bunch of lures around behind us, at quite some speed. Obviously, as we had a strike, it was barely a few seconds and a shark would climb on.

The Cobia acted the same. And often swam with the sharks. In amongst them. Huge fish.

As did the Talang Queenfish we were lucky enough to film off of Paradise Island. We scored an unlucky flying fish that flew onto the boat. About 5 inches long. The trace we had was too heavy for starters, but a bunch of queenfish came in and inspected, mock charged, turning away every time. A custom trace with light nylon would have gotten that strike. But we did get one on spoon, which may show a relationship between strike rate and live baits in the water.

A beautiful Talang Queenfish from the waters near Paradise .Island. Released
A beautiful Talang Queenfish from the waters near Paradise .Island. Released

Yellowfin Tuna, at these initial stages of fish behaviour analyses, have been the most wary and sensible. The bonito and skipjack footage that we recorded in our wake following us – unbelievable. Like an over-stocked aquarium, there were fish everywhere, and going in all directions!

This particular application of video technology to our favorite past time of fishing has potential to completely shift the way we see and treat the ocean and it’s fish. It was far more of a thrill seeing what had happened as recorded and reviewed through the day than actually catching and fighting the fish.

The following video was compiled to study the king mackerel as they come in hot and fast onto the target. You will see that they definitely come in from the flank or rear, and that they go for the tail first. In this clip, one couta actually removes the tail completely with a lightning-fast strike. And then another of the three featuring king mackerel comes in and takes the bait right off the trace. But he hooks himself. And then, in a flash, he just shakes the trace free. All we could see from the boat, was a few dips on the rod tip. The fish never even took drag, since they were coming in for the strike in the general direction of the boat ie towards us! And for sure the camera was always deployed on a real stiff big gun. Tackle just too much for them. We lost quite a few cameras in the end. Sharks and other beeeeg fish we will never know about.

But basically, without the GoFish camera, we would have experienced none of the thrilling wildlife action going on barely a few metres behind the boat. It really has made an effect on us as we now are using this information to make new sfyle traces. But more about that in another article.

All the imagery we attained on our last three weeks of shooting underwater with GoFish cams, has been processed into data and video and is studies. Some of which you can see online at the following links:

From BCSS and WildBlue Expeditions:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=BCSSMZ

You can study predator fish attack behaviour yourself by viewing these files, or by getting ahold of your own GoFish camera or two, at the following link:

GOFISH Cam available online right here!

GoFish cameras available at this link
GoFish cameras available at this link…https://gofishcam.com?rfsn=1302571.0dcdd

Link

We are on Facebook at http://facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

We run a YouTube channel that features a bunch of GoFish camera footage and action. Right here!

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Social: When and how often should I post?

Social networking has changed the way we reach out to people - The Sardine News

Social: When and how often should I post?

Social marketing by The Sardine News

How often and where should I be posting on my social networks? A vital consideration that can make or break your campaigning efforts. Thie questions have been answered by many independent survey people and companies all over the web. This is what I have gleaned from the average of what they all have to say, about when and how often to post to your social networks.

  • Facey: Thursday, Friday and Saturdays are the cooking days for Facey. Earlier in the week, people are more work focused. Posting times are best after or before work hours during the week. Anytime on the weekends.
  • Twitting: Twitter is more rapid fire, but keep same times as Facebook, for best results.
  • Email marketing: It turns out that emails are best sent on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at lunch time and up to 5pm. People generally check email all day, but the bustling mornings produce less opens than the lazy afternoons.
    Note* Tuesdays are the most productive day of the week, after Mondays, for performance in the work place. This performance generally peaks on Tuesday, and dwindles into Friday. Saturdays are quite good, for the unfortunate who have to work on a weekend.

Re-posting

Something none of us do enough of, is re-post. Approximately 4%, yes – 4%, of your followers even see your post once. So you have every right, and even a duty, to re-post your hard work, a few times. For us to enjoy!

Facebook is quite sensitive and I recommend re-posting every morning and evening, for a few days. Then again the next week one or two more days, the next again, and then taper off as a month rolls by. So you could end up posting the same post in the same place up to 10 or 12 times, in it’s first month of deployment.And then, a year later, Facey will probably remind you, that you can post again a few times.It is quite possible that some of your posts will be relevant and contemporary even if written a long while ago. In this time you Groups or Pages, would have collected more Likers and Followers, that never had a chance at seeing your completely cool and relevant post.

