Posted on August 4, 2017 by Sean Lange — 1 Comment

FishBazaruto.com is taking Bazaruto 2018 bookings now!

FishBazaruto.com is taking Bazaruto 2018 bookings now!

FishBazaruto.com is taking Bazaruto 2018 bookings now! After another incredible year fishing the waters around the Bazaruto Archipilego, Captain Duarte Rato has opened his booking calendar up for 2018.

Bazaruto 2018 bookings are now open at FishBazaruto. Click to go to the PDF download http://fishbazaruto.com/rates-contact/

Duarte has also opened up the spread with many more options for you to choose from. From the really big and comfort laden Supercat 38’s, to this year Duarte has worked hard on getting smaller boat packages together, that are real affordable. He has broadened his accommodation offerings too.

Vilankulos, where FishBazaruto operates from, is really quite a drive for anybody convinced on taking their own boat all that way up north. And fishing with Duarte and his decades of experience really puts you in right on the action.

Sunrise overlooking the Bazaruto Archipelego

You get to enjoy the Archipilego thoroughly, with Duarte and crew relating historical, geographical and all things fishing regards this most interesting area, and country. All of Duarte’s team really know the place super well, and are first class pros, in big game fishing – and making sure you have a great day out.

Now here’s the thing. 1000 Pounds. The grander. The big momma. She is there. And up for a fight. Black and blue marlin. You can actually choose which to hunt. The bad tempered stripeys also make their rodeo appearances, as do shoals and shoals of willing sailfish. Some big ones, even going over 50!

A few pics from the old days…where release wasn’t as compulsory, as it is nowadays…

Monty Smith and his 1000 pounder caught off Bazaruto in the 70's. These waters are really hardly fished much, compared to anywhere else in the world. It is still wild out there! (c) Bazaruto 2018

The increasing mean size of yellowfin tuna being encountered inshore has rapidly increased lately in KZN waters. They even got a 48 off Durban?! But last season, Duarte shocked everyone with a 72 off the island! Luckily it grabbed ahold of a kona rigged on an 80, and it came home before those dumb sharks got it!

The 72kg yellowfin tuna that has gotten everyone very excited. There were a whole shoal of these things when luckily they hooked up on just this one, and got it out!

And that’s another thing about fishing Baz. It’s wild. Really wild. You might even encounter a dugong. Or a whale shark. A friendly school of dolphins. All sorts of whales. Even orcas.

Fishing out the back of Bazaruto Island gets you in the hot seat for a marlin on plastic, or a 10kg yellowfin to rig and try keep out of trouble until a marley comes along. Wahoo are real mean as they knock the sense out of any live bait rigged that weighs less than 10. The wahoo are huge. And if it ain’t the wahoo, you also have to watch for goliath GT’s that also love to swallow a bonito whole. And then there are the sharks. Nuff said. So back to plastics and hope for that huge big and loud strike.

Seeing these huge fish come charging into the wake at blurry speeds, smashing into a kona, pulling line and then leaping and greyhounding away is what every angler should experience. It’s diabolical. It’s insane. It’s something you need to see and absorb. The power. The grace. The magnificense of it all.

Big black performing off Sailfish Bay, Bazaruto (c) Duarte Rato

Dave Charley hauls while Muki looks on...(c) Duarte Rato

Duarte's Weapons of choice for Bazaruto 2018 season

In bad weather, Bazaruto waters hold another ace. The channels between the islands are clear and deep, and in the completely flat water. Wave action out to sea, and island either side of you, and you can catch king mackerel, sailfish, Natal Snoek – until you are blue. On spinning tackle! Too much fun. And we do end up fishing in these highly technical fishing areas quite a lot. Knowing where and when to find the hot spots and times, is all the fun! There are very many places where, if you pay your 500 Met park fees, you can walk and spin fish for all sorts from kingfish to rock salmon.

