Spotted gully shark

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 relatively small, slow-growing endemic houndshark of shallow inshore water. Its assessment as Least Concern despite a restricted range reflects the absence of a directed commercial fishery and the overlap of much of its habitat with South African marine protected areas, rather than any particular reproductive resilience.

Ovoviviparous, bearing modest litters of live young after a gestation of around a year, with pupping in shallow inshore water. Like all sharks it is a low-fecundity animal, and the Least Concern assessment rests on low fishing pressure rather than on high productivity.

Feeds on crustaceans — especially rock lobster and crabs — small fish, cephalopods and other small sharks, hunting over and around rock in shallow water. It is a scent-led bottom hunter, which is why it takes the same fish and squid baits an angler is using for the reef species and why it turns up in the surf gully rather than out in open water.

Olfaction and electroreception, working structured shallow ground in aerated water. Like the other houndsharks it hunts by scent and finds prey at close range with the ampullae of Lorenzini rather than by sight.

Present year-round in the same shallow inshore ground, with no documented long migration. Availability to a shore angler is set by conditions on the ledge and by water clarity rather than by season.

The shark a Cape shore angler is most likely to hook, and a good one: hard-running and dogged on shore tackle, reachable from the rocks, and one of the few sharks here that is not a conservation problem to catch. It is a recreational species that may not be sold, at a strict daily bag limit with no minimum size.

Small enough to handle and large enough to hurt somebody who is careless.

SUPPORT THE BODY. Even a metre of shark is heavy and a shark held by the tail alone is being injured.

DO NOT PUT A HAND IN THE MOUTH. Houndshark teeth are small and flat but there are a great many of them and they grip.

UNHOOK IN THE WASH, not up the ledge. Cut the trace if the hook is awkward, and use non-stainless hooks so one left behind corrodes out.

CONTROL IT BEHIND THE HEAD AND CLEAR OF THE TAIL, and put it back facing the water.