Registered Guides

[Andre]

I don't think REFFIS has an agent in SA any longer.

[dlampert]

I don't think you can declare yourself a guide either although it seems quite common :-)

[AdrianPowrie]

I think Jonathan Boulton has it on his website that him and some guys in the store are registered...

[smallstreams.co.za]

The accreditations of these guides are (no longer) accepted/recognised by CATHSSETA (previously THETA).

[redhumpy]

Just saw on Jonathan's website (Mavungana Flyfishing was started by Jonathan Boulton (Bsc - Zoo/Geog -Univ Natal Pmb, R.E.F.F.I.S - UK) )

Uhm, what does the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA) cover.

I am a bit confused here - seems like we have a ton of 'guides" who declared themselves guides though.
Do you have to belong to a Association of some sort to be a guide?
Are people like Jaques Marais and Dennis de Klerk guides?

[smallstreams.co.za]

Do you have to belong to a Association of some sort to be a guide?
Are people like Jaques Marais and Dennis de Klerk guides?

They are all guides. It's just the legality of the thing that is a concern imho. However, there is (afaik) still no legislation for anyone to become a accredited and registered guide within the South African system.

[Gerrit Viljoen]

In my mind its misinterpretation if there is no body that you can belong to why the hell would you refer to yourself as a REFISS guide? lol :tongue:

[redhumpy]

In my mind its misinterpretation if there is no body that you can belong to why the hell would you refer to yourself as a REFISS guide? lol :tongue:

I remember a guide in Lesotho refering to some clients as REEFERS

[chrisvd]

There is only a hand full of guides in SA that did the Mario/Fred Reffis course back in the days (Francois Botha of www.theflyguides.com is one of them by the way). These are still the only guides that is operating as required by law, strictly speaking (if they list at all the provincial governments as required, but practically impossible as the government does not have a list, nor do they know that fly-fishing guides exist). The unfortunate thing is, that the unit standard expired and it is currently not possible to get the qualification "Fly-fishing guide" in South Africa.

My 2 cents is that a qualification like the reffis course(if it was still in existence) is not worth much, you need to have much more experience than just a weekend course to do a proper guiding job. The US has no control over their guides and it works great, its pretty self regulating, if you suck, you wont get clients, period, I like this approach and wish our government would stop trying to control and regulate everything the way they try to, it's just counter productive. First aid qualifications is essential imho and if you take guys on the water etc, other qualifications like rafting guide etc. might be necessary. My advice would be to get a rafting guide, pH, field guide qualification and get good at fishing the species you want to guide, then when the government gets their act together, you can get accredited a bit faster as a "fly-fishing guide".

[redhumpy]

Is this specifically in terms of flyfishing? How does hunting work or is it irrelevant to the conversation?
Surely if I advertise my services as a guide I take responsibility in terms of the clients well being?