Right, there you have it. I could add the islands themselves, the unreal snorkeling in the lukewarm crystal palace water, the palm trees and coconuts, the delightful and unspoilt wetlands and river, the quaint little party town of Vilankulos that recently welcomed Sylvester Stallone, Jeremy Clarkson and his little mate…and back in the days…The Kennedys, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and host of other stars. The Donna Anna, the hotel in which they partied, which has been restored to a level of glory, and yes you’ll go there too!

You can get the ball rolling and get in touch with the team at FishBazaruto at his website link below:

http://fishbazaruto.com

You can go directly to the Rate Card PDF download page here:

Rates & Contact Fishbazaruto

Bazaruto 2018 Rates and Contact

Posted on August 2, 2017August 2, 2017 by Sean Lange — 2 Comments

Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban

Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban

Caught in the shark nets. It happens all the time. Dolphins. Whales. Turtles. Even huge kob and couta. Fall victim to the indiscriminate slaughter with gill nets. Randomly executed by the Kwazulu Natal Sharks Board.

And this beautiful young black marlin is also now dead too. All for what? There are so many practical measures you can put in to effect, other than gill netting, to curb shark/human interactions. If you look closely, there is a bite mark amidships the marlin’s body. This is how more and more animals get caught up and die. Feeding on fish already trapped in the suffocating nets. These nets kill thousands each year. Meshed by professional crews with top notch killing equipment. Always with new boats, outboards and land cruisers. Petrol. In 1990, these guys had 44.4 km of gillnets covering 14% of the 326km coastline, between Richards Bay and Mzamba. Can you believe that?

Their annual average catch between 2009 and 2014 was a good 441 sharks killed per year. They kill an average of 26 Great Whites. And it’s very difficult to find out how many dolphins and other cetaceans are killed. Turtles. Fish…

And there are a host of players out there nowadays, selling all sorts of technological solutions, that can be applied at any beach. Any surf spot. At a fraction of the cost.

For many years, we have campaigned against shark nets. And there was light at the end of the tunnel with shark POD technology developed in co-operation with the bungling Natal Sharks Board. They stopped the distribution under their own directive in 2001. And stuck with the murderous gill nets.

Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban. It takes four bungling government entities for this to happen. Thanks to Chris Leppan of Umhlanga, who put this on our desk.

Here is a list of the shark protection devices, that cost a marginal tiny amount of what it costs to kill sharks at a beach for one year. The beaches could ALL be equipped with these devices, and even given out freely for the public to use (with an ID Card of course). Or even rented. The money that the bloated Natal Sharks Board and the failing Ezimvelo uses, could absorb these costs from savings by pulling out the nets and meshing teams.

https://sharkshield.com/

http://www.sharkprotection.com.au/

And a very cool video showing the results of extensive testing done with the infamous Great White Shark…by Shark Shield. It CLEARLY is the way to go.

There are many more products now using the exact same principles and technology that the Natal Parks Board could have harnessed all those years ago. There have been many attacks in this time. That, if they could have been avoided by implementing these breakthrough technologies, are squarely the fault of the Natal Sharks Board.

Sonar instead of shark nets

Then when we realised the beaurocratic mess the board was tied up in, we tried to help. We proposed rigging beaches with off the shelf sonar equipment rather. Fish finders. Feed this data back to a control station, and we can eliminate human shark encounters by monitoring for big animals and alerting the bather public with flag signals and alarms. It never went forward like the rest of the world did. They had this information more than a decade back and refused to use it.

Enter the Clever Buoy. Here is a special device that uses sonar technology and can easily detect sharks in order to operate early warning systems. The system is already deployed extensively and is a proven way to protect humans and sharks at the same time.

We presented the exact technology to the Natal Sharks Board over a decade ago. Extensive research and presentations. Went through many unfruitful meetings. Were eventually sidelined. And this technology too was lost to the Australians.

The latest chapter in the future of our marine life is that the KZN clown show are attempting to marry the two failing organisations – the Natal Parks Board, and Ezimvelo. The scandals within Ezimvelo are enough to run a soap opera with. And the fact that the abominable Natal Sharks Board, an illegal organisation that operates exactly like a fishery, gill nets, licenses, and all, is beyond me. Wood for the trees. But they also can’t keep up with their expenses.

