My first garric caught at Mapelane

On Teusday  10 September 2019 I took a small walk ( about 3 Km ) from St. Lucia to Mapelane and fished the bay at Mapelane itself. There were a few shad coming out, so I decided to swim one. This has a common name among fishermen called walking the dog. I was quite lucky and had a good pick up in less than five minutes, but this fish was lucky and escaped during the pick up stage.

Feeling depressed, I caught a second shad and swam that too.  Once again my bait was in the water less than five minutes before I had a second pick up.  This fish was also lucky and after about ten minutes of serious arguing it just spat my hooks out. I was now really depressed, but as I got back a holiday maker, fishing in the bay at Mapelane came up and gave me a fresh shad, and said better luck on the third attempt.  This fish was rather lively, and swam a bit deeper than the first two, but in less than five minutes I was on with the third pick up.

This fish felt a bit smaller than the second fish, but really gave me gears. This fish ran quite hard and stretched my line quite well.  This fish really gave me a good work out and had two more  good runs before it started to tire out. We argued for about ten minutes, then she started coming in little by little. I walked up the beach to give me the advantage of the stretch in the nylon, and slowly forced the fish into the wash zone of the long beaches that we currently have along the shore line here in the St. Lucia area. I loosened the drag just a small touch, coz this is the zone where most anglers snap up, as the fish gives a serious spurt of energy when the wash is receding, so one needs to be very careful.

This fish held true to all past experiences, and tried to use the wash against me, but I was ready, and the fish lost. This wash zone is always a problem for inexperienced fishermen, and many do not keep enough pressure on the line,  simply try to reel up the slack  as the waves push in.  This is a serious error, and one must simply walk or if the waves are a bit fast,  run backwards, keeping the pressure on the line, ensuring that there is no chance of slack line, as this can allow your hook to dislodge, and your fish to escape. At this stage one needs to be real careful not to put too much pressure on the fish, coz your line may snap, or the hook pull loose.

The guys fishing with braid need to be more careful  here, due to the fact that braid has zero stretch, and a snap off can occur as the fish uses the power of the receding water very efficiently. I personally do not fish with braid simply because it has no stretch.  Others enjoy the fact that there is no stretch, and that is their personal preference. The stretch of your line is the key to keeping pressure on the fish as each new wave pushes the fish closer to the beach, and you as the angler need to use the power of the wave to bring the fish up the wash zone, and understand the the fish will use this same power to get back over the lip and into deeper water.  By ensuring that you keep pressure on the fish and hold it in the wash zone as it gets shallower, robbing the fish of the advantage of deeper water as its belly touches the sand.

Do not ever let this fool you as a fish swimming on its side still has immense power, but the sand will stop the fish once the water recedes enough.  A fish on the sand is not in the bag, and very often the next wave will have your fish swimming again, and this time with much more vigour, as it understands that this is a life and death situation, so be prepared, and do not take tension off the line until somebody has got hold of your fish and is running up the beach with fish in hand.

This garric weighed in  at just over seven kilograms ( 7.4 ) and when gutted proved to be a female with eggs. I do not do the tag and release thing, as I catch fish for the pot, if not mine, then some body else will enjoy cooking and eating what I catch.

Any way enough bragging about the fish I caught, and now for a request of help to get the 4u2fish campaign some social media coverage and some positive public perception  management points. The #4u2fish campaign is all about returning consumptive tourism to the South African coast line. Our initial focus at the 4u2fish campaign will be on the Elephant Coast region, which was previously called the Maputuland Coast. Since the IWPA ( ISIMANGALISO WETLAND PARK AUTHORITY ) took over the management of the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park way back in December 1999 things have slowly changed for the worse with the IWPA being anti domestic tourism, and promoting international tourism at the expense of us as South Africans, causing many serious issues including the loss of more than 20 000 jobs, as a consequence of bad management decisions and related community anger.

