Cape stumpnose

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.

Larvae and post-larvae recruit into estuaries, where the juveniles grow through their first years before moving out to the coast as adults. That obligate estuarine juvenile phase makes the species a direct indicator of estuary condition — freshwater flow, mouth state and water quality all show up in the year classes.

Spawns at sea, with larvae recruiting into estuaries. The dependence on an open estuary mouth for recruitment is why river abstraction and mouth closure affect the species as much as any fishing pressure, and why South African estuary management treats stumpnose abundance as a signal about the water rather than about the fishery.

Feeds on eelgrass, algae and small hard-shelled invertebrates, crushing them with the molars behind the incisors. In an estuary that means it works eelgrass beds and sand-and-shell flats on the flooding tide. Prawn, small mussel and worm are the effective baits; the fish is not a predator and does not take fish baits with conviction.

Close-range vision in clear shallow estuary water, which makes it markedly wary. A stumpnose in half a metre of clear water over sand can see an angler on the bank, and the practical craft is about staying low and off the skyline rather than about presentation.

Present in the estuaries year-round with numbers rising as juvenile year classes recruit. The practical seasonality is tidal rather than annual: fish move onto the flats on the flood and drop back to the channels on the ebb, and the fishing follows the water.

One of the most commonly caught estuary fish in South Africa and, for many anglers, the first fish they ever catch. It is a light-tackle target rather than a prize, and its real significance is as the species on which estuary craft is learned. A recreational species that may not be sold, at a minimum size and a daily bag limit.

A small fish in warm shallow water, which is a combination that punishes slow handling.

USE SMALL HOOKS AND KEEP THE FISH WET. Warm estuary water holds less oxygen than the sea, so a fish out of it recovers more slowly.

HOLD IT ACROSS THE BACK, not around the belly. The dorsal spines are stiff and sharp but not dangerous.

AND NOTE THE ESTUARY SPEARFISHING BAN. Spearfishing in an estuary is prohibited outright in South Africa, so this fish may only be taken on rod and line there.