Sardines spotted around Eastern Cape coastline, headed towards KZN

Shoals of sardines have been spotted making their way up the coast of the Eastern Cape towards KwaZulu-Natal. The KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board spotted the silvery fish between Mngazana Mouth and The Kraal, which is just south of Brazen Head.

The sardine run is a much-anticipated phenomenon every winter.

Bumper sardine season expected in the next two weeks:

The board’s acting head of operations Greg Thompson says there is a high possibility that the sardines could reach KwaZulu-Natal in the next two weeks.

“It’s pretty difficult to predict when they are actually going to arrive, but you know we report on what we see. You know, there’s always a chance that they have gone around us but they can surprise you at any time but if I was a betting man, that first or second week of June looks pretty good to me.”

Fake pictures circulated in March

Late in March, social media messages around sardines being netted in Durban were dismissed as fake news.

Pictures circulated on multiple networks alleging sardine sightings at uShaka beach in Durban. But, fishing enthusiast Adam Kamdar said at the time it was still too early in the season for the popular sardine run.

“When I saw those photos, to me it looked liked sardine bait that a fisherman had discarded and just took a picture. It’s probably just a bit of tongue in cheek or a bit of fun that these guys are sharing these pictures. It doesn’t look like the start of the sardine run, but earlier this week I did see photos from further south where sardines did beach but this is also not part of the sardine phenomenon, this is a small pallet shoal where the trawlers normally go and net sardines, the shoal came close to shore. Probably chased by game fish that brought them to shore. But it’s still early in the season and we hoping to have a bumper season this year.  But I don’t think it started just yet.”