Sea-angling Fishes of the Cape by C.L. Biden

Hi Guys,
I was fortunate enough to find a copy of this excellent book and it really tells a story about the abundance of fish in False Bay, in days gone by.
Elf: In 1915 a record haul of 100 000 Elf between 1 and 2 lb was taken by trek nets at Muizenberg in one afternoon.
Leervis: During the season, 200 Leervis were taken from Kalk Bay pier, including handlines. The fish weigh from 20 to 45 lb.
Albacore (Yellowtail): In January 1920, also off Kalk Bay pier, 6 000 yellowtail were caught from the harbour wall, in ONE DAY!
Kob: Catches of Kob weighing between 130 and 140 lb were made off Kalk Bay pier, around 1923.
White Stumpnose: At Blaauberg, one day in March 1923, 40 000 stumpnose were caught by trek net. The average fish weighed about 2 1/2 lbs.
White Steenbras: Literally 1 000's of Steenbras weighing between 5 and 10 lbs were caught in a "blind trek" at night off False Bay and Riviera Beach (Hermanus) in the 1920's.
Mussel cracker (Biskop): One trek at Fish Hoek pulled in 200 x 25 lb mussel crackers and another trek at Muizenberg pulled in between 400-500 x 15 lb fish.
Where have all the fish gone?
Your guess is as good as mine.
More importantly, in my opinion anyway, is the need to conserve our fish stocks, and rests with each and every one of us.
Some other great books are:
"Strike! A handbook of fishing in South African Coastal Waters" by S. Schoeman,
"The Great Sea Angling Manual" by Flip Joubert.
The weather in Cape Town has been so miserable and I have spent some time reading about days gone by, when fish were plentiful, ships were made of wood, and men were made of steel. If anyone has any other good books worth reading, let us know. Roll on Summer!
Regards,:SSS
BG

Big Gray, although this post is old I googled it.
I posted recently a question of the varieties of fish species that have either diminished or disappeared completely from places in False Bay. In the course of the correspondence a poster Dr Halibut Hoffman mentioned Bidens book on Sea Angling Fishes of the Cape.
This book written many years ago describes such qualities of species of popular angling fishes, caught at barren spots that it is almost unbelievable and one wonders what really has happened.
I wonder where one obtain a copy of this book or even just a read...it's obviously out of print, and it's valuable...a collectors item.
I don't think you would obtain it in any library, at least not in SA.

When you find a copy, get me one too!

I've only borrowed copies over the years, there are a few sources that had a copy or two, search online?

What happened is we, or our forefathers, collapsed our stocks. Most who have not read the old accounts, will not have any idea how good our fishing should be in this country..We should have forums in the States talking about their amazing fishing trips here, not us talking about NZ or Gabon.. We have the species that others don't, and a raw rugged coastline that just makes for great and exciting fishing, more sparids are found here than the rest of the world combined, including the worlds biggest and some of the worlds biggest and most are found nowhere else on earth, while most of the rest of the world has karanteen, blacktail and drumroll....red snapper..in the med, ok they have dentex, we have red steenbras, poensie, cracker, steenie, miss lucy..and and and We have all the gamefish that the rest of the world has, numbers are depressed due to commercial exploitation but we have potential, large marlin has been shot by spear off robberg, plett and fought all the way to keurbooms before by old great pioneering madmen ..the old accounts from cape point and hermanus in the old days, and kalk bay harbour wall, with handlines and a day began with catching mackerel for bait and then later using the mackerel to catch whatever was pushing it up against the side..and all the while trying not to loose your fish, hook, line and sinker to the taxmen who were packs of resident 50 kg red steenbras that were like hungry dogs..Kalk bay with so many yellowtail caught from its pier that you could not walk and the pier was full of fish piled a few high..Big fish! Galjoen so plentiful that you could watch them in the waves washing over the rocks..Stories of cracker..Miss lucies along the entire coast the size of dustbin lids plentiful in the gullys..Eish one day I hope to be alive when we get it back..It starts with us..

I've always said that we should get a copy on one of any number of old out of print books for free when we get our license..just so everyones imagination can get sparked and so we can enmass be made aware of what it should be like.

Bidens book available at http://blankbooks.co.za/obz/1001761-sea-angling-fishes-of-the-cape.html for R250

Cheers!

Dr Halibut...thanks for the interesting posts and Trier, thanks, but this book is no longer in stock. They are like hen's teeth.
Reminds me of Sidney Hey's classic...The Rapture of the River... 4-7lb trout were caught in the rivers of the Eastern Cape. Incidentally he also had chapters on estuary fishing as well, not only trout...massive kob, white steenbras and grunter.
The original version was sold out years ago but his son Douglas and some others managed to find the plates (somewhere in Holland)...permission was granted and they were reprinted and sold by Jonathan Boulton of Mavungana Fly Fishing in Mpumalanga...I paid only R250 for a copy...lovely book...I was born in the wrong era.
I think we woke up miles too late...mankind has destroyed that which is good in the enviroment...most of our younger fishing colleagues will never experience the thrills I had in late sixties and seventies but moreso I never experienced it as it was in dads and moreso in grandads young days.

http://www.fishes-fishing.com/Bookshop/Fishbooks%20by%20Area/indianocean.htm::tight:

[font="Arial, Helvetica"] £15 plus £2.80 UK postage

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