Lawrence Green, the gem of South African writers who loved the country so deeply, recalls meeting the old fishermen at Saldanha who talked of the days when one man could “haul in 200, even 300 snoek in a great day’s fishing.”
As Green says, “… the fishermen needed enormous catches when a snoek fetched only twopence on the wharf.”
I never caught much above 100 snoek in False Bay and the times that I did break through the hundred mark I could count on one hand.
Already in the mid-1970s commercial fishing was taking its toll on snoek fishing in False Bay. Even the professional fishermen from Kalk Bay did not often catch 100 each a day. Yet there was a legendary skipper nicknamed “Hondered Bedonderd” (Hundred Crazy”) who regularly reached his target. Continue reading “Fishy tales of snoek in False Bay”
