Fishing rules and sources

This is a plain-language summary to help you plan, not legal advice. The rules can change. Before you fish, check the current rules with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) or your local fishery officer.

Before you fish

• Permit. You need a recreational fishing permit to fish in the sea. Permits are sold at the Post Office.
• Your own use only. Fish caught on a recreational permit may not be sold.
• Keep fish whole. Any fish you keep (except sharks and rays) must be landed with its head and tail on, so its size can be checked. You may gut it.
• Measure from snout to tail. Size limits are the total length, from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail, in a straight line.
• Protected areas. Some marine protected areas, estuaries and parks have their own rules or no-fishing zones. Check with the park or conservation authority.

Daily limits that apply to everything

• No more than 10 fish per person per day in total, across all species (bait fish and species with a bigger bag limit aside).
• Sharks and rays: 1 per species per person per day.
• Species not listed in the rules: 10 per person per day, but rockcods 5.
• Prohibited species must be released straight away. They include the great white shark, whale shark, basking shark, coelacanth, sawfish, seventy-four, brindle bass, potato bass, Natal wrasse, wreckfish and seahorses and pipefish.

Kob

Kob limits depend on where and how you fish, not on which kind of kob it is:

• From the shore or in estuaries east of Cape Agulhas: 60cm minimum, 1 per person per day.
• From the shore west of Cape Agulhas: 50cm minimum, 5 per person per day.
• Anywhere: only one kob over 110cm per person per day.

Of our Where to Fish destinations, Simon's Town and Uilenkraal are west of Cape Agulhas. Struisbaai and every place further east are east of it.

Closed seasons for species on this site

• Shad (elf): closed 1 October to 30 November. One part of the regulations (Annexure 2) gives 1 September. The recreational limits (Annexure 7) and the 2023 SAAMBR summary give 1 October. If in doubt, don't target shad in September either.
• Galjoen: closed 15 October to the end of February.

Size and bag limits for each species are on its profile under Minimum Size and Limit.

How the What to Catch suggestions work

• Where and when come from our own Where to Fish guides: the species each guide lists for summer and for winter. We count November to March as summer and May to September as winter. April and October show both.
• Where a guide does not split its list by season (Port Edward, Ballito), garrick and shad follow their known migration into KwaZulu-Natal in winter (ORI species profiles). Other species there show all year.
• Gear comes from the Tackle and Tips sections of our species profiles.
• Conditions on the day (water temperature, swell, wind and bait) matter more than any list.

Sources

• DFFE, Regulations under the Marine Living Resources Act (GNR.1111), Annexures 2 and 7, as consolidated by DFFE.
• SAAMBR and ORI, Marine Recreational Fishing Regulations in South Africa (summary brochure, 2023). It says it is not complete and may change.
• ORI, Southern African Marine Linefish Species Profiles (2013), for species movements and seasons.

Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected].