Government rolls out new fishing rights allocation

I read two interesting articles last week. The first was about local anglers not having been notified of the new fishing rights allocation process being rolled out by government. The fishing rights allocation determines the species and number of fish that can legally be caught and the areas where these permit holders are allowed to fish. Subsistence anglers fall into this category and they are asking for increased fishing quotas and access to more fishing areas. They are saying that fish migrate so they want to be able to follow the fish as they move up and down the coast. One of the ‘rights’ as they call it, is to increase the bag limit on shad be increased from four fish to a maximum of ten fish per day. When the catch limit was first introduced years ago, a bag limit of ten fish was imposed, but as many anglers disregarded these fish stocks remained under pressure. The limit was dropped to five fish and later to the current limit of four. These people say that they are aware of conservation, but want to be free as they were in the past. It is widely known that whatever size and catch limits are set, there will be those who will totally ignore these – just look at how many shad are currently sold to the public illegally.

The second article was about the Eastern Cape anglers wanting the ban on catching red steenbras lifted. This ban was instituted after many years of research on the decline of this species. The anglers are asking to be allowed to catch at least one copper a day, but I doubt if this will happen as they appear on the endangered species list. I get the impression that as the amount of unemployed people increase, some of them think that they can turn to fishing to earn some sort of living.

After a bit of a bad start to last week, Tuesday and Wednesday turned out to be great days for fishing before the cold front moved up the coast bringing with it strong winds and bad seas. It was a pity because the surf angling was improving nicely on the days that the weather held and a few decent sized shad were caught by those who have been persevering. The fish first came on the bite at Glenashley at the weekend with the first three days of last week seeing a few decent fish caught locally. so I am sure that the fish will be back on the bite as the sea settles.

At the time of writing this column, another cold front has moved over the Cape so some more bad weather can be expected mid-week. This should shake things up, getting the shoals of sardines to move Northward, in turn bringing the shad, garrick and salmon with them.

I heard during the week that a couple of local anglers fishing in the Chaka’s Rock and Salt Rock areas have had some nice pulls on live baits but have not landed any fish but they think that a couple of these pulls could have been from garrick or large skates.

Sealice