“The early bird catches the fish.”
That is the philosophy that drives Ocean View fisherman Clifton O’Malley and his crew of 22 “trek fishermen”.
For about eight months of the year, from around September until April, they break the waves from 6am until 6pm daily.
“The fish do not like the cold water. Sometimes we don’t catch fish for months. Sometimes we just catch enough for the table; that is called our ‘fries’.
Trek net fishermen are employed as subsistence fishermen and operate on Fish Hoek beach seven days a week from 6am until 6pm.
“When I have extra, then I bless someone else with something for their table too,” said O’Malley.
The fisherman’s average day starts with packing the net and hundreds of metres of rope into a rowing boat very early in the morning.
The crew fishermen help each other to pull out of the fishing net.
A land skipper, who is stationed at a vantage point on the mountain slope, signals to the fishermen (by means of a flag) on the beach when he spots a school of fish.
Once the message has been received, with impeccable precision, teamwork and co-ordination they lift and carry the boat using two long poles (attached to straps underneath the boat) into the ocean.
They then row in the direction of the fish. They cast the net in a crescent shape around the fish.
One end of the net is attached to a long rope secured by the fishermen on the shore.
The men in the boat then row towards the shore with the other end of the net, maintaining the crescent shape formation around the fish.
The fishermen pull the (often empty) net toward the shore.
Recently, a successful attempt revealed the flutter of yellow flapping tails and white waters, glistening in the distance as the trapped (mostly) yellowtail catch struggled against the net.
When the net was about 70m from the shore, the crowd on the beach noticed a large fish thrashing around in the net.
A bystander tried to engage a fishermen in a bet that the fish caught in the net was a shark.
He wanted two yellowtail if he was right but offered no return benefit to his opponent if he was wrong.
One of the fishermen, Simon Freemantle, removed his T-shirt and waded into the ocean to rescue the intruder in the net.
The large flat object was a sunfish.
The rescuer struggled for 40minutes (after freeing the fish from the net) to get it heading in the right direction out to sea.
Once the net was ashore and in shallow water, a frenzy of fishermen and bystanders grappled to capture the fish in the net and load them into a van parked on the beach.
The fishermen and bystanders work together with an unspoken acknowledgement that each have a common purpose: to provide for their families.
It is not uncommon to see a fisherman encouraging a toddler to hold a fish or teaching the child how to hold a crab without being pinched.
Dr Stephen J Lamberth, from Fisheries Research, Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (Daff), said “Fish Hoek trek net” fishers can claim historical or traditional right of access to the beach and to catch yellowtail, harders and other “linefish” species provided they have commercial beach-seine netting rights.
Every 10-15 years, rights are allocated after a rigorous Fisheries Rights Allocation Process (Frap). Criteria evaluated include historical involvement, past performance (catch and effort - days fished), a compliance record, a business plan and transformation.
The yellowtail stock has recovered from collapse in the 1970-1980s and is optimally exploited.
The number of fishers and boats in the traditional commercial line and beach-seine fisheries has been reduced so that catches “are now sustainable,” Lamberth said.