Author Topic: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto  (Read 54780 times)

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Offline Spud

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #20 on: January 09, 2014, 01:12:35 PM »
Stunning . So informative in every aspect .
Don't fall in the shark tank 🔞🔞🔞

Offline ulua

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #21 on: August 31, 2014, 06:57:22 AM »
Thanks for posting.
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Offline gavin erwin

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #22 on: September 01, 2014, 09:28:15 AM »
Great info Reefs  (clap) :tkx:
Reach for a bream!

Offline artoffishing

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #23 on: October 09, 2017, 03:22:40 PM »
Hi Guys
I'm new here...
I just got word that sardines where netted today 09-October 2017 in Durban.
is this weird sardines netted in durban this part of the year?
I wonder what impact these late shoals will have on the fishing here in KZN



Offline DownUnder

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #24 on: October 10, 2017, 11:59:42 AM »
How did the sard run go this year? Haven't heard much..

Men go fishing all their lives.. not realizing it is not fish they are after

Offline REEFMAN

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #25 on: October 10, 2017, 02:20:08 PM »
It was a reasonable one. Better than the last 3 years.  Sards netted up and down the coast... http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php?topic=22296.0

Offline Marthin

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #26 on: October 10, 2017, 02:33:57 PM »
There were even sards yesterday!
Men... what lies ahead on that beach... IMMORTALITY.... TAKE IT IT"S YOURS!!!!!!

Offline fish4fun

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #27 on: March 27, 2024, 09:46:38 PM »
Shoo.........the world wide web brought me back to my very first major writing effort. Memories, memories......have to say, I think it has aged fairly well for such an old article, but it certainly could do with an update.....

Offline REEFMAN

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #28 on: March 28, 2024, 06:49:15 AM »
One of the finest articles written on angling in South Africa, ever!! Brilliant stuff John! As you say, could do with an update...  :-)


We await that with great interest....  :hnthnt:

Offline ianf

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #29 on: April 23, 2024, 11:37:08 AM »
Heading down to Transkei for 2 weeks on 04 May. Hopefully will see some signs of the sards, but it might be a bit early. If we miss them, will be back in June for a week, and we normally get to see them at that time of the year......
Unfortunately i have never been around where they have beached, but have seen some of the shoals very close in when they were driven in by the dolphins and the game fish. One day............

Offline fish4fun

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #30 on: April 30, 2024, 10:56:05 PM »
Hi Reefs, please fwd me details re your e-mail so I can forward the update, I haven't illustrated it with appropriate pics of fish etc, as I do not want to navigate copyright issues, but it is ready to be forwarded for you to proof read and post.

Offline REEFMAN

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #31 on: May 03, 2024, 06:14:21 AM »
Replied to your gmail account.

Offline REEFMAN

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #32 on: July 16, 2024, 11:02:22 AM »

So here is the long awaited update to the SILVER TIDE by the maestro himself, JOHN OTTO.


Thanks so much John for your expertise and literary skills, and for sharing your knowledge with us all!!


In time, I will attempt to put graphics to this article.



In 2010, I put pen to paper for an angling website, my first foray into freelance writing on the subject of angling – The Silver Tide, which was a piece on the fish that could be caught on the KZN coast during the winter months in general, and during the sardine run in particular.
It seemed to be well received, and for a novice writer, that was extremely pleasing.
Just recently, for some unknown reason, the worldwide web decided to remind me of my article and dragged me back to this website, which had reproduced it with my consent. It was quite the trip down memory lane, and, with one exception, when I reread the article, I considered that it had stood the test of time and had aged well. The exception was the advice regarding  fishing for sharks, which, upon reflection , was now somewhat – OK badly – outdated, due to the advance in fishing tackle and tactics since the original article, and I toyed with the idea of  maybe writing an update.
There have been a few major changes in the way sharks are targeted during the sardine run, with two major technical issues and one natural that deserved attention if I was going to be thorough, which I always want to be.
Those three developments, in no particular order, are set out below:
 
1.       The increased biomass of sardines for the years 2020 to 2023, and the change in shark behaviour during those runs
2.       The advances in rod design, reel design and improvements in braid for the same period
3.       The introduction of drone fishing
 
I will deal with these factors in the same order.
 
