Durban 7 AM Sardine Report 13 June 2024 by Adam Kamdar
Durban 7 AM Sardine Report 13 June 2024 by Adam Kamdar: Adam Kamdar of Township Hyper is right on the scene and kindly delivered us this early bird sardine report.
Over to Adam…
“Good morning, this is the Durban beachfront, just before sunrise on the 13th of June 2024. This time of the year that we start to look out at sea, looking for those dark patches, which indicates sardines. We look for the diving cormorants. I see nothing around today. There are a few dark patches, but they are just the swell that’s coming.
That’s coming through. Lovely conditions on the Durban Beachfront. Light offshore wind. Swell is getting a bit of shape. Great conditions for netting but, uh, no indications of the sardines just yet.
I’d say keep your eyes peeled. Definitely by Father’s Day we’ll have some Beachfront. Back to you, Sean”
Thank you Adam for today’s AM Sardine Report from the mesmerisingly beautiful Durban Beachfront.
Sardines in Durban Tomorrow? The blitz that the sardines are on this year has been impressive. They came out of the starting gates on time and in sync. But then something happened that had them accelerate and cover the entire Transkei south to north, in less than a week to a few days.
This happened during the tornado-inducing cut-off low-pressure storm we had last week. The sardines must have slipped out to sea. Found favourable swell and water conditions out there. And put pedal to the metal.
Over to Kevin Tuohy in Qora…
Scottburgh
From early, Scottburgh Beach has been buzzing with sardine activity. Nets went in and sardines were for sale on the main drag before 8 AM!
Umgababa
This hot spot continued to deliver today. This morning nets went in and came out full up.
Freeland Park
This is lovely long beach that is perfectly suited to sardines and catching them. Nets were going in at around 1 PM. There are sure to be many more nets going in this afternoon. Some sardines have made it to Brighton and Ansteys Beach already. They are far out but tomorrow is a great bet for Durban Beach Front.
In from of the Cutty Sark, the sharks were putting on a spectacular show again.
Brighton Beach
Better known as Cave Rock, out off the tidal pool at 2 PM or so today, thousands of feeding gannets were busy annihilating these first few pilot shoals swimming past. The way that these pilot shoals got all the way to The Bluff so quickly and efficiently certainly will go down in history as some sort of record.
Durban Tomorrow
There is little doubt that the sardines will be on the Durban beachfront tomorrow morning. They might even be there this afternoon!
Sardines at Scottburgh and How They Got Here by Kevin in Qora
Sardines at Scottburgh and How They Got Here by Kevin in Qora: big thank you to Kevin for today’s early report. More to follow this afternoon.
Over to Kevin…
Morning everyone. This is Kevin at Qora Mouth, just north of Mazepa Bay in the southern Transkei. Well it’s morning here and I think, you know, with the amount of people that are chasing the sardines, obviously not the netters, the netters are right on point, they know exactly where they’re going to be based on the progress that they’re making up the coast.
But I think there’s a lot of the general public that would love to just Experience the sardine run and we’re getting a lot of requests asking where they’re going to be and how fast are they moving. So we’re just going to quickly do a quick little summary this morning just to show you guys the movement and we can from our schematic.
You can see that. Generally from the 7th of June the Sardines arrived in the, on the KZN coast and it’s now the 12th of June and we have confirmed a net is coming out at Scottborough today. So yeah, guys no need to drive around aimlessly and get very frustrated and disappointed. You can definitely head down towards the Scottborough area.
Even a little bit south of that, there’s still going to be lingering shoals down there. What happens on the south coast of KZN is that most of your predators are going to be sharks, and those sharks are having a feast. And what they do is the sharks come in from deeper water, and they start attacking the shoal from the seaside.
And so that drives that shoal closer and closer into the shore. So like when we had at Sezela. The sardines actually were right on the beach, right on the shore break. And that’s gonna happen now the whole way up through KZN, cause major predatory activity. So yeah guys go and, go and have a look. Go and see what’s going on.
But no need to drive around aimlessly. Follow our schematic daily and we’ll keep you up to date where they are. Have some fun, but like we’ve said before, please, please, please give the netters space to do what they’re doing. As we’ve seen with the tragic accident that happened this week, what they’re doing is not only vital for their own livelihood and for the fishing and, uh, food industry, which is where these sardines are absorbed into.
It’s also extremely dangerous what they’re doing. Even those nets on the beach, they contain sharks. The net itself is extremely dangerous because it’s still in the shore break and you don’t want to get your leg or part of you trapped by that net. So just stay away, observe from a distance and good luck.
Hope you guys find the sards and get to experience sardine fever. Okay, that’s all I got for now. We’ll chat later on today. Cheers chaps.
Sardine Results – what now? 3 June 2024 Report by Kevin in Qora
Sardine Results – what now? 3 June 2024 Report by Kevin in Qora: Kevin in Qora lays out our prospects of sardine run action for this week, the first week of June 2024.
Over to Kevin…
“Morning chaps, this is Kevin reporting from Qora Mouth, just north of Mazepa Bay on Southern Transkei. Well, that was certainly an interesting couple of days as this front moved through and was dominated by a cut off low which kept it sitting right over the coast. Very unseasonable rain, but we got about 120 millimeters down here at the coast, which we’re very thankful for because as far as the sardines and how this is going to affect them I think we have to look at a couple of factors.
The first one obviously being dirty water. The River, which is our river, has a very limited catchment area. It only stretches about 70 to 80 kilometers inland. So that water comes through to the estuaries extremely fast, and normally within one or two tide cycles it’s flushed out already, and it dissipates in the southerly current.
