Olive grunter
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-27
Piggy: the small grunter that South African anglers catch by the dozen and use as live bait for everything bigger, with a legal minimum size of seven and a half centimetres — the smallest in the whole regulation.
Catching Olive grunter
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Where
- 1 place FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: established quarry · From the shore
The olive grunter is the smallest fish with its own row in the South African regulations, and the reason it has one is that it is bait.
PIGGY AND PINKY are the names, and a South African angler saying either means a small live bait destined for a kob, a garrick or a couta. It is one of the standard live baits on the whole coast.
IT CARRIES THE SMALLEST MINIMUM SIZE IN THE ENTIRE REGULATION, and it exists at that level precisely because the fish is used as bait at bait size. That is a rule written around how a species is actually used rather than around how big it grows, which is rare enough to be worth noticing.
IT IS A SMALL HAEMULID — a true grunter, related to the spotted grunter, and it grunts the same way by grinding pharyngeal teeth. Olive-grey to silvery, sometimes with faint spotting, reaching about fifty-five centimetres at the recorded maximum but caught almost entirely at a fraction of that.
IT LIVES INSHORE in one to fifty metres over reef and in brackish water, from Namibia round and up the whole east African coast to Arabia, India and the Malay Peninsula.
AND IT IS CAUGHT ON TINY HOOKS AND SABIKI RIGS in harbours, off rock and in estuary mouths, usually as the first task of a day's fishing rather than as the fishing itself.
Where Olive grunter is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
The KwaZulu-Natal coast
1 documented place
Durban harbour entrance
Harbour wall
Established quarry
From the shore
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
Identification
No photograph of Olive grunter has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Pomadasys olivaceum
- Family
- Haemulidae
- Water
- Saltwater, Brackish
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- East & Southern Africa, Indo-Pacific, South Asia, South-East Asia
- SMALL AND OLIVE-GREY TO SILVERY, sometimes with faint spotting — most fish encountered are 8 to 15 cm.
- IT GRUNTS AUDIBLY when handled, by grinding pharyngeal teeth. A true grunter.
- A SUBTERMINAL MOUTH and the compact haemulid body.
- A SPOTTED GRUNTER is the much larger relative on the same coast, with bold spotting and a minimum size size.
- CAUGHT IN NUMBERS on small hooks and sabiki rigs, which is itself the usual context.
Size
- Typical
- 8–15 cm. A legal minimum size applies — the smallest in the regulation.
- Large
- Over 25 cm is a large olive grunter.
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum length of 55 cm.
How South African sea-fishing rules work
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.
Official guidance — why, and the sources (2)
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
- Marine Recreational Fishing Regulations in South Africa — South African Association for Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR), summarising the Marine Living Resources Act and its regulations, 2023 (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The minimum size, daily bag limit and closed season for this species, its place on the prohibited or permitted list, and the cumulative ten-fish daily cap that sits above every individual limit.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Marine Recreational Fishing: Regulations for Linefishing, under the Marine Living Resources Act — Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South Africa (published as issued under Act 18 of 1998), 2000 (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: The general framework: the permit requirement and its age threshold, the no-sale rule, the measurement convention, the category lists, and the closed seasons named in the regulations themselves.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Lifecycle and reproduction
A small, fast-growing, abundant inshore haemulid. Its role in the fishery is as forage and as bait, and its life history — quick to mature, numerous, short-lived — is what makes both sustainable in a way that using a slow reef endemic as bait would not be.
Spawns inshore with pelagic eggs and larvae, across a wide Indo-Pacific range. Detail for the South African population is limited, which is usual for a species studied as forage rather than as a fishery.
Feeding and senses
Takes small crustaceans, worms and other invertebrates from reef, sand and brackish ground, feeding in shoals. It takes small baits instantly and competitively, which is exactly what makes it catchable on a sabiki rig in the time it takes to set up the rest of the tackle.