1.       Sardine biomass and change in shark behaviour
In 2020 and 2021, we in KZN were blessed by the best sardine runs that I and many others have witnessed in our lives. In the 50 years that I have been in KZN, I have never seen as many sardines as I have in those two years. The biomass was absolutely staggering to see, for me as a lay person anyway- scientists may have a different view. I must make it clear that my opinions and observations are all personal in nature and do not pretend, for a moment, to be viewed in a scientific light. It is merely for the information of the reader, who is welcome to come to their own conclusions.
It was noted that, during the 2020 and 2021 years, the number of sharks accompanying the sardines were multiples of what they usually are, and in those two years they also seemed to be firstly extremely aggressive, and secondly, more prone than usual to follow the nets into the mid and shore break to follow the scent trail, helped by the fact that there were any number of days when three to five nets on a single beach were the norm. This is an enormous amount of sardines, which takes a long time to clear from the net for resale purposes. As a result, very often the sardines right at the back end of the net are squashed together and basically crushed, which mixture of oil, blood and scales leaking out of the nets send out an inviting scent to the sharks nearby, keeping them very excited and keen to track down the source of this delicious (to them) promise of sardines. A contributing factor was that the netters, realising that these bottom sardines were pretty much unsellable after a few hours of this treatment, decided to open the nets to flush out the damaged sardines and allow them to wash back into the ocean, where anglers and bystanders were allowed to help themselves, free of charge.
You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you……?
Chaos and mayhem, right behind the back of the net, in knee deep water.
Do yourself a favour and go onto YouTube and search for 2020 sardine run shark frenzy…….there’s one video in particular where the sea off Sezela figuratively boiled with sharks attacking masses of sardines just behind the mid break. It’s an awe inspiring sight. Drone images of the 2020 sardine run will leave you astonished at the size of the biomass that travelled up the coast.
 
2.       Advances in rods, reels and braid during this period
Before I launch into the technical side of things, allow me to set the scene, somewhat…..
In the years 2011 to 2017, prior to taking early retirement, I segued from competitive angling into managing first Development level provincial teams, Provincial teams and finally President’s teams to various tournaments. During this period of time I became intimately familiar with the inner workings of selecting, managing, training and motivating anglers of this calibre, which was in itself fascinating.
 It was the beginning of the fixed spool era of fishing and, as a KZN team, we were at the sharp end of the developments.
In 2011, it was my honour to manage the KZN Development team in Struisbaai – a ferocious team of talented, young anglers. We headed to the tournament as the only team to be largely grinder fitted, and had to suffer the normal Vaalie jibes about this not being a dam, and that mealies and mealie bombs don’t really attract the attention of sea fish……..strangely, this criticism seemed to abate somewhat when we went to bed on the penultimate day leading by 900 points and eventually won by 600 odd.
Weird, that.
Back in those days, the standard grinder rod was generally a 14 foot 6 , three piece, repurposed multiplier rod with changed guides, an Ultegra 10 000 and 50 lb braid. For better or for worse, that was pretty much the standard, and it worked just fine.
For a while.
However, as the years passed and grinders became a thing, there were some encounters with large, ugly, angry denizens and slowly but surely the limitations of this outfit stated becoming obvious, as did the need for better designed, sturdier tackle that could take the abuse. In the sardine runs prior to 2020, sharks of 50 to 70 kilos became relatively commonplace, and here and there a 100 kilo fish was landed and proudly displayed. There was grudging agreement that the grinder did, indeed, have some sort of a place in the sardine run, but that it wasn’t really up to the task of landing really large sharks……..an opinion that wasn’t actually far off the mark.
 
That opinion died a sudden and unexpected death in 2020, the first year after Covid  (remember that bastard thing?)
 
