Page 79 - Bulletin 7 2003

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and to picture the times, lives, and events that affected them and brought them to
their present circumstances.

Each of the four speakers is familiar with a particular community and has condensed

this knowledge into the papers that follow:

Tony Introna is the son of Ila Introna who belonged to the Italian community who,

with many others, fished from Rogge Bay.
Herbie Levendal grew up on Red Hill, fished for many years, and knew the

communities of the Simon’s Town – Glencairn area.
Lance van Sittert is a UCT academic and historian who has researched the fishing

industry in Hout Bay.

Vincent Cloete has fished for the whole of his life and his family has lived in Kalk
Bay for five generations.

A perspective on the fishing scene in the 1890s, and a broad background to the four
papers, is provided by the following extract from an early article on fish and fishing

in Cape waters.

FISH AND FISHING IN CAPE WATERS

FISHING AS A SPORT

As a rule, Cape fishermen consider April, May, September and October, as par
excellence the best months, when a light breeze from the west may usually be
expected. He will find two powerful ocean currents, from each of which he can draw
splendid sport. The frigid waters of the Antarctic zone, coming up from the south,
join, but do not mingle with, the warmer waters of the Mozambique current, which,
having been heated in the tropical Indian Ocean, flow down the East Coast of Africa,
and meet the other at the Agulhas Banks. A special point of interest in this fact, from
the standpoint of sport, is that these two currents, which, as we have said, do not
intermingle, thus afford a double variety of fish. Perhaps for choice of location,
Simon’s Bay and Kalk Bay afford finer sport than Table Bay. The scenery too from
the ocean, is well worth enjoying with the overhanging Cliffs in all their rugged
grandeur, and the little shore settlements fading away into space, and looking but
mere specks on the horizon.