Crayfishing Cape Town – Cape Point Crayfishing.

West Coast Rock Lobster, or kreef as everyone here calls it, lives in the rocky reef and kelp beds around the Peninsula. We fish for them off Cape Point, running down from Hout Bay Harbour in the morning and working the ground with baited hoop nets dropped over the reef and hauled by hand. It is simple, hands-on fishing and there is no casting or specialist tackle involved, which makes it one of the few trips where complete beginners and children can pull their own catch aboard.

Everything is on the boat: nets, bait, and a skipper who knows which patches of reef hold crayfish on the day. Most of the work is in reading the ground and the tide, and that is our job rather than yours.

Crayfishing is only open on a small number of designated days each season. Those dates are set by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and released by official public notice, usually shortly before the season opens. They change every year and no fishing is permitted outside them. We share the notice as soon as it is published, so get in touch and we will let you know the moment the dates are out and take your booking for one of them.

You will need a valid recreational permit, available from your local Post Office, and daily bag and minimum size limits apply as set out in the current notice. Recreationally caught crayfish may not be sold. Stocks have declined significantly over the years and the fishery is tightly managed for that reason, so we fish strictly to the limits and put back anything undersized or in berry.