Reel Time| Bathers can relax over Bird Island shark diving

There has been much speculation and pros and cons discussed this past week about the cage diving operation proposed for Bird Island.

I, for one, can’t fathom why there is such concern. The bay is alive with a very healthy eco-chain that I cannot see how localised chummy (if any) will cause a greater knock-on effect in the bay by endangering bathers far removed from that location.

The sharks are there to stay and have been in that area for a very long time, feasting mostly off the seal population.

A local spearfisherman, Eugene van Wyngaardt, had a brush with a white shark off Cape Recife a few years ago, but was not attacked. There have been no other incidents here since, to my knowledge.

On to another topic – we see, daily at the moment, some spectacular catches being made.

Richard Donaldson, a renowned game fisher, landed a marlin of 120kg off Cape Recife last Sunday. The maestro of the Swartkops River, Chris Schoultz, released another whopper of a garrick this week too.

The “three species” are still being actively caught at present, especially Swartkops for spotted grunter, which must be the most productive river for the species in the country.

This river is renowned for producing large grunter in winter for those who can brave the cold of night when these fish are most active. The only concerns are the water quality and the resultant edibility of the species.

This question was raised some time back when Dr Nadine Roux made some startling findings in her toxicology study. It would be interesting to have some follow-up information on this study.
On the competitive angling scene, we saw our EP Tuna Angling team of Colin Barris (captain), Pierre Westerveldt and Tim Christy reach the podium in third place at the Tuna Nationals held out of Gordon’s Bay in the Cape, which is considered the tuna capital of South Africa.

The top honours were taken by Western Province with the South African Deep-sea Angling Association team taking silver. Tim tells me they had to venture 160 nautical miles (288km – one way) on average to find tuna off Hout Bay!

The tuna averaged about 45kg in weight and all slaughtered fish were donated to charity. The line class is limited to 10kg, making for hard work in subduing a fish.

At least an hour per fish is required to bring a fish to gaff along with travelling time – minutes can decide your fate in the competition.

This weekend’s weather: The water temperature in the bay is expected to be below 18°C.

Tomorrow has low tide at 8am with a light westerly turning southerly by late afternoon. The barometer remains high, with mild air temperature expected.

Similar conditions prevail for Sunday, except we experience a light northerly turning easterly by the afternoon as the barometer begins its decent.

We experienced a first quarter moon phase last Tuesday and ascend towards full moon next Tuesday.

This provides excellent prospects in the follows few days.