CAPE AGULHAS: The southernmost tip of Africa has always been Dawid Johnson’s playground.
When Johnson, 50, was a little boy, he used to run between the fynbos from one side of the rocky shore to the other until it was supper time.
When he reached puberty, he took his girlfriends to a spot where the Atlantic and Indian oceans met, and they would picnic there until the sun went down.
Now that his two children are grown and have moved out of the house, he casts his spinning rod from the same rocks European sailors feared crashing into centuries ago.
“It never gets old. When I sit here and think I’m at the tip of Africa, I get that overwhelming feeling again,” Johnson says.
But it’s not always that romantic. Johnson has made fishing, both recreational and commercial, his life and because mother nature can be unpredictable at times, his wages are often affected.
Johnson, the only fisher with his rod cast at dusk, explains that he earns anything from R100 a week in the winter months to R2 000 in summer when the swell is packed with nutrients and schools of fish follow.
He works for a private fishing company and this week, as a result of rough seas, the boats are not going out and Johnson will not be making any money. “I will like it if the legislation around fishing is less strict. There are so many rules around how big the fish must be, what type of fish you must let back into the water. I understand that, but us using fishing rods can’t make the fish extinct.”
Johnson says environmental laws and quota systems aimed at improving their lives are doing the opposite.
“They (the government) can make our lives so much easier, but they are making it harder.”
With the local government election a week away, Johnson says he is still unsure about who he will vote for.
L’Agulhas is in the Cape Agulhas Municipality, and other areas include Bredasdorp, Napier and the coastal towns of Arniston and Struisbaai.
The council consists of four ANC members, four DA members and one independent candidate.
“I am registered and I will vote, I’m just not sure who I will vote for yet. Whichever party I do vote for, though, I really hope they consider us fishermen and support us,” Johnson said.
@FrancescaJaneV