Gone Fishin’

What is it like for a desert child to live next to a flowing river? In the mid-70s, when Karoo farmer Roy Copeman was in his early teens, the Great Fish River was linked via the Orange-Fish Tunnel to what is now the mighty Gariep Dam.

Suddenly, the water-starved Eastern Cape Midlands became a lush, irrigation region. It was like The Wind in the Willows had descended on the Karoo. Who wouldn’t want to take to a boat to that clucking, gurgling river rush that the Great Fish had become?

Roy and his brother Louis were no exceptions. When the river came down in its new form in 1976, they hammered flat a piece of corrugated iron, attached canvas to make it more likely to float, and tried out a couple of planks for paddles. And, of course, they ended up swimming, because