But we do have two major rivers in the Transkei, the southern Transkei. Which are the Kei River and the Mbashi River. Both of those have extremely large catchment areas. The Mbashi River starts somewhere way up in Lesotho near Tifindels and the Kei River goes equally far inland. So it’s going to take a couple days for those catchment areas to filter into the river and then for that water to actually reach the coast.
So I’m going to give it let’s say 72 hours. And then we’ll have a much better idea of what the water quality is going to be like in the inshore region. Second factor that’s definitely affects the movement of the sardines is the swell and the swell direction. We’ve had a sustained wind of 18 meters a second, which translates to about 70 kilometers an hour.
And it was a straight southeaster. Which means it came straight in off the ocean. And that’s evident today in about a 46 meter swell breaking. It’s breaking about a kilometer out to sea. And it’s definitely overridden the predominant south swell that was running. And so we’re going to have to wait for this to dissipate a little bit.
But just being a localized swell it will dissipate extremely fast and the south swell will dominate again over the next 24 to 48 hours. So that that will help the sardines to get moving again. The other factor is, that’s very important right now, is that the southeasterly swell has caused a huge upwelling of ice cold water.
There was a mist on the water this morning and I went and tested it. And it’s running at just below 14 degrees. So lovely temperature water for the sods to get moving in. So I’m going to say over the next 48 to 72 hours we should see major movement of the sardines depending on what the water color looks like once the larger catchment areas kind of send their water to the coast.
So anyway, Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the big shoals that were moving through prior to this front get up and go again. Cool, that’s all I got for now. I’ll keep you updated as things change. Cheers.”
Thank you Kevin, we are all on the edge of our seats about these damn sardines! And the ruddy weather!When’s it gonna stop?!
Kevin in Qora Flabbergasted by HUGE Shoal of Sardines TODAY 30 May 2024
Kevin in Qora Flabbergasted by HUGE Shoal of Sardines TODAY 30 May 2024: listen to this very exciting voice note from Kevin in Qora as he reports being flabbergasted by the size of the shoal of sardines out front of his cottage in Qora today.
Words like motherload and early season show the severity of Kevin’s sardine fever-laden report. Makes me want to jump in a vehicle and head south right now!
? “Morning, everyone. This is Kevin from Qora Mouth. Just north of Mazepa Bay in the southern Transkei. Well, we’ve had those pilot shoals that came through over the last couple weeks. Which was a very good indicator that we’re going to have a wonderful sardine run again then we had a bit of a hold-up where sardines washed up in Haga Haga and we heard of a bigger shoal that was off of Sinsa And the water had warmed up a bit.
So that’s why I think that that shoal got held up and Now, today, there are literally thousands of birds out in front of me. I’m also seeing lots of predator activity whales breaching and I wouldn’t say it’s a super pod of dolphins, but plenty, plenty dolphin activity. But I’m talking thousands of birds stretched over probably a two-kilometer stretch lots of separate diving action So, what I’m going to say now is that this is a much larger shoal.
This just isn’t a little pilot shoal fractured off. This is something big. And being end of May, this is extremely unusual, but This is Big Chaps coming through here now, unfortunately my iPhone camera doesn’t do much justice to action that’s a couple kilometers out same as taking a full moon photo and all you see is a little yellow dot in the sky, but The evidence is here right in front of me.
It’s a very, very big shawl movement. I mean, this is on par with like the mother load that comes once a year and it’s way too early for the mother load unless it is the mother load. I don’t know. But Yeah, all I can say is I’m actually sitting here flabbergasted by the amount of activity and feeding going on.
I mean, I can’t even reiterate it more. Thousands and thousands of gannets big rafts everywhere where they’ve gorged themselves full and just others taking to the wing and diving. It’s just, you know, 20, 30 peeling off at a time, boiling the water. So yeah, this is good. This is good. Let’s see how fast they move.
This is the kind of shoal that definitely will reach KZN. So, yeah, keep your fingers crossed. Port St. John’s is the next port of call. There’s not much between here and there. There is Navaja where there’s some cottages. But it’s generally a quiet area, so the next major sighting and confirmation of this shoal is going to be Port St.
John’s Coffee Bay area, and that depending on how fast they move, let’s say we give them five to six days to get to Port St. John’s. But this is a big one. Cool buzz. Over and out. I’ll keep you updated. Cheers.”
Port St Johns
Is the next major port-of-call is gonna be Port St Johns. However, our sardine spies in Mdumbi might be up for some excitement this afternoon and in the morning.
The fishing has been rocking in Port St Johns the last few days.
Shoal sized kob on paddletail near Port St Johns
KZN
Fishing in KZN water and other nearby spots however has been dismal. When the sardines shoal northwards from the deep south like this, it causes chaos with the local fish populations. They also follow the food around the place.
Even the shad have been really slow up in KZN.
The exception being the couta up on the north coast at the moment. They are also here for the sardines but don’t dig the cold water down south at all. Port Edward is roughly their southern limit. And at the limits of the couta’s range here like this, these are the big fish. Only the really big couta make it this far south.
All if these fish were caught down that way, over the years…during the sardine season.
Louis Posthumous and team have been using Mydos for decades. Port Edward.Another huge couta catch down on the KZN South CoastAnd a beautiful healthy looking 28kg crocodile couta by Mark SnymanMark Snyman in Port EdwardKing Mackerel – 8 of, plus a hefty GTKarine van Rensburg of MYDO gives us some perspective standing next to Andre Laubschers magnificent 36.9kg ‘Couta taken off Port Edward