This anger is slowly building up and the management of the IWPA just simply brush it off and carry on regardless.  The 4u2fish campaign aims to stop the IWPA in their tracks, and reverse the anti domestic tourism drive that they have been running since they stepped into the picture.  The local population of Umkhanyakude District Municipality is reliant on the passing trade associated with domestic tourism,  so bringing back consumptive tourism is a big issue, as this is basically the domestic tourism market.

Your help in talking about this and getting the topic of consumptive tourism out there in the social media will be appreciated.

Thanx for reading my blog. Please subscribe and should you have any questions contact me directly at frankie2socks@info4u.co.za or leave a comment here.

Sorry guys, but my old tablet wont publish the pic, I will get the pic published from another device just as soon as I can.   

The 4u2fish campaign is active and needs your views

Yesterday, 29 August 2019 I attended a public meeting called by the IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority to discuss issues around concessions and concession holders problems. At first glance most of the attendees at the meeting were impressed by the IWPA delegates and the new approach of inclusivity  by the management team of the park.

That being said, the team from the IWPA were either ill informed, or they were trying to pull the wool over the publics eyes.

This public  meeting was .held in the old NPB Auditorium in the village of St. Lucia and there were many folks from Sodwana bay and other outlaying areas of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The thing that stuck in my throat, and caused me to have a sleepless night was the fact that we, as local residents were told that the casuarina trees surrounding the ablution facilities at the St. Lucia estuary mouth were dying, and that this was the reason for their removal.

This in my humble opinion is a blatant lie, and I am not sure if this was dis-information or mis-information. Any body that knows casuarina trees  will tell you that these trees are extremely hardy, and that there are no known  diseases which kill them off here in Zululand.  Think clearly and remember which trees the dune mining companies use within their rehabilitation process after mining.

Casuarina trees were planted by the South African government ( way back in the late 1950's early 1960's ) to change wind flow patterns and protect our sand dunes after a rather tedious and lengthy study. They did their job very well, but the new science folks deem this to be problematic, and there was a great effort from the early 2010's to remove these, as the new scientific opinion was that these trees are now causing unwanted problems.  This debate needs to be held at a future public participation process meeting, where all sides should be allowed to question the scientific data available,  personally I believe that  the removal of the casurina trees along our shoreline was an error, as this was the only mechanism that protected our beaches  and dunes from wind erosion and the influence of coastal currents at the bases of our primary dunes along the coastline between Mapelane and Kozi Bay.

These casurina trees in question were keeping the estuary open and prevented the migration of the beach into the St. Luçia  estuary mouth. The road between Ingwe beach and estuary beach is already a few meters under sand and not accessible in any shape manner or form. This is the same area that is part of the St. Lucia precinct plan, where the current board walk ( from the Ski Boat club to the beach) is about to be extended.  The fact that this sand migration is not discussed and included in the EIA ( Environmental Impact Assessment ) needs some serious attention, as the ablution blocks were apparently removed due to their perceived problem location, which is the same location that the board walk extension is supposed to be, whiçh strangely has no problems at all.

This does not make sense at all, and somebody some where is about to be in a very uncomfortable position. The space is approved for new development, but the old development has been removed due to environmental stability problems.  So is there a problem or not? Were these trees really ill? Trees do not die without cause, casurina trees are truly hardy, and can grow in rather hostile environments.

The question is thus which information is correct ?  They are mutually exclusive issues, so some explanation is needed.

We thus need an explanation of what disease or problems these trees had, and what was the issue which warranted their removal and the removal of the ablution block that they were protecting?

What do you think that we, as the 4u2fish management team, should do?

Should we ask for the EIA ( Environmental Impact Assessment ) for the so-called St. Lucia Precinct plan to be revisited, and the Environmental Practitioner who approved this development to be investigated because the SAND FLOW ISSUES for the boardwalk extension appear to be some how ignored ?  Or is there some other explanation which is being withheld from the publiç domain?

Please leave a comment and share if you think that others should get involved.

#FRANKIE2SOCKS
#4U2FISH