Hi there guys, welcome to today's species file. Once again, please subscribe to the channel, it helps us get more and more content up to you guys. Down at the bottom there's a little bell icon, just click on that, click on all. Then until you let you know all the notifications as they come through as we produce videos, you're never going to be left out, never going to have FOMO because no one wants that. Today we're talking about the mighty Shared. Now, the Shared Scientific name, POMO Term of Sultatrix, was changed quite a while back from Sultatrix. All about them jumping, got a... I think it was... I think it's actually Greek, it comes from that Sultatrix comes from the jumping side of things, or dancing ladies, something like that to that extent. But anyway, we won't dwell on that. Shared go by quite a few different names. In terms of the more common, common names, you've got bluefish, that's mainly in America that they call them that. The Australians call them Taylor, and down in the Cape they call them Elf. Now, the Shared is probably one of the most targeted fish along our coast. They are, as you can see, an overall sort of silvery fish goes to a bluey green on the top. The smaller fish have a lot more silver to them, as they get older and older, they get this darker green hue on the top, like this majestic specimen here. They have a fairly large eye for their size, and extremely sharp teeth. They, a bite from a Shared, bleeds for a very long time. It's actually got a little bit of anti-cagulant in its saliva. So it just bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. But the teeth are something you really want to avoid, and it is the reason we use steel wire generally, especially on our bite tracers. Domino, why are you barking? Woo! Sorry. Sorry guys. Anyway, so that's the reason we're going to be using steel on most of our tracers, on our spoons and things I get we generally don't. Because the Shared attacks from the back, the way they eat is they disable their prey before they come around and eat it again. So if a fish is swimming along, the Shared's going to go bite the tail off the bait. So often when you have live baits, you'll see that their tails get nipped off, and you miss the fish, because either that you struck and pulled the bait away from it, or that he came eight the back and then thought that's enough and carried on swimming. So they disable the bait, cut the back off and then come and eat the head. So that's why generally on spoons and lures, unless it's the very, very big Shared, you're looking at using, you don't have to actually use wire on it, I just use a splittering and a swivel on the front, gives you a little bit of added bite protection on the front. But that's more than enough for most of your shared fishing, and you do get more bites if you don't use wire. Now, Shared in terms of what are they eating? Anything that swims? But they do have a preference for smaller baitfish. Blacktail, pinkies are one of the absolute favorites. If you need a live bait for a Shared, a little pinky is deadly, deadly. Remember pinkies have to be seven and a half centimeters to be used as live bait. So same as if you're using Shared as live bait, they have to make legal size before you can use it. Now, in terms of where they farm, they actually farm circumclobally, so around the entire world in tropical and temperate waters, except in the eastern and western Pacific, I believe, there's only two places that you don't get them. But we do get them around the entire South African coastline. During summertime, they're going to be mainly found off the Cape region, so down in the southern Cape. And then as it goes later and later into winter, they almost follow the sardine run. They're kind of just before the sardines come in winter to case it in. They migrate up all the way to here. Interestingly enough, the original tagging, data that was taken many, many years ago in the tagging project had just just started, actually found Shared that had been tagged in Lungobahn, Lagoon had moved all the way up into case it in, being caught, I released again and got all the way back to Lungobahn, which is phenomenal. Lungobahn does actually have its own population or share that stay in the Lagoon itself, but that's a separate story. So with this warning happening in October through to December, October and November actually closed seasons for the Shared, so you're not allowed to target them, not allowed to catch them, if you do you have to put them back as soon as possible. Because that's when they're spawning, that's when they're going to be at the highest aggregations, so it's going to be very easy for them to get overfished and things like that. So October and November, no targeting of Shared, from the 1st of December, you are allowed to target Shared again. Minimum size for these guys, you measure it from the tip of the nose, all the way to the tip of the tail. It is not a forked tail, so it's not into this groove yet, it's all the way to the extension of the tail. So this illuminates kind of tail, you don't have to worry about measuring into the groove or things like that, it's to the tip of the tail. And that has to be 30 centimeters. Remember that. You're also only allowed to keep foreshad. Now let's go over a few things that some people don't understand always. You're allowed foreshad. That means you can only catch fore on the day, and you're only allowed to be in position of fore. So you can't catch fore today, fore tomorrow and keep them all in your freezer, then you're in position of a shed. That's illegal. So you're only allowed to have fore on you at any one stage. If you have caught foreshad and you are kept or fore, you cannot catch another one and use it as bait. That's considered keeping five shed. So if you're using it as bait, one, it has to be legal size, and two, you cannot keep more than your quota. So you can't slide six shed arcs just because you're not going to keep them. You're utilizing that fish itself, so you cannot actually do that. You're only allowed fore. Now, when it comes to targeting of shed, there are a couple different methods of doing it. Spinning is one of them. Using our gold Falcon spoon is proved absolutely deadly for these guys. It's probably the most used spoon in case it in. Four shed, definitely. Early hours of the day and later in the evening is your best time, but when the shed or biting, they can go the whole day through. You can catch them on every single cost. Now, other methods are going to be with bait. Now, you either do a ground bait or you do a drift bait. Ground bait would be obviously anchored to the ground. So you have your sinker and then generally a cork on there onto a small piece of wire and your hook where you're going to have your bait. That's going to keep it off the bottom, stop you from catching things like rays and things. Your other option, which is my preferred method, is a complete drift bait, either with a bungalow without. With other bung, it's probably the nicest way to fish for shed. You rig your siding. You're just flicking it into the likely area and you just keep tension with it and you feel the shed coming eat it. It is a very, very lack of way to catch them. So guys, you're going to be looking for shed generally in sheltered bays is probably the best place to look for them. So, for example, some way like, um, beleater at boulders, you've got a bit of a point that sticks out and on the left hand side you've got a sheltered bay, a vincel sprayed high rocks. You've got the point that sticks out, you've got a bay on the left hand side, you're seeing a patina. You've got a neonerox, you've got a bit of a rock that sticks out, a bay on the left hand side. Christmas bay up north, bay of sticks out, left hand side. Most of these areas, because we get a lot of wind from the southeast, but the north-east of roads, you get that bay that forms on the northern side of point. That is generally one of the best places to look for a shed. It's more sheltered water for them. So, they like that. It's not too turbulence and mixing around, but they also are predatory fish. So, if you can see very far on the water, like if it's very clear, everything can see you, you can see everything, which means the baitfish that they're trying to hunt are going to be able to see them from very far away. So, they like a bit of a white water, not turbulent upside down mixing like a kingfish does. They want something a little bit more subdued, a little bit more of a, uh, something crashing onto a rock and rolling white water that comes through, almost like a cob. Very, very similar. So, bays like that, uh, deep water points, they can, they come in right, right close to the rocks. And, um, yeah, that's going to be kind of the areas you're going to be looking for them. Near River Miles, also a good spot, the slightly dirtier water where you get the, the current lines actually helps with the, um, with the shards hunting, because the baitfish can't see them, they can then work on seeing, seeing the baitfish a bit better. And they rush through in packs and try and get there. They are showing species when they do get to this kind of size. They operate more like a garrick and they, they're a bit more solitary, maybe staying in a small pack of about five or so. The small guys can be in packs of hundreds. In order to, uh, the number of shed I've seen caught in groups and things I get you'd swear they're million shed, at least, at least in one bay. Guys, the shed, it's a lovely fish to use for bait, it's a lovely fish to eat, and a very nice fish to catch. They are good fighters for their size. They matured around 25 centimeters, hence the 30 centimeters bracket that you need to catch them, I'll catch them over, and you're just a fantastic species. Cheers guys.