John Brown

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 shallow-reef endemic of moderate size, less studied than the commercially important species around it. Its daily bag limit with no minimum size places it among the abundant recreational species rather than the pressured endemics.

Spawns inshore over reef with pelagic eggs and larvae. Reproductive detail for the species is thin, which is a straightforward consequence of it having no commercial fishery to fund the study.

A browser on weed, small invertebrates and worms picked from shallow reef, using the backward-curving incisors to crop rather than crush. Small baits, light line and the same approach as bronze bream and hottentot.

Close-range vision and taste over shallow reef in clear water, which makes it moderately cautious in the way browsing sparids generally are — it inspects a bait rather than committing to it, and light traces and small hooks catch it where heavy ones do not.

Resident on shallow reef year-round with no migration to plan around, so availability is set by whether the ledge is fishable rather than by the calendar. Fish move between gullies with swell and food but stay within the same shallow rocky ground.

A common shallow-reef capture from shore and by divers, taken on light tackle alongside bronze bream, blacktail and zebra. It is a recreational species that may not be sold, at a daily bag limit with no minimum size. Its practical significance here is as part of the South African name layer: nobody searches for the binomial, and everybody who catches one searches for John Brown.

Straightforward. Small hooks, wet hands, hold across the back, quick return into the water rather than at it. The incisors are sharp and the dorsal spines stiff; neither is dangerous.