Estuaries in South Africa

[thrisss]

safe(ish) to go to

Ja - such is life.... better save then sorry my mom always said, don’t think she was referring to the same topic though....
I will move this topic to the correct thread - can we please carry on discussing it there????

[rory]

He he. I've spoken to the same tackle dealer and got about the same advice In all honesty I speak to the guys fishing conventional to find out whats going down. If they are catching, they can be a mine of info. Somedays the fish just aren't around.
On the issue of safety, my uncle who lives in Port Edward reckons the muggers are for more active in season, but hey safety in numbers or pepper spray!

[bluegill]

In the shallower estuaries floating line has worked well & often we switch to intermediate as well. My favourite is a flipper/gurgler & the Kingfish seems to like this fly & in smaller versions Perch also like it. Chartreuse clousers are also good. The water is sometimes like "tea" with a tannin colour, so darker flies are also very good, dark brown & olive. I have heard of the story of green/chartreuse chenille wrapped over a hook, maybe it imitates algae?

I have heard of guys fishing for Rock salmon/river snapper & being taken by a largemouth bass in some of these closed estuaries!!

I use my #6wt only in the estuaries & have been OK thus far.

I am sure Rory could add more.

Cheers
Alan

[rory]

Unfortunatly I've flogged the surf plenty and hardly done much in the estuaries guys When I fished off Rennies at Port Edward there was plenty movement on the estuary side of the river mouth but the water skiers etc started before I had a chance to cast. Personally I blanked, but a few days later some guys were catching pompano on almost every cast, small orange and white salty buggers. Interesting spot though the mouth changes almost monthly. One year we walked down to the rocks on the other side of Thompsons (past the casino)there was a lovely drop off down the north side but we only had R/S tackle with us.

I still want to try the lagoon at Aunties Bay (Portobello?) at munster, a mate of mine from there says theres lots of nice perch. Can I give you a catch report around December?

[henried]

On March 2, while the rest of drought-stricken northern KwaZulu-Natal welcomed a downpour, a spring tide, rough seas and strong easterly wind caused waves of up to 3,5m to crash through the sandbank that had separated Lake St Lucia from the sea since June 2001.

http://www.businessday.co.za/article...?ID=BD4A407297

[deewy]

Seeing as this is under the conservation department.
Has anyone read the new TCFF? They have a piece on the swartkops in there,what was shocking is the facts that was given there about the mud prawn and bloodworm. There is bait collecters that has a quota to sell mud prawns and the amount off prawns has dwindled to bad numbers.
This is sad cause the fish move away to were the food is...no food,no fish The mudflats that is exposed during low tide gets pumped with prawnpumps and even get dug up with garden forks,just to get to the prawns,shocking I know.

Has anyone else experianced this in other systems? If so,we must make a plan and stand up to these people,what they dont realise is that iff the prawns are finished,they are not going to sell them. Places like swartkops is going to get less and less tourists because they cant fish there,less tourists means less money. Cant they think further then what theyr noses are long.

[harry]

I find it amazing that Kortbroek says that 4x4s will never again be allowed on beaches, while real threats to the ecological well-being of our coast-line, such as the rape of the mud-prawn banks in an estuary, continues unabated. We all know that the prawn population will recover quite rapidly if the indiscriminate harvesting is stopped, but unfortunately the problem does not stop there. Take out the prawns and you destroy one of the primary functions of an estuary, namely that as a nursery for small fish and other marine creatures. Fish populations take much longer to recover and heaven alone knows what will happen if a given fish population falls below what I will call a critical minimum, for want of a better word. Eventually our beaches will be turned into barren deserts anyway and it won't really matter if you dig up the whole place with a 4x4 or quadbike. I suppose this is what you get if you allow a person that knows buggerall of the environment and ecological balance to make critical decisions that will affect what we leave for future generations. So much for sustainability. I wonder if government decision makers really understand what they are doing when political expediency is put before common sense and the evidence of hard science.

Nobody has the right to destroy a critical environmental asset or to allow it to happen, as is the case at the Swartkops River estuary. Not even politicians. I've read the article in the TCFF and it is clear that most of the prawns harvested go to waste anyway. And I'm sure that the economic benefit is actually negligible.

[bluegill]

Durban harbour is very similar. I know you need a licence to pump cracker shrimps/mud prawn but there are the guys that make a living from selling fresh bait & they get to the banks & pump & then sell the bait & they do so illegally as they have no licence.

[oomie]

We need a leader in this discussions as nothing gets done.Whom has the time and the power to try and stop this rape of our Water resources.Personaly I have noticed in the space of say 15 years the decline of not just the size of fish but also the numbers being caught. People do not stick to bag limits or sizes , if there is a run , they just take. I have witnessed 2 anglers pulling out 42 (they had the cheek to tell me)Shad in one session at Port Edward in full view of the Ski-boat club. Most of these were undersized. I approached them and asked them why ? I was told to F-off and mingle in my own business. I then asked the ski-boat club to phone the local parksboard and was told that they wouldnt do anything as they havent got the manpower or funds available to them.Anyways I spoke to a guy living in Port Shepstone whom is a keen flyfisher and he goes out with a fishing paddle ski and fishes against the rocks from behind the waves in good conditions (I think it is in desperation), has picked up Pompano, cob , shad . Fished the rivers and estuary's with no luck.

[deewy]

Hey there has anyone been to the estuaries in natal after the flood waves,they must be opend nicely now and alot off bigger fish should be able to come into the system.