 
Suddenly, the backwash was filled with more large, angry sharks than anyone knew what to do with, and a very steep, very rapid learning curve was set in motion.
Anglers were hooking large numbers of very large, fast, aggressive fish at their feet, and, with rare exceptions, getting their asses handed to them. The recreational guys suffered their usual losses, but for the first time the experienced compo anglers were dealt with equally brutally, and a few days into the season, a communal decision was reached that, urgently, a much stronger approach was needed.
For my sins I was managing the Toti branch of a well known tackle store and I will never forget the morning when a popular shark angler met me impatiently at the door to the shop to restock his four reels with 50 lb braid and 100 lb leader material, having been effortlessly and contemptuously cleaned out the previous afternoon, losing a close match 5-0……….in favour of the sharks.
He did not care for this sort of disrespect and reloaded all his reels with fresh 50 lb braid, before heading out resolutely for round 2 at the same spot, where netting was taking place at the exact moment.
At around lunch time he was back, now looking for 65 lb braid for two of his reels. He did not want to discuss the morning’s fishing in any great detail, and was vague about the reduction in reel count, but the look on his face hinted that things did not go in his favour. I thought it best to not inquire as to the score line and sent him on his way with two respooled reels filled with heavier braid and leader.
 Two days later he showed up again, and searched the ski boating section for 80 and 100 lb braid.
The next morning he triumphantly interrupted my early morning coffee  and showed me pictures on his cell phone  of two grey sharks, one of about 150 kilos and one that looked damnably close to two hundred.
The hive mind, licking its wounds, had figured out a new and improved way to deal with these sharks, a committee based approached that demanded three changes be made immediately – heavier braid, better reels, and an intense, brutal, no holds barred approach to hooking and landing these leviathans.
Bye-bye Ultegra, hello Stella/Penn/Twin Power.
It’s been fun, 50 lb……but it’s over now. Gimme some 80 lb and 200 lb leader. And some heavy wire. And large hooks. Very large hooks.
And, probably, a gym membership. Because the hive figured out that the old way of hooking these fish, wearing them down and then landing them as per standard procedure, no longer worked, for various reasons. In the feeding frenzies, there were often such crowds that the chances of a burn off from two lines crossing were almost one hundred percent. One fish that was hooked and trailing a length of line only had to touch the dorsal, pectorals or tail of another shark also being fought and that was the end of that particular horror story. Back to the tackle box to re-rig.
The next one cleared out after the initial bite and headed out to sea after passing the outside banks, only to be cut off when they dropped into deeper water and dragged the braid trough the shell banks and sand and burned off.
 
Anglers very quickly learned the hard way that very bad things happen on the other side of the bank and if you couldn’t stop your fish in time, the odds on a successful landing receded as fast as the hairline on a bald man. A cut off was your most likely fate……..and every once in a while, your giant opponent got munched by something even bigger!! Yes, I know…….unbelievable but true.
 
Three hard earned lessons were learned –
 
Don’t fish in a crowd if you can help it. Harder to do than you’d think, because the nets are there, the sards are there, anglers are there, the chum slick is there, and the sharks are there. As the bank robbers say when asked why they rob banks, “that’s where they keep the money”. Occasionally you would get your dream scenario where you came across this situation on an isolated beach, and none of those factors would present themselves, and you then had a slightly better chance of landing your fish.
 
