Fishing private waters

[Andre]

The other day I called the owner of a very nice piecs of water on the Vaal, with the objective of getting permission to fish his water next weekend. he is normally quite accomodating, but this time, had a few disturbing things to say about some fly fishers. he recently allowed a fly fisher access to his water for a very small fee, and found out that this person had taken guiding clients on his water for R1500.00 per day, per head, without his permission. I believe this to be totally unethical, and will lead to us having this water withdrawn from use. We need to be concious of the fact that we use other peoples property, and with the proliferation of our sport, we should be incresingly more considerate of how we use recources that do not belong to us. There are unfortunatly the few that are giving us all a bad reputation.

[MaXiMuM]

This has been happening for a while and it is screwing it up for the rest of us...

Those companies/people/orginisations are known and should be aware that it is not on...

[looseknot]

i totally agree with you guys. perhaps we should have a post of people, organizations and idiots who keep messing up for the rest of us. names of people
organizations and idiots fishing to spawning fish, being inconsiderate and pretty much anyone who is doing fly fishing and the environment harm? not sure if that would be aloud. you guys obviously been around longer than i have.

[Scythe]

Yeah, roll out the red carpet for the libel suits.

[jock0]

Yeah, roll out the red carpet for the libel suits.

Exactly. There are some serious players who are guilty of this and it could open up the proverbial can of worms. I myself was taken to a "private venue" by a guide whom i paid a ridiculous amount and now that i think about it I'm pretty sure he didnt mention this to the landowner...

[Scythe]

Well I agree that something should be done however looseknot's stance on publishing their information is simply not the right way to go about it.

AFAICR there is/was an initiative by FOSAF ito certification as a guide ? Maybe some sort of leverage could be applied on guilty parties in terms of the publication of Certified River Guides and/or River Guide Best Practise principles which could be made available to the general public via the angling shops would help ito applying pressure on fly by nighters to get their act together ?

[Andre]

ja this is probably worthy of another new thread. How to get accreditation as a guide?? The rules state that you need official accreditation, but on enquiring, there are no assessors, so we just have to do it illegally, or go by someother description like "acompanied fishing" On speaking to Captour, I was told I needed to do a tourist guide course, and learn how to guide tourists up Table mountain in order to legally take people on the rivers. How ridiculous is this?? There are several guides for the Cape Rivers, and not one is officially accredited. I dont know about the Vaal, but I would guess that the guides up there have similar issues.

[wernerm]

I remember reading about a 'school' that trains guides to take people out fly fishing, but it's full time I think.

[MCC]

Contact Fred Steynberg in Rhodes or Thalia at the FlyShop.

They are both involved with the accreditation and/or training of fly fishing guides.