A conversation about the dangers of rowing a boat into the surf and her instinct of when the shoals are in the right place to do that. On the False Bay coast of Cape Town, trek netting is one of the oldest fishing methods. It’s been passed down through generations of families.
Among the men who dominate this world, one woman has made her mark: Val Arendse, known to everyone as “Aunty Val”. Val didn’t grow up as a fisher. She came from the clothing industry, where she worked for many years in management.
But when her husband “Chris Vis” inherited his father’s fishing permit, Val stepped in to help. What began as support turned into a vocation. For 26 years, she has been one of the very few woman trek netters in Cape waters.
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I sat down with Aunty Val to talk about the mechanics and dangers of trek netting, her instincts for when and where to fish, the challenge of being a woman in a man’s world and the long battles over permits and inspectors. Trek netting is when you anchor the net on the shore with a rope and then the crew takes a rowboat out. They row in a circle with the net and bring it back to shore, pulling both ends together.
That way, the net closes like a purse. At the bottom of the net you also tie a rope. Once they go out to the distance they need, they row back and pull it in.
Inside, if you’re lucky, are tonnes of cob, yellowtail or harder (mullet). But it’s never guaranteed. Other times you come out with kelp, or red bait, or just rubbish.
Dangerous? Oh, my word, yes. You sit in that little rowboat, staring at the waves.
If you mistime it, that wave will take you back to shore like a rag doll. Or worse – it will flip you. If a wave comes and you press your oar down at the wrong moment, the wave will throw you into the ocean.
You’re under the water with fishers, gear, and sometimes even fish thrashing around. You fight to come up for air and the next wave crashes down. It’s chaos, absolute chaos.
That’s why the crew have their own language. They’ll shout commands so one lifts the oar, another brings down and you go through together. Ah, that’s the gift.
You don’t always see them. Sometimes the water is too thick or murky. Sometimes it looks perfect, but you bring up nothing but seaweed.
For me, it’s a smell, a feeling. I can look at the colour of the water, the way the swell moves and I just know. I tell the men: “This is the piece of water.
If you don’t cast here, I’m going home.” They don’t always believe me. But many times, when they finally listen, they haul in a net full of fish. I might not get the recognition from the men, but Chris (her husband) – he appreciates it.
He says he doesn’t like to go out without me on the beach. I came out of a family of seven sisters and three brothers. I was the second-youngest girl, and they always said I was the fighter.
I lost my mother at eight, and my father told me: “There’s no ‘almost right’ or ‘almost wrong’. It’s right or wrong. End of story.” So for me, stepping into fishing was not difficult.
I came from a corporate world where I managed men, and now I was managing fishing. Yes, it’s male dominated. But I built a name.
Everybody knows me as Aunty Val. The crews respect me. They’re scared of me in a way – not scared ofme,but scared of doing wrong around me.
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