If you fished in a crowd, the new normal was to hook your fish and, if it ran away from the crowd, you let it go and relocated rapidly up the beach behind it until you could create separation from the mob, calm your fish down to a mild panic, and settle matters in a gentlemanly manner not unlike a bar fight with chairs and brass knuckles, because you could not, I say again not, let your fish cross back over the outside bank, or all your planning and hard work would evaporate like mist before the morning sun. You absolutely, positively had to end the argument in the inshore channel to ensure the highest chance of a successful landing and photo opportunity, and this meant going toe to toe with your adversary. If you did it right, you never went into your backing, your 200 m top shot took the brunt of the beating, and usually you were well and truly buggered at the end of what was often an hour to two hours of unforgiving, back breaking, vomit inducing, muscle seizing effort……hence the gym membership. 
And if the planets aligned, your back held up, and your knots were top class, you could see pictures of yourself landing a 294 kilogram grey shark in as little as 45 minutes- on a grinder reel!
 If the fish you hooked didn’t feel like social distancing and preferred to hang out with their buddies……back to the tackle box to re-rig.
And to do this, you had to have serious rods, reels and braid. The benchmark for braid soared upwards, from a starting point of 50 lb to 65 lb to 80 lb to 100 lb, with dizzying rapidity the requirements changed almost on a daily basis, and success begat success as some astonishing fish were landed. The old benchmark of a really good ’un rocketed from a 100 kilos, to 150, to 200 and settled upon the best fish which was as near as 300 odd as makes no real difference. Fish of 100 kilos were now sneered at as a nuisance and a waste of time, as the hunt entered a new level of effort.
Luck and good strong knots were important too. Non- negotiable, in fact. Maxel spools with truck stopping drags were procured, installed on gleaming high end top shelf reels filled to bursting with heavy string, and suddenly the learning curve flattened out. Fun fact: SA probably caused the great worldwide Stella 30 SW shortage that occurred during that time, such was the seriousness with which the top level anglers adapted and modified their tackle and tactics to better effect.
Your dream outfit was probably something along the lines of a Stella 20 000/ Saragosa 25 000/ Penn 8500 filled with 500 m of 65 lb backing and 300 m of 80 lb top shot and a 200 or 250 lb leader as a bare minimum, with a two to three meter 250 lb nylon coated wire full metal jacket trace and a 12/0 or 14/0 circle hook from your favourite brand. If you were a serious, take no prisoners type, up that to a Stella 30 000, 500 m of 80 lb backing, 500 m of 100 lb top shot, 20 meters of 200 lb leader and the above trace.
Pick your fish, lob your bait, set the hook………have fun.
3.       Drone fishing
Full disclosure – at the time of writing this – May 2024 – drone fishing is against the law and prohibited.

Complicated subject.
Controversial subject.
I am going to steer clear of the drone/ no drone argument and just deal with the subject in general.
At the outset, drone fishing for large sharks seem made for each other. The drone angler has the means to reach the large predators in the sardine shoals no matter that netting is possible or not. Weather plays little to no real limiting role as the bait is dropped so far out as to make swell size largely irrelevant. Baits that would make your eyes pop out are easily conveyed more than 400 meters out to sea in a jiffy and placed it in the most advantageous spot possible, with absolutely devastating effect.
 
Generally the tackle favoured by drone anglers lean towards the heavy side, with large boat multipliers leading the way, together with huge amounts of heavy braid that is easily accommodated on the aforesaid boat reels. Very heavy terminal tackle and traces means that, in general , the fish hooked have a good chance of being landed, and released, as the tackle makes bite offs, burn offs and tackle failure more unlikely. Because the fight is started at extreme range, the risk of burn offs are less problematical, as that area is not – normally speaking – as densely populated as the inshore zone.
 
Also generally speaking, such heavy tackle  in the hands of an experienced angler will increase the chances that the fish will be successfully landed, in good time, and be released in the best possible condition in order to make a full and complete recovery. In the 2022 and 2023 runs, the behaviour of the sharks changed once again where they were extremely wary and unwilling to come in behind the nets, and in these two years, while the shore based casters got their share, there were days on end where the fish remained out of netable range, refusing to come inshore, and the drone guys had their moment in the sun, where the drone was the only instrument that would guarantee regular hook ups.
And to be sure, they landed some magnificent fish…..probably speaking, the biggest fish in the run, simply because of the distance preventing the casters from resenting baits to the fish.
 
 

Offline colin

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Re: THE SILVER TIDE - The Sardine Run - by John Otto
« Reply #33 on: July 17, 2024, 07:42:56 AM »
 :win: what a great article , a true wordsmith .  :tkx: :bow: :toppie: :+ cred:
My wife allows me to keep all the fishing tackle I can hide.

 

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