Twitter is less sensitive and therefore gave rise to Hootsuite and it’s many auto-posting contemporaries. You could really post and re-post on twitter many times, as the timelines are so fast and so many. Best automate re-posting here.

Google+ and LinkedIn have far slower timelines, and so you need not re-post much at all. Perhaps once a month would almost be too much. You would hate to post one on top of the other – that really looks spammy.

So what does this mean for all of us using the social network platforms to market our business’?

Get posting!

Connect with us on Facebook here…

https://www.facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

or click this for all my social profiles…

elink.io/9132d (Very interesting way of going about it, take a squiz)

 

 

 

 

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Instant Share Branded e-Postcards

Instant Share Branded e-Postcards

Instant Share e-Postcards have been developed for marketers to be able to take full advantage of the immense exposure opportunities exploding within the social networks marketing sphere right now.

Instant Share Branded e-Postcards
Instant Share Branded e-Postcards for thesardine.co.za.

thesardine.co.za is offering a comprehensive social networking campaign built utilising this radical new technology. Known as the Instant Share e-Postcard Campaign, the product can be adapted to many social marketing requirements.

Totally unlike spam, e-postcards are created and shared by punters voluntarily, and then again voluntarily distributed through social to specifically defined and therefore targeted social groups. This means a surfing photograph is extremely likely going to end up on a surfers phone…targeting made possible through the relevance of the content distributed.

Shares are easy as clicking share, and the image is downloadable to a punters device for further distribution by wifi, bluetooth or any other PAN (personal area network). Thereby perpetuating the reach of every photo, which is branded, and leads back to the marketers website(s).

The Sardine can hook you up with a FREE one week trial (includes 50 e-Postcards)…just email some cool artwork to umzimkulu@gmail.com and we will set you a-sailing…

More details are available right here

Other marketing products and services by thesardine.co.za can be checked out right here

Instant Share Branded e-Postcards
Instant Share Branded e-Postcards for Jungle Monkey on the Wild Coast, KZN
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Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za

Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com

Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za

Need more bites?

Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com
Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com Photo by Captain Duarte Rato

thesardine.co.za is a great source of surfing, fishing, diving and environmental news from around Southern Africa. 30 Years ago, The Sardine Newspaper was a printed tabloid reaching 10’s of thousands of avid ocean and outdoor readers. After having been bought and sold a few times, it is now back in full swing as an online newspaper. We have been online for 6 years now, and are growing from strength to strength.

Contributors from all over the southern African area regularly submit news and information relevant to their areas and their businesses. Lodges, charter operations, restaurants, tackle shops, tackle brands, boat and outboard specialists, bands, construction companies, cottages for rent, adventure companies…all with an interest in thesardine.co.za’s content and it’s wide delivery. This increases exposure for our contributors across the board, and is an example of how programmatic marketing works.

A PROGRAMMATIC MARKETING programme consists of the following:

  • a Web 3.0 website
  • an SEO and keyword strategy
  • a content channel and publishing schedule
  • an active database
  • social network integration
  • B2B network integration

“Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za…Surfing, fishing and diving news…from all over Southern Africa. And an SEO and Content Marketing platform that produces great results. For cutting edge PROGRAMMATIC MARKETING for your business, contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com”

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Get Windows 10

Get Windows 10

At three gigabytes, the download can be a problem for anyone with a cap on, but for those with unlimited bandwidth, the upgrade to Windows 10 was painless. The upgrade was staggered in its availability, but slowly the new operating system has been creeping onto every computer it can.

And this is good.

I have been running with the new Windows for two months now, and I am positively impressed. Light years ahead of its idiot predecessors. It handles everything better, and is definitely going to increase your working efficiency, as the finally intelligent explorer module keeps track of your current works, and has them instantly available as opposed the endless “where are my files?” situations of the past.

I have only managed to topple my little computer once since the upgrade, and that was during heavy video compositing work.

I have yet to see a spy in the system, although I believe there is one or two. They probably not even worried about what software we have hacked…not these days.

The programmes that come with Windows ie the photo viewer, and the music player, actually work, and they have close buttons again. Actually, the media player that pops up when I play a file, is simply fantastico. Soooo simple. Neat, and tidy.

So yes, get Windows 10. Right now. It is lighter, much more stable, intuitive, and just so easy! And FREE!

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