Fabulous Garrick - Barry Wareham

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up north the Garrick are much bigger right now

I have always wondered why Garrick up north are much bigger than the average specimen caught around Durban. is it possible that these larger fish refuse to eat while migrating up to their spawning grounds in the upper North coast

i could be wrong but i honestly think that there are two separate gene pools here
north coast being the lager of the two or we are getting juvenile down south

Its more of the case that the beaches on the south coast have more rods per square meter than the north coast

Quick question: Where was this beautiful fish caught?

Unless someone knows the area and can identify the spot from the landscape in the background, that's a question the answer will not be revealed by the angler. All i can assume is that it is somewhere north.

I agree with you Marcus. I am also of the opinion that the North coast and South coast Garricks have different migrating patterns and are of a different gene pool. Having more rods in the south coast would result in more of the big Garrick being caught in the south before they reach the north coast but this is not the case. There are some huge Garrick in the north coast and in certain areas up north, the average Garrick size is around 10 kg.

Guys on the South that catch big garrack don't post pics.

Most of the guys don't post pictures of their catch for various reasons (some logical and some comical)

1. Anglers will flock to the area, most often then not leave it in an absolute mess.
2. Poaching.
3. Social media outrage if an angler keeps a fish that is within his legal right.

Hi Guys

My opinion is not based on anglers posting pics but rather from personally fishing both the south and north coast and constantly catching larger Garrick specimens in the North coast.

I also would like to know the secret location 😁

Nice one Barry...well done !!

Guys in all honesty, I believe Maximum Effort equals Maximum results. Garrick can be found all along the KZN coastline in Winter. Its not about where you fish, its about how hard you try and how often you try. The difference is that most of us work all week, which leaves us with at best 2 days on the weekend to fish. So my suggestion is simply find a spot that you comfortable fishing in and keep trying, you will be rewarded.

To give you an example, we went down to Uvongo for a weekend, as we got to Orange Rocks we opted to fish the quieter side on the left. As we unpacked and tackled up, a Spearfisherman entered the water directly in front of us, 2 minutes later he was screaming and splashing on top of the water, because a shoal of Garrick swam past and he only managed to shoot one. He couldn't reload in time. But that shows that Garrick are not necessarily in the spots we think they are. All those anglers with Live Bait out at Orange rocks stood still while this shoal of Garrick was just 70 meters away from them.

To some extent that's true but also you can sit for days at certain places along the kzn coast and not even get close to catching a garrick,that's jus my humble opinion,I work shifts and probably fish about 10 times a month for garrick,much better results we experience in the south coast and from zinkwazi up to tugela on the north,for those guys in-between garricks arr few n far

having fish for years both sides of the coast line it derived at saying there are two geen pools and the north coast are bigger ,it has nothing to do with over fishing or rods per square meter
it is upon the fisherman to post of to give away the location its not being selfish to withhold this info
we have had many experiences were we post and the next couple of days you cannot even slide a Toby ,that is how packed it is
if the location is not given do not bother asking