A 2-stock, 2-area hypothesis for the South African sardine resource is being developed, with the following boundaries: i) A “western” stock distributed throughout the “western area”, defined as the area west of Cape Agulhas ii) An “eastern” stock distributed throughout the “eastern area”, defined as the area east of Cape Agulhas As previously discussed (de Moor 2009) two separate scenarios are to be considered for this 2-stock hypothesis: i) No mixing between these stocks. ii) Movement of 1-year-olds from the “western” stock to the “eastern” stock and movement of 2+-year-olds from the “eastern” stock to the “western” stock. Recruitment to the “western” stock will be dependent on the SSB of both the “western” and “eastern” stocks. Recruitment to the “eastern” stock will be dependent on the SSB of the “eastern” stock only. This document gives the results of fitting the assessment model to data under the first of these scenarios: two discrete “western” and “eastern” stocks of the South African sardine resource.