Which means, according to south coast folklore, two weeks ’til sardines. But the very warm water, hovering around 24 degrees, is likely to keep the sards away.
One thing it definitely means is…big surf…check out Uvongo yesterday…at 8ft plus yesterday.
In a wierd twist within the Osearch Shark Tracking story we started to follow last week, one of the tagged Great White Sharks was caught and killed by the Natal Sharks Board at none other than our favourite surfing beach – Sunwich Port, down here on the south coast of Kwazulu Natal!
The beautiful fish weighed 300 odd kilograms and was taken to the NSB headquarters in Umhlanga for analysis and whatever else they do to the carcasses there.
The shark took a drum line bait and must have died a horrible and gruesome death…much like a snared wild animal poached in a game reserve.
The Natal Sharks Board have systematically decimated the local shark population of Zambezi, Tiger and other sharks here on the KZN south coast and unfortunately, pelagic sharks like Great Whites also fall prey to their killing methods.
Drum lines are a move towards lessening their indiscriminate impact on the environment…but gill nets are still deployed up and down the beautiful Kwazulu Natal South Coast. These gill nets have been killing dolphins, turtles, rays, sharks (lethal and non-lethal) and other forms of marine life like whales for the better part of half a century now.
A bureaucratic organization – funded by municipalities and the tax payer…the Natal Sharks Board and it’s staff and management can be credited with the most cruel ocean animal killings imaginable.
All to protect the tourist dollar as inland punters flock to the Kwazulu Natal coastline each school holiday.
The shark nets do not cordon off a beach from sharks at all – many, if not most sharks are caught on their way back out to sea…on the inside side of the nets. What the nets and drum lines do is reduce the local population of lethal sharks in an area…seriously unbalancing the ecology in that immediate area.
Twisting the story even further…another shark attack was recorded at Port St Johns, down the coast in the Transkei. Port St. Johns has the highest incidence of shark attacks in the world.
Solutions? Many solutions to the shark attack problem are available. Shark spotters are deployed in the clear waters of the Cape…sonar has been proposed to the NSB as a monitoring system in dirtier waters of KZN, but was ignored completely…
Observation and avoidance using technology would far outweigh simple killing and eradication.
Check out the Osearch project here…https://thesardine.co.za/?p=1153
Up in Southern Mozambique, and right down the coast into Southern Natal, the seasonal “Dorado” are coming out regularly. Local boats in Tofo are getting 4’s and 5’s interspersed with the usual small couta and the odd sailfish. Yesterday Jose Rungu hooked a big marlin that towed him and his rowboat around the bay for a few hours.
In the photo…Alan Ngobo and Themba hold up their catch, made off the Umzimkulu River mouth area.
Because they are so delicious, cooked any way you prefer, seafood chefs worldwide refer to Dorado as The “Chicken of the Sea”. It also goes by the name “Dolphinfish”…and in the Pacific – “Mahi Mahi”.
Keith Cooke and Jose Rungu joined me on a hunt out deep yesterday. We were searching for a yellowfin for bait when after 2 hours a rod screamed and a yellowfin it was. But a big one (for these waters) gave us the gears, tangling everything in the rough seas and strong wind. And certainly too big for bait.
But there was no sign of the 5kg bait size tuna that have been so prolific lately. And not a bird in sight. Unless you count tunny ducks (Gannets) diving into the depths after the sardines and another baitfish around the Barra mouth area.
Then on our way into the shallows to try for a couta, a dorado jumped on a black feather at the back of a daisy chain. Jose Rungu made short of work of it and as got into 5m of water, we got our couta!
