Is It Legal to Spearfish at Night in South Africa? The Law, Chapter and Verse

Spearfishing at night is legal in South Africa. With a valid recreational fishing permit endorsed for spearfishing, on breath-hold, taking fish only, no national regulation restricts spearfishing to daylight hours and none prohibits a dive light. What the law restricts instead is place: Marine Protected Areas, the five abalone dive-ban areas, and estuaries. In South African fisheries law, the traps are drawn on the map, not on the clock.

This post is the reference version: the rules that govern a night dive, with their gazette numbers, and nothing else. (How this research came about - a fabricated "regulation" doing the rounds in our club group chat - is a story of its own, told in the original post. This page skips the drama and keeps the law.)

Where the law lives

• The Act: the Marine Living Resources Act 18 of 1998 (MLRA). Its section 58 is the offences section - relevant later, under penalties.
• The regulations: Government Notice R.1111 of 2 September 1998, the principal regulations under the MLRA. They have been amended by forty-one notices in twenty-seven years, and not one amendment has ever touched spearfishing's hours or added a light restriction. (Most of the recent ones are the annual crayfish season dates.)
• Your permit conditions: on 31 January 2024 the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment withdrew its famous "Marine Recreational Fishing Information and Permit Conditions Brochure" - current and all previous versions - pending a review. No replacement has appeared. Your permit conditions are the regulations.
• Where to read them: the Department's own fishing e-permit portal - the same site that sells you the permit - hosts the Act, the consolidated regulations and the abalone dive-ban notice under its Legislation menu.

The standing rules for every spearfishing dive

Day or night, the same conditions apply:

• a valid recreational fishing permit, endorsed for spearfishing;
• breath-hold only - no artificial breathing apparatus other than a snorkel;
• fish (superclass Pisces) only - your endorsement does not cover crayfish, and recreational west coast rock lobster is in any case limited to 08h00-16h00 on gazetted open days;
• no spearfishing in estuaries, tidal rivers or lagoons;
• bag limits, size limits, closed seasons, and the prohibited species list.

Time of day: no restriction exists

The regulations are not shy about banning fishing at night. They do it, expressly, five separate times:

"The holder of a recreational fishing permit endorsed for cast-netting shall not engage in fishing between sunset and sunrise."

Sunset-to-sunrise bans also cover beach-seine and other net fishing, oyster collection and shellfish, and recreational west coast rock lobster is confined to 08h00-16h00. Five times in one document, the drafters showed they know exactly how to ban a nighttime activity - and wrote no such clause for spearfishing. In legal interpretation, that omission is not an oversight. It is a decision.

I put the question to the Department's Fisheries Management branch in writing. Their reply confirmed that the Regulations contain an express sunset-to-sunrise prohibition for cast-netting and that "the corresponding provision dealing specifically with recreational spearfishing does not contain the same express sunset-to-sunrise restriction." Asked point-blank to identify any provision restricting spearfishing to daylight, the Department cited none. (The full correspondence is reproduced in the appendix at the end of this post.)

Where does the daylight myth come from? The withdrawn brochure did contain a daylight rule - under the SCUBA diving permit conditions, for six named Marine Protected Areas. It never appeared under the spearfishing conditions, and spearfishing on SCUBA is illegal anyway.

Dive lights: no prohibition exists

No provision of the regulations prohibits the use of an artificial light or torch in the course of lawful recreational spearfishing. The Department, asked directly, identified none - its own carefully worded caution rests on the phrase "no specific prohibition identified in the Regulations." It declines to call the light authorised; it never disputes that no prohibition exists.

That distinction matters, because our criminal law does not run on permission slips. An offence under section 58 of the Act requires contravening an actual provision or permit condition. Lawful conduct does not need authorising; unlawful conduct needs a prohibition. For a torch, there is not one.

Marine Protected Areas: where night rules are real

MPAs write their own regulations, and some genuinely do ban fishing at night:

• iSimangaliso bans fishing - including spearfishing - between sunset and sunrise in its controlled zones (GN R.788, Gazette 42479 of 2019).
• Aliwal Shoal bans night fishing from vessels (GN R.781, same gazette).
• Most MPA zones restrict spearfishing at any hour - in restricted zones it is simply prohibited, day or night.

Before diving anywhere near an MPA, check that MPA's own gazetted regulations and zoning map. The 2019 MPA regulations all live in Gazette 42479.

The five abalone dive-ban areas

The Regulations for the Protection of Wild Abalone (GN R.62 of 1 February 2008) are the sharpest teeth on this list, and the least known. In five listed areas they prohibit all diving - defined so broadly that a mask, snorkel, fins or a weight belt qualifies - and even possession of that gear:

• Bird Island;
• the Quoin Point to Danger Point stretch near Gansbaai;
• Dyer Island;
• part of the Cape of Good Hope coastline;
• Robben Island.

Two of those are ordinary open coast, not MPAs - you can be outside every protected area on the map and still inside a dive ban. The prohibition applies day and night, with fines up to R500,000. The only carve-out is at the Cape of Good Hope, where shore diving within one nautical mile is allowed during park access hours. This, not torches, is how a spearo on "open coastline" actually ends up in court.

Estuaries

The regulations prