Bigeye trevally

SOUTH AFRICA REGULATES SEA FISHING SPECIES BY SPECIES, WHICH IS NOT HOW MOST COUNTRIES DO IT.

A recreational permit is the entry ticket and not the whole of it. On top of it sits a minimum size and a daily bag limit SET PER FISH, a closed season on a small number of species, and a cumulative daily cap across everything caught — so being inside the limit for each species separately does not put you inside the limit overall.

THERE IS A CAP ON HOOKS on a rod-and-line permit. A spearfishing permit is separate, allows no breathing apparatus beyond a snorkel, and PROHIBITS SPEARFISHING IN AN ESTUARY — a flat ban rather than a limit, and the rule visitors most often do not know.

A LANDED FISH MUST KEEP ITS HEAD AND TAIL so its length can be checked. Nothing caught on a recreational permit may be sold by anyone. And a small list of species may not be caught, landed or possessed at all.

FISHINGHQ DOES NOT PRINT THE FIGURES, and the reason is on this page rather than in a policy document: the department's own guidance says adjustments may be forthcoming given the acknowledged crisis of linefish, the numbers differ by species and by area and by whether you were standing on a beach or sitting in a boat, and a stale figure on a fishing site is worse than no figure at all. Get the current position from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, and get the protected-area position from whichever body manages the stretch of coast you are on.

A moderately long-lived trevally aged to about eleven years, using estuarine and sheltered inshore habitat as a juvenile and moving to reef and open coastal water as an adult. Its tolerance of fresh and brackish water is unusual for a large carangid and is what puts it within reach of estuary and harbour anglers.

Spawns in coastal water with pelagic eggs and larvae, with juveniles recruiting into estuaries and sheltered inshore habitat. The species aggregates in large numbers, and the daytime shoals that divers photograph are a social rather than a reproductive behaviour for most of the year.

A nocturnal pursuit predator on fish and crustaceans. Bigeye trevally shoal densely and largely inactively during the day and disperse at dusk to hunt individually or in small groups. That is the single most useful fact for an angler: the daytime shoal is very hard to catch and the same fish at last light is aggressive.

Vision, adapted for low light — the large eye is the adaptation. It hunts effectively at dusk, at night and around artificial light, which is why lit harbour walls, bridges and jetties on the KwaZulu-Natal coast are productive marks for it after dark.

Present year-round on the warm east coast, with numbers and size varying with water temperature and bait availability. The strong pattern is daily rather than seasonal: shoaled and uninterested through the day, dispersed and hunting from dusk.

One of the best light-tackle targets on the South African east coast and unusually accessible for a large trevally, because it enters estuaries, harbours and river mouths. It is caught on lures, flies and live bait, and it fishes best at dusk and after dark. Kingfishes are regulated as a group — Caranx and Carangoides species — at a daily bag limit with no minimum size.

A hard-fighting fish that is almost always released, in warm water that gives it little margin.

DO NOT LIFT IT VERTICALLY BY THE JAW. A trevally's weight hung on its jaw does structural damage; support the body.

GIVE IT TIME. Hold it head-into a current until it swims off. A trevally released the moment it is unhooked frequently rolls over and drifts.

SINGLE HOOKS ON LURES, crushed barbs, and a de-hooker.

KEEP IT OUT OF WARM DRY SAND OR OFF A HOT DECK, both of which strip the mucus coat.