Largespot pompano

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 fast-growing, short-lived surf-zone jack, quite unlike the slow sparids that share the same beaches. Juveniles use the shallow surf and estuary mouths; adults work the break along open sandy coast. The fast life history is the reason a fish this heavily exposed to a shore fishery carries a daily bag limit and no size limit at all.

Spawns in coastal water with pelagic eggs and larvae; juveniles recruit into the shallow surf zone and estuary mouths. Detail for the South African population is limited, and the widely distributed Indian Ocean range means published figures may come from very different water.

Hunts small prey in breaking and swash-zone water: sand mussel, small crustaceans, worms and anything the surf exposes. The small blunt mouth is for picking rather than seizing. Because it hunts by sight in moving water, it is one of very few South African surf species that takes small metal lures and flies readily, and that is what makes it a distinctive fishery rather than another bait species.

Vision, working fast in aerated white water. A fish that hunts by sight in surf must decide quickly, which is why it takes a moving lure and why the take is a hard one.

A warm-water fish whose South African numbers are best in the warmer months and on the warmer coast, thinning to the south and west. Present on KwaZulu-Natal beaches through much of the year, and a summer fish on the Eastern Cape.

One of the best light-tackle propositions on the South African east coast and one of the very few surf species that will take a small metal or a fly. It is a recreational species that may not be sold, at a daily bag limit with no minimum size. Its value to the fishery is out of proportion to its size: it is the fish that makes an ordinary sandy beach worth fishing with a light rod.

Fast, hard-fighting, and caught in warm shallow water — a combination that means a fish is often exhausted when it is landed.

GIVE IT TIME IN THE WATER. Hold it head-into the wash until it kicks free rather than releasing it immediately.

WET HANDS AND NO DRY SAND. Thin scales and a delicate mucus coat.

SMALL HOOKS AND SINGLE HOOKS ON LURES. A treble in a small blunt mouth is difficult to remove and easy to do damage with.

Nothing about the fish is dangerous to handle.