Into clubs, festivals and gatherings about all things fly fishing? If you’re in the Western Cape, South Africa, the Cape Piscatorial Society should be your first port of call.

What

In the storied Mercantile Building on Hout Street in Cape Town’s CBD sits the venerable Cape Piscatorial Society (CPS) headquarters. Take the oldest working elevator in Cape Town to the fourth floor. There you will find the club room, with one of the largest fly-fishing libraries in the Southern Hemisphere, a flea-bitten giant kingfisher, and long-dead, eye-patch wearing and pipe-smoking legends of the club peering down from the walls on old and new CPS members meeting up for fly tying evenings and slide nights. A super-active club with new member orientation, river clean-ups, and social gatherings, the CPS has a serious legacy and comes with the status of having established reciprocal relationships with other fly fishing clubs around the world.

Waters

Main rivers include the Smalblaar/Molenaars, Elandspad, Witte, and Holsloot. Plus there’s an annual raffle for slots to fish the fabled, access-restricted Jan du Toits. Lakenvlei is the CPS’s alpine-esque still water above Ceres in the Cape Fold Mountains. 

How much? 

A start-up fee of R122 and an annual membership of R680, plus R370 for rights to the rivers or still waters. 

Most people try to book the Lakenvlei hut in winter because that’s still water season and freezing suffer-fests are a thing. But book it in summer and there’s less competition for slots. There’s still quality fishing in the mornings and late afternoons, and you can enjoy a swim in the heat of the day. 

Check out more of the South African fly fishing scene in the Community feature in The Mission issue 40 below It’s free!

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