Natal 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.

A widespread Indo-Pacific sparid that uses estuarine and sheltered inshore habitat as a juvenile and moves to reef-associated coastal water as an adult. Its very wide range means the South African population sits at the southern end of a distribution reaching to Japan, and life-history figures published from Australian or Asian populations do not necessarily transfer.

Spawns in coastal water with pelagic eggs and larvae, with juveniles recruiting into sheltered inshore and estuarine habitat. As with several sparids the species shows hermaphroditic tendencies across parts of its range, and the detail is better documented for the Australian and Asian populations than for the South African one.

Crushes small molluscs, crustaceans and worms from sand, reef and weed, with the incisor-and-molar dentition of the genus. In practice it takes prawn, small shellfish, worm and crab baits, and is a common incidental capture for anglers fishing for larger species on the KwaZulu-Natal coast.

Vision and taste at close range over mixed ground. Like its relatives it inspects rather than commits, and light traces and small hooks are what catch it consistently.

Present through the year on the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape coast, moving between estuary mouths, surf and inshore reef. Numbers on any particular beach vary more with water condition and food than with any strong annual pattern.

A common light-tackle capture on the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape coast, taken from beaches, estuary mouths and inshore reef. It is a recreational species that may not be sold, at a minimum size and a daily bag limit. Its wider significance is that it is the same fish as the Australian tarwhine, which makes it a useful bridge between two fishing cultures that rarely read each other.

Straightforward, with the usual sparid provisos.

WET HANDS, HOLD ACROSS THE BACK, mind the dorsal spines and the incisors — neither is dangerous.

KEEP IT OUT OF HOT SAND. KwaZulu-Natal beaches are warm and a fish laid down while you rebait is a fish that will not swim off.

AND REMEMBER THE ESTUARY SPEARFISHING BAN if you meet it inside a river mouth.