SARDINE APOCALYPSE!

[PRED-ATOR]

G'day Raiders,

Check out this link for an interesting read about a mass death of sardines i nthe U.S.

Stan

[PRED-ATOR]

sorry guys heres the link

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/saga-of-the-sardine-apocalypse-why-they-died-20110310-1bpa1.html

[duck168]

They said lack of oxygen was the cause. But why so many fish crammed into same place at same time? Something to do with the tsunami?

[ferret69]

Are you guys on drugs lol....sorry, had to say it!

Nah, macks and others round up the sardines over there and herd them to land, unfortunately this time the herders didn't know what a harbor was, it's normally a beach or shallow bay... the sardines got corralled, the cowboys would have fed and the herd suffocated.

Next time can someone please tell the Macks, Dolphs and others not to herd the sardines into harbors! Time we teach them what to do again as they cannot tell the difference anymore between a harbor and natural shoals and beaches lol..

Jeeze the media hype things but damn, do we need to believe it all, especially seeing we all fish here? We live for catching fish so surely we know what the habits of fish are?

Maybe I need to take a few fishos on a fish school lesson without a rod and swimming in the ocean lol...joking

One quick thought on a serious note, do most fishos do ocean sports like snorkel, scuba, surf, ocean swim, sail etc?

I'm babbling again... sorry

[helliconia]

I've got my dive ticket and I've dived a lot up and down the Sydney coast. We live on an amazing waterway!

As for the sardines, there was a BBC documentary that showed the annual mass migration of sardines from Antarctic waters up the coast of South Africa for spawning. They literally filled hundreds of miles of coasts in shoals as thick as those in the story. They estimate the numbers in the 100's of billions. Predators like sharks, dolphins, and pelagic fish show up to feast on them and push them up against beaches and headlands to concentrate them further. That's probably what happened there.

[PRED-ATOR]

lol velveteen rabbit, i put that up there for an interesting read. thats all news articles are these days the rest is about 90% rubbish haha. yeh i do snorkelling and body boarding. when i visit family in fiji we go swimming in the shallow reefs and lie really still and grab fish and small sharks with our hands lol its really fun. does anyone know what catfish noodling is? i REALLY wanna try it. anyone else who is interested, we should organise a trip to alabamma and do some NOODLING : )

[ferret69]

lol velveteen rabbit, i put that up there for an interesting read. thats all news articles are these days the rest is about 90% rubbish haha. yeh i do snorkelling and body boarding. when i visit family in fiji we go swimming in the shallow reefs and lie really still and grab fish and small sharks with our hands lol its really fun. does anyone know what catfish noodling is? i REALLY wanna try it. anyone else who is interested, we should organise a trip to alabamma and do some NOODLING : )

HAHAHAHAHA love that Predator! Catfish noodling...whenever I go catfish noodling I'm always playing dueling banjos in my waterproof Ishuffle!

I'm there...lets head over to the deep south

And hang on, you have family in Fiji? So when are we going then?

[PRED-ATOR]

im thinking of going this christmas for a week or so. if your keen let me know mate should be good. the thing is my relatives laugh at me for working a lure on a fish, especially when they throw a massive net onto the beach and catch everything including my lure. they do it for food not fun over there LOL.

i had a blast catching GT's there which sit in water so shallow they have to swim sideways. there very picky but just so fun.

going maroubra tonight if anyone is interested.

Cheers,

Stan

[ferret69]

im thinking of going this christmas for a week or so. if your keen let me know mate should be good. the thing is my relatives laugh at me for working a lure on a fish, especially when they throw a massive net onto the beach and catch everything including my lure. they do it for food not fun over there LOL.

i had a blast catching GT's there which sit in water so shallow they have to swim sideways. there very picky but just so fun.

going maroubra tonight if anyone is interested.

Cheers,

Stan

Count me in for Fiji at xmas for sure!! GT's ....already drooling

How did you go at Maroubra? A little to far south for me

[PRED-ATOR]

Count me in for Fiji at xmas for sure!! GT's ....already drooling

How did you go at Maroubra? A little to far south for me

went pretty good at maroubra, i posted it in the fishing reports section. caught 20 taylow all good size. its my day off today and was going to head out again but ended up playin call of duty on playstation LOL.

[Alastair]

I've got my dive ticket and I've dived a lot up and down the Sydney coast. We live on an amazing waterway!

As for the sardines, there was a BBC documentary that showed the annual mass migration of sardines from Antarctic waters up the coast of South Africa for spawning. They literally filled hundreds of miles of coasts in shoals as thick as those in the story. They estimate the numbers in the 100's of billions. Predators like sharks, dolphins, and pelagic fish show up to feast on them and push them up against beaches and headlands to concentrate them further. That's probably what happened there.

I spent years following this each year, either angling or spearfishing, between 1960 and 1999. It has to be one of the most amazing spectacles. In one of the great years, about 1977, I spent a day diving with the shoals for about 7 hours. All that time, there was a wall of fish stretching as far as the eye could see. Diving under the shoals, they were so dense that it became quite dark, and there was a constant snowstorm of dying sardines fluttering down from above, as they starved and suffocated. They left a layer of dead fish on the botom, a couple of feet thick in places.

For weeks they were using bulldozers to bury rotting fish washed up on the beaches.

With the pelagics feeding on them, the go was to swim over the shoal, and then sink into it, and wait for the fish to come through. What was disconcerting was that plenty of sharks also were feeding, so you could break out of the shoal, and find yourself nose to with a Whaler, Mako etc. Stimulating stuff!

At the same time, there were swarms of gannets dive bombing, and they were not averse to swimming up to you, and having a go at your head as well.

One of the great spectacles.

regards