Red steenbras

A DEEP-WATER REEF FISH RELEASED BADLY IS A DEAD FISH THAT LOOKED FINE.

Brought up from thirty metres or more, the swimbladder expands and the fish cannot swim down. It floats, drifts away and is taken. Nothing about that is visible as harm to the angler who watched it go.

USE A DESCENDING DEVICE where the fish is going back. A weighted release clip that carries the fish down and lets go at depth recompresses the swimbladder and works far better than venting.

IF VENTING IS THE ONLY OPTION, it needs a proper hollow venting tool, the correct position behind the pectoral fin, and somebody who has been shown how. A knife or a hook does damage rather than good.

AND MINIMISE THE TIME AT THE SURFACE. Decide before the fish is aboard whether it is being kept, and if it is not, get it back down quickly.

A FISH THAT SWIMS AWAY IS NOT A FISH THAT IS FINE. The United States fisheries agency's own field work found that rockfish surviving a recompressed release were still affected by capture and barotrauma for THIRTY TO SIXTY DAYS afterwards. Success is not the fish disappearing; it is the fish being alive two months later, and everything above is about buying that.

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.

Slow-growing, long-lived and late-maturing, in the pattern that makes a large reef predator vulnerable to a fishery. The species is a protogynous hermaphrodite, so as with the black musselcracker the largest fish are males and a fishery that targets size is a fishery that targets the breeding males.

Spawns over reef, with pelagic eggs and larvae, and changes sex from female to male at large size. The closed season over part of the spring exists to protect the spawning period, and it is one of only three closed seasons in the entire South African recreational regulation.

A reef predator taking fish and cephalopods with canine teeth and a large mouth, hunting over high-relief structure rather than grazing it. That is why it takes fish and squid baits and why a hooked one runs for the reef immediately — the fish is doing what it does every day, and the tackle either stops it in the first few metres or does not.

Vision and lateral line at close range over structure, hunting in the low light and turbid water of deep reef. It is an ambush and pursuit predator rather than a searcher, which is why a bait presented on or near the reef out-fishes one drifted over open ground.

Associated with the same high-relief reef complexes through the year, with the closed season of part of the spring covering the spawning period. Fish move deeper with age, so the largest individuals are effectively out of reach of most recreational fishing — which is one of the few things still working in the species' favour.

Historically the great prize of South African deep-reef line fishing and now a species whose capture should be treated as an event rather than a catch. It is a recreational species that may not be sold, at 60 cm and a strict daily bag limit, with a closed season over part of the spring — one of only three closed seasons in the whole regulation. Critically Endangered on the IUCN assessment of July 2024.

TREAT EVERY ONE AS A RELEASE. Critically Endangered, protogynous, slow-growing, and with a bag limit that permits one fish rather than recommending it.

BAROTRAUMA IS THE DECIDING FACTOR. This is a deep-reef fish and a released one will not get back down without help.

THE CANINES ARE REAL. Keep hands clear of the mouth and use a long de-hooker.

SUPPORT A LARGE FISH HORIZONTALLY WITH BOTH HANDS. A fish of this weight held vertically for a photograph is being injured.

AND CHECK THE CALENDAR. There is a closed season over part of the spring.