August is a good time to visit Port St Johns. This is when there are large adult kob and garrick in the estuary and the surf around the Umzimvubu river mouth. At this time of year some of these adult breeding fish are still on their way up to the spawning grounds off KZN, while others are on the return trip to the Cape waters after spawning.

 

These fish use the Umzimvubu river as a rest and recuperation area on their journey. While some of these fish are caught in the estuary each year, many pass through without encountering rods and lines, when they do not feed.

 

This year we started receiving reports of fishermen at Port St Johns using a method of fishing which intentionally snags and foul hooks fish. It is easy to imagine how this started. No doubt fishermen casting lures such as bucktail jigs and paddle tails started snagging big fish from time to time, while not getting any bites and hooking fish in the mouth. Knowing that the fish are there but not biting would have brought on the next phase. Anglers started attaching extra hooks to the line, above the lure, in order to snag fish more effectively.

 

The next step was then to stop using a lure to weight the line and just attach a sinker to the end, along with three treble hooks, or home made back to back single hooks. This last method discards any pretense that there is normal fishing going on, and is openly flouting the fact that law enforcement is thinly stretched and overburdened.

While this method is totally illegal, it is also highly immoral. The damage that is being done is beyond imagination. Firstly many of these fish break loose, as they are big fish and are difficult to pull in sideways against the resistance of the water. When they break loose they are left with hooks stuck in their skin and trailing pieces of fishing line behind them, which makes them even easier to snag again.

I went down to Port St Johns to try my luck for some migrating garrick and kob, which I was hoping to catch, photograph and release again, to continue their journey.

 

I booked in to the amazing Spotted `grunter resort, on the banks of the Umzimvubu river. I wasted no time in launching my little river boat from the resort’s slipway and taking an exploratory trip down the river. I was horrified to see the number of guys ripping hooks and sinkers through the water in the hope of foul hooking fish. What was even more disturbing was the number of fish that they were catching. Large garrick were being dragged up the banks and spirited off to the carpark behind one after another.

 

Each of these adult garrick had the potential to be carrying thousands of eggs, and I found myself hoping that most of them had spawned already. Sadly I am sure that this probably wasn’t the case. We will feel the results of this activity for the next few years all along the South African coastline where garrick occur.

 

Dr Paul Cowley happened to visit Port St Johns while I was there, in order to download information from one of his sonar receivers. I chatted to him about the illegal fishing and offered to take him out for a day and show him what was going on.

He was shocked by the extent of the fishing and the blatant disregard of the law and no fear of penalty from law enforcement.

While Paul and I were fishing he hooked a large garrick, which turned out to be foul hooked. When we got the fish closer to the boat it became apparent that the fish had another hook in it and Paul’s lure had hooked the treble stuck in the skin of the fish just below its dorsal fin. As sad as this was, it was an excellent example of the damage being caused by this depraved activity.

What concerned me was the fact that not all of the guys practicing this type of ‘fishing’ were of the poor, subsistence type of fisherman. There were guys in smart clothes, with their own 4×4’s joining in. There were a lot of locals taking part, but also visitors from all over the country. It was shocking to me to see people who should know better, allowing their greed to get the better of them.

In the week that I fished there, I saw or heard of eight garrick being caught by legitimate fishermen. Every single one was foul hooked, and every single one was dragging broken off gear. These fish were not feeding at all. If it wasn’t for the foul hooking you wouldn’t have known that they were there. They were obviously just moving around in a holding pattern in the deeper channels near the mouth. Easy targets for the guys ripping strings of hooks along across the channel from the banks.

Some of the locals told us that they were selling the fish, and that it was the only way that they were making money, as Covid19 had left them without an income.

It is not only the fish that are suffering, but tourism too is taking a knock. The fishermen are aware that their illegal activities are being exposed on social media and are very sensitive to anybody getting close, showing any interest, or photographing what they are doing. They are very aggressive at times. Some grabbed a female tourist and threw her phone into the river after she took a picture of them fishing. They also shout insults and try and hit boats with sinkers when they get too close to where they are fishing. None of this is good for tourism, the most important industry generating money and jobs in the area.

 

Vernon Malyon, owner of Spotted Grunter resort, went and spoke to some of these illegal fishermen. He offered them food in exchange for stopping their destructive activities, but nobody was interested. It was money that they were after. The locals admitted that there were anywhere between fifty and two hundred fish a day being pulled out in this way.

 

We had been making a fuss on social media and DAFF finally arrived, along with an element of the SAPS. They had a meeting with us, in order to understand what it was that they needed to stop. We showed the legitimate fishing lures, and then the illegal setups that were being used. We explained the impact that this activity will have on the future of our garrick and kob stocks countrywide. This helped them to understand what it was that they needed to do and why.

 

The following day DAFF was out enforcing the law. Many fines were handed out, tackle was confiscated and the illegal fishing slowed right down. Over the next two or three days there was almost no illegal activity, then it started again, as the fishermen realized that DAFF had moved on.

 

It is clear from this that DAFF needs to have a permanent presence in Port St Johns, with enough officers, or proper support from the SAPS, to carry out their duties without fear of reprisal from unlawful elements. Ideally the Port Johns Tourism body should be pushing this agenda with the municipality in order to get laws enforced and bring peace for tourists and relief for the future of our fish stocks.

 

It is also clear that DAFF urgently needs more staff, training and funding, in order to carry out its mandate to enforce our marine laws and regulations. I have sent an email to Minister Barbara Creecy, who is ultimately in charge of the department, asking her to look into this issue and to make some changes. The more people that lobby for improvement, the more likely they are to react. I encourage anybody who cares to email the minister and put pressure on her to act. Her email address is fshaik@environment.gov.za