Now we have DAFF taking Ezimvelos job too. The main players in the debacle are 1. the KZN Government to start with, 2. the Government Department doing the job of the 3. Government Organisation that is supposed to protect the sharks and the 4. Government Organisation that is supposed to kill the very same sharks – all in the same series!

Stay on this channel!

More articles with more facts about the Kwazulu Natal Sharks Board and their R60 million or more budget are right here…

https://thesardine.co.za/2015/06/01/why-the-natal-sharks-board-lies-all-the-time/

https://thesardine.co.za/2015/07/20/how-to-stop-the-natal-sharks-board-from-killing-our-sharks/

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Sean Lange — 1 Comment

DAFF removes illegal drive-by fish market at Hibberdene quickly and effectively

DAFF removes illegal drive-by fish market at Hibberdene quickly and effectively

It never took a day. Following procedure, we called the Senior Marine Inspector for DAFF, Mr. Bongani Pitoyi, to alert DAFF of the illegal (and dangerous) highway fish market in Hibberdene. There were literally a hundred of these poachers. Scattered all around the N2 and R102 interchange. Bunches of crayfish. And none of the shad were looking legal sized at all.

We had made a late call to Bongani, we were on our way home after a long day of sardine patrol. And so the very next morning we set out, nice on early, back on our beat. They were gone! None left. We verified this the next day. And the next.

But if we had not called Bongani up, they would still have been there. And this is the thing. DAFF are really understaffed. Spread thinly over hundreds of kilometres of coastline zones. They cannot afford, or do not have the means, to be everywhere at once. Even Ezimvelo could’nt do that.

But we can. In our individual capacities, all armed with cellphone cameras – we can form the network required for DAFF to do it’s job effectively.

In Umkomaas, the good guys there that patrol the Umkomaas Estuary system and surrounding rivers, (Emil Pirzenthal and George Snodey are ring leaders), work with DAFF and the police to continually fight the war on nets going on there right now. Nets are somehow getting down the KZN coast and wreaking untold havoc on our already maimed estuaries. Without these guys being activists, thousands upon thousands more fish would have been killed. For the angler in you, the Oxe-Eye Tarpon, a coveted and rare catch for any sportfisher, were discovered in the nets. Some were rescued, many not. But get on down to the Umkomaas with your fly-rod, and keep an eye out for suspicious activity at the same time.

This is the point. We are everywhere, all the time.

Just as Apple iPhones all have built in barometers, and can feed weather data back to a server for processing in real time – we can feed back poacher data to DAFF. They can then direct resources to the particular problem, as they did in Hibberdene, and sort the problem out.

Complaining and whining about how many shad were destroyed this year, carried off the beach in buckets, is not going to help.

If you witness such a travesty, call the team at DAFF!

DAFF Contact Details

The DAFF vessel operating in our area – The Ruth First, is usually off the Transkei. Their number is 079 773 6514 and Inspector Teyise is on board right now. These are the crew to report suspicious fishing vessel activity to
Our contact, Senior Marine Conservation Inspector Mr. Bongani Pitoyi is on 071 765 2533, and is extremely helpful and effective on all matters big and small
Another number you can call is Deputy Director Mr Moshani on 076 780 5049

Read about Trawler Watch here.

As a tailend, we would just like to highlight the fact that not one person has called in a suspicious trawler, since Robbie van Wijk nailed one off Mdumbi two whole months ago. Perhaps the presence of the Ruth First and the Sarah Baardman has actually kept the foreign plunderers away. And that is why we are getting sardines through this year, all the way to Durban? Thanks to Robbie! Our devout and deep undercover sardine spy way down in Mdumbi. And DAFF of course.

Could be.

Posted on July 31, 2017September 4, 2017 by Sean Lange — Leave a comment

Getting ready for Spring fishing season with Fishings Finest

Getting ready for Spring fishing season with Fishings Finest

Get ready for spring 2017!

