About Four Oceans Angling Club

The name is derived from the two oceans surrounding the South African coastline coupled with the "oceans of the mind and spirit". The club's primary emphasis is that of competitive angling a winning culture and an all encompassing sportsman philosphy.

The Four Oceans Angling Club was established at the beginning of 2003 with small ambitions, small ideas and a vision to achieve a modicum of success in our start-up year with a hope of doing something a little bit more meaningful in subsequent years.

Undoubtedly the unwavering ethos in our club is to provide an angling spirit and home to the Cape Flats communities. Our diverse membership of largely blue collar workers come from areas such as Mitchell's Plain, Parktown, Silvertown, Athlone and even as far afield as Malmesbury. We host a series of workshops each year and assist where we can in providing training and angling ethics to the broader community.

The club is based on democratic principles that is the cornerstone of driving our success where decisions that affect us is based on consultation and buy-in of our general body that will lead us to be one of the premier angling club's in the Western Cape.

When reviewing our world view, largely based on our personal experiences, we would say that a sport such as soccer, is arguably the biggest sport in the world.  We’ll, I think many people, except the die hard anglers, would not be surprised that more people in the world have tried their hand at angling than any other sport whether it is at a competitive level or buying a R100 combo at Pick n Pay that covers all the basics.

This is truly a mult-faceted sport and caters for the social, holiday only, weekend angler or various levels of competitive angler.  In the Western Cape, you also get what I like to refer to as the telephone angler, the fish is biting at Gunnery type anglers and the curry pot weekend away guys.  However, do not for one minute believe that there are not a number of truly great anglers that fish that way.  There are also a number of great anglers that as young anglers we aspire to become like the legendary Boeta’s Hiema Ysters, Hammer, Ummie, Faiez, Adlee,  and Rashied Venos to name but a few.  These guys have all made their mark and how wonderful would it not be, to have all this knowledge stored in some electronic form for future generation to leverage off.

As with people that have their own unique qualities, so too clubs develop that draws a certain type of like-minded angler to it, from the extremely social to the extremely competitive.  The articulation of this article is largely on the latter, that new paradigm of extreme angling that whilst done at individual level, as with the legendary anglers mentioned earlier, has never really been advocated as an option by a club on the Cape Flats.

The commom denominator for all anglers is “the challenge” and whilst we have different approaches and philosphies, each day starts with an air of expectation that can lead to the invariable blanking or where the fish smashes you line on every cast.  Smashing is what every angler dreams of and in the winter months are few and far between.  The cold, wet and rather miserable Cape weather this winter leaves you most times with a sense of absolute disillusionment and seeking of answers to the inevitable question:  “Why are the fish not biting”.  Everything bar the kitchen sink is used from basic fact, myths and fiction to the absolutely absurd, but maybe that is what provides the angler with a level of comfort to justify the time, money, effort and disillusioned spouses as to why we continue with our obsession.

Just as science is proving itself in the sphere of crime solving, so technological and scientific advancements have made the passion of angling advance from a social science to a migratory natural science.  With fish stocks dwindling, climate changes and numerous other variables making angling more difficult relative to a couple of decades ago, we have to adjust our thinking to optimising our chances.  We literally have to “think out of the box” and as we upgrade equipment, line, knots etc, so too we have to update our data banks and embrace these technological advancements.

Competiitive shore angling as in many other facets of angling requires a tremendous amount of time and patience. The old adage of being married to your fishing rods is maybe quite correct for the committed angler. To become great in this game one needs to develop an intimate relationship with the ocean, the shore and the tackle to be used.

The learning curve is and remains steep and it is up to this new paradigm of angler to continually evolve as the oceans and its resources evolve.  As anglers we need to adapt and embrace the spirit of angling, changing techniques to suite the environment and prevailing conditions.

As the spring/summer season is approaching, the anticipation to the start of the league season is building up to fever pitch.  The tackle shops are over-run by last minute buys, the sinker smelters are busy, the freezers are stocked with various baits, the off season training is over, the traces/knots/hook sharpening/leaders and the list goes on carries on unabated.  Research reports has become an intergral part of optimising once chances and that has and will have to continue to improve to create that advantage you are seeking.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that you have to TEST THE BOUNDARIES, IT’S NOT NEXT TO YOU, and go out there and do it.  If you fail to plan your strategy and execution, you are planning to fail and these were the hard lesson learnt from the University of Angling Life in our first season in the league, a mistake we should avoid at all costs.  Every angler will most probably experience at some point the let down of blanking, losing a monster fish, hook and miss and so forth, but the only guarantee is that without a line in the water, you are guaranteed Not to get any pulls.