BEACH SEINING

Cor · December 02, 2021, 06:19:50 AM

This is still part of my sorting out some older photos and I suspect that not to many of you have seen this before.

Since perhaps late 1800 beach seining took place around the area where I stay in the Western Cape and these photos are from 2020. Despite pressure from many sides to stop this slaughter of fish it still carries on, thought they no longer catch the volumes of fish as they did even as little as 20 years ago.

What happens is that spotters sit on the mountain side looking for shoals of Yellowtail or occasionally other shoal fish. They then alert and direct a rowing boat to cast their seine net around the shoal. Two teams of net "pullers" then systematically haul the net on two sides on to the beach. Sometimes the shoals they catch are so large that they can not actually get the net on the beach and have to carry the fish one by one on to the beach where a truck is waiting.

This practice has been hated by anglers for as long as I have fished.

I can't easily correct the text on the final photo but it should read : "Boat heading to shore, shoal can still be seen, now inside net an heading for near certain death"
The fish are the grey cloud just below "heading for"
In the left corner of the beach you can see another boat waiting as well as a row of guys holding the one end of the rope.

whalebreath · December 02, 2021, 08:51:25 PM

I've pulled seine (as a beach hand) in the Caribbean but just for baitfish-seen it done in Colombia but never participated-I imagine anyone trying an industrial scale operation as shown would get shut down rather quickly unless they shared the bounty around with all & sundry.

DougK · December 02, 2021, 10:59:13 PM

I'm amazed that is still going on.. thought the authorities had cracked down on all commercial fishing in False Bay.

used to see the seines going out on Muizenberg when I was a boy in the 60s, was astonished to see them still on Fish Hoek beach during a visit ten years ago.

Benni3 · December 03, 2021, 02:27:45 AM

I want to see you catch one,,,,,,

Gfish · December 03, 2021, 02:44:23 AM

Wow, "hukilau-purse/beach seining". Cool pictures. The Hawaiians usually just get a wide variety of reef fish.

Cor · December 03, 2021, 04:19:13 AM

Quote from: Gfish on December 03, 2021, 02:44:23 AM
Wow, "hukilau-purse/beach seining". Cool pictures. The Hawaiians usually just get a wide variety of reef fish.

I reduced the quality of the photos to save storage but that has made it more difficult to see the fish if you're not experiences in spotting.
Ill see if I can find some video on Youtube or a picture showing how much these guys sometimes catch.

@DougK
Commercial fishing as you may know it from the 60's has nearly died, simply by overfishing and many small operators are no longer able to make a living. Even for an angler it has become extremely difficult to catch something worth while from shore.
Yellowtail and Snoek have always been regarded as plentiful and not on any endangered list so may be exploited, but even those are now taking strain as well.

I added this video taken on the same beach where the photos were taken.

Organised chaos, I don't like seeing this stuff $:-\$

Wompus Cat · December 03, 2021, 12:39:37 PM

I honestly don't see the significance of a Rowboat with 10 or 12 people in it dragging a group of TARGETED SPECIES of fish to sell and or feed their families to even in a minuscule way compare to the huge Ships with on Board Canneries that indiscriminately haul in MILLIONS of TONS of game as well as Endangered Species of animals like Dolphins, Seals,Sharks, Turtles etc. many of which are already DEAD from the HORRIBLE GILL NETTING and other practices that takes place .
These SHIPS which are basically Small CITIES and are from all over the WORLD are Fishing OUR WATERS and TAKING OUR FISH basically un - checked is what our DEMISE Consists of and that is an Atrocity .
Their practice of Beach Seining is some of the Hardest Work there is and is not done for HUGE PROFITS nor is as detrimental to the Fish Population and other Species as other Methods me thinks

The ONLY way to Eliminate the suffering and agonies of watching this type of harvesting ie Beach Seining ,HUGE FISHING CITIES
is for all HUMANS ,and Bears to become Vegetarians and that is kinda bad in itself as I have seen some Good Looking Tomatoes in my time .

DougK · December 08, 2021, 09:42:03 PM

Quote from: Cor on December 03, 2021, 04:19:13 AM
Yellowtail and Snoek have always been regarded as plentiful and not on any endangered list so may be exploited, but even those are now taking strain as well.

thanks for the video, just as I remember it, forty years later..

only once caught yellowtail, from a friend's boat. They are magnificent fighting fish, we fished too light and got smashed up multiple times. I heard at one point it was possible to catch them from the rocks in False Bay, that must have been tremendous..

Cor · December 09, 2021, 05:27:46 AM

Quote from: DougK on December 08, 2021, 09:42:03 PM
Quote from: Cor on December 03, 2021, 04:19:13 AM
Yellowtail and Snoek have always been regarded as plentiful and not on any endangered list so may be exploited, but even those are now taking strain as well.

thanks for the video, just as I remember it, forty years later..

only once caught yellowtail, from a friend's boat. They are magnificent fighting fish, we fished too light and got smashed up multiple times. I heard at one point it was possible to catch them from the rocks in False Bay, that must have been tremendous..

Yellowtail can be caught from shore at many places along the False Bay coast, but also in many other countries spread far and wide. Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Australia, I think Mexico as well to mention a few. Even Fish Hoek in front of the Sunnycove railway station was a favourite spot at the time when you were here.

Ron Jones · December 09, 2021, 05:52:15 PM

Out of a very weird life, I am very good friends with my wifes ex husbands father. I showed him the restored movies that were shared on here a bit ago and he told me a story of catching yellowtail from the rocks out of False Bay. Their target wasn't yellowtail, however. It is a fish we don't get in the US and I haven't been able to find it because he only knows the (I'm sure I'm messing this up) k'nasa name for it.

My wife grew up in Durban, and remembers seeing this type of fishing on the beach.

The Man

Cor · December 09, 2021, 07:12:08 PM

Could that be it, I think Tayler in USA?

JasonGotaProblem · December 09, 2021, 07:38:19 PM

I'll go as far as to say gill netting in all its forms is terrible and should be discontinued as a whole. Honestly most forms of net-based fishing are pretty terrible, though I'll admit I own and sometimes use a cast net for bait. But to me that's a bit different. If made the rules, there would be a 10' max (not including rope) dimension on any net used for fish in any form. But there's probably a reason I'm not on the throne, so that opinion is worth roughly what you paid for it.