Rio Mainstream – R695 Xplorer Artisan Net – R795

New Salmo Warrior SX – R325 New Salmo Sweeper SX – R315

Rapala Combo – R350 Rapala Mini Plier & Side Cutter – R325

Pelagic Ambush Boardshorts – R950 Pelagic Eclipse Guide Shirt -R995

Shimano Metanium – R5,495 Shimano Aldebaran – R5,495

Shimano Polarized Sunglasses R695

Shimano Shoulder Bag – R375 Shimano Cooler Box – R2,395

Shimano Technium – R1,795 Shimano Trevala S – R1,995

Shimano Stella – R11,995 Shimano Twin Power – R 8,295

Mydo Livebaitswimmer – R115 Mydo SS Lanispoon – R75

Afri G – R95 Tigerwakka – R170

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Sean Lange — 1 Comment

27 July Sardine Report: Sardines are still moving north

27 July Sardine Report from Ifafa Beach on the KZN Lower South Coast

27 July Sardine Report: Sardines are still moving north

Spending some time on the beat between Scottburgh and Sheppy was an eye opener. Although we never encountered any solid shoals of sardines, we did encounter plenty action and tell-tale signs.

Off Ifafa, the gamefish were boiling on the backline. And whilst we were checking it all out, a brace of huge couta left the water one after the other, in gigantic parabolas. An amazing spectacle to anyone who has seen them breach like this. The story goes that when they can be seen so high in the air – 20 metres sometimes – the are hugging the bottom and hunting up into the light, which silhouettes prey perfectly against the surface. When they spot their target, they accelerate upwards off the bottom to huge speeds – slicing their hapless victims into pieces as their super sharp teeth do the work. And flying clear up towards space at blistering speed. Somehow the couta always get the parabola perfect and level their bodies out at the top of their inverted dive through the sky. And then disappear back into the blue with barely a splash.

Then it was the whales’ turn to perform. It’s odd to note that at this time of the year, many whales are just sitting tight, and not moving north or south. And this is what we did see. Whales swimming in circles, and staying in the same place for ages.

Then the birds turned on their act. Gannets and Terns wheeling and diving. Coming up every time with a wriggling sardine. The sardines were there, visible, but scattered all over the place – as if the predators were wreaking havoc with them and sending them into disarray.

And then unbelievably, we came across a DAFF vehicle, with two inspectors. Who duly requested our fishing licenses. We had a nice chat, and pledged our co-operation and assistance in the new job they have taken from the highly effective Ezimvelo. They are admittedly out of their depths, and have made some of the most basic mistakes and errors already – making it even more difficult to build beach credibility. We reassured them we would be there to help.

And so we headed south again, only to come across a fully fledged freshly poached seafood market – right on the highway. Drive-by shad and crayfish by the dozen! The Hibberdene interchange must have had 30 individuals on the hussle for ignorants to buy their illegal wares. And so we have sent DAFF a photo as evidence, and now to see how they handle this situation.

High speed drive by photograph taken just shy of the Hibberdene offramp coming from Durban, — High speed drive by photograph taken just shy of the Hibberdene off ramp coming from Durban – shad and crayfish for sale all over the area.

Remember to please report any suspicious activity to the newly ordained DAFF people.

Numbers:

079 773 6514 for Inspector Teyise who is at sea most times, on trawler patrol
Senior Marine Conservation Inspector Mr. Bongani Pitoyi is on 071 765 2533, and is extremely helpful.
Deputy Director Mr Moshani on 076 780 5049

Read about trawler watch here.

The 2017 Sardine Report was brought to you by Pelagic Fishing Gear distributed online and in Pretoria by http://fishingsfinest.co.za

FishBazaruto.com is taking Bazaruto 2018 bookings now!

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Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban

Sonar instead of shark nets

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DAFF removes illegal drive-by fish market at Hibberdene quickly and effectively

DAFF Contact Details

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Getting ready for Spring fishing season with Fishings Finest

Get ready for spring 2017!

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27 July Sardine Report: Sardines are still moving north

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