Vision and taste at close range in shallow inshore water, feeding competitively in a shoal rather than cautiously. Competition rather than caution is what makes a shoal of piggies catchable in the ten minutes it takes to rig the rest of the tackle.
Through the year
Present inshore through the year, with numbers varying by location and water condition. It is a fish whose availability an angler discovers in the first ten minutes of a session rather than plans for.
Distribution
South-east Atlantic north of Swakopmund in Namibia, and the Indian Ocean along the east coast of Africa and Madagascar to Arabia, India and the Malay Peninsula. Reef-associated and entering brackish water, in one to fifty metres. Assessed by the IUCN as Least Concern in 2018.
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
One of the standard live baits on the South African coast, caught on small hooks and sabiki rigs in harbours, off rock and in estuary mouths. It is a commercial species carrying a daily bag limit and the SMALLEST MINIMUM SIZE IN THE WHOLE NATIONAL REGULATION — set that low precisely because the fish is used at bait size, which is a rare case of a rule written around how a species is actually used rather than around how big it grows.
Handling and returning
A small fish that is usually going into a bait well alive, which makes handling the whole point.
MINIMUM HANDLING FOR A LIVE BAIT. A fish squeezed, dropped or held in a dry hand is a dead bait within minutes. Wet hands, straight into aerated water.
USE HOOKS SIZED FOR THE FISH. A sabiki or small single, unhooked wet.
DISPATCH ANYTHING NOT GOING INTO THE WELL rather than leaving it in a bucket. A fish being used as bait is still a fish.
THE DORSAL SPINES ARE SHARP for its size; nothing dangerous.
Check the rules before you fish
Fishing laws, bylaws, access rules, seasons, bait restrictions and permitted methods vary by location and can change. Check the current rules from the relevant authority and the water you intend to fish before fishing.
Check with:
- Current national or regional law for where you are fishing
- Current local bylaws
- The relevant fisheries authority
- The landowner, club or fishery whose water it is
- Any restrictions specific to the species or the method you intend to use
Where to go next
Where you will find it
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Scientific name, family, environment, depth range, latitudinal range, maximum recorded length, weight and age, and the IUCN category with its assessment date.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The global Red List category and the assessment behind it, assessed 28 June 2018. A statement about the species across its range and not about any managed stock.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Marine Recreational Fishing Regulations in South Africa — South African Association for Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR), summarising the Marine Living Resources Act and its regulations, 2023 (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The minimum size, daily bag limit and closed season for this species, its place on the prohibited or permitted list, and the cumulative ten-fish daily cap that sits above every individual limit.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Marine Recreational Fishing: Regulations for Linefishing, under the Marine Living Resources Act — Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South Africa (published as issued under Act 18 of 1998), 2000 (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: The general framework: the permit requirement and its age threshold, the no-sale rule, the measurement convention, the category lists, and the closed seasons named in the regulations themselves.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 2 connections on this page are here, and the sources
How it is caught
What experienced anglers do — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Feathering and multi-lure traces
Established practice for this species: what the fishery that takes it actually does. It is practitioner consensus corroborated by the research institute's own capture notes, and it says nothing about where anybody may fish.
- ORI Fish Fact Sheets: the species accounts of the Oceanographic Research Institute — Oceanographic Research Institute, South African Association for Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR), Durban, 2023 (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The capture context each fact sheet records: which fishery takes the species, on what tackle and on what bait.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated South African practice for the species named, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as tested fact.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where you will find it
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
The KwaZulu-Natal coast
A claim that a coast or region contains the ground and conditions this species is associated with. It is a distributional statement about the world, it rests on the reference literature and on the institute that surveyed it, and it deliberately asserts nothing about access, permission or catch.
- ORI Fish Fact Sheets: the species accounts of the Oceanographic Research Institute — Oceanographic Research Institute, South African Association for Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR), Durban, 2023 (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Distribution, habitat, movement and residency for South African linefish, from the institute that did the tagging and the ageing.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Recorded distribution, depth range and habitat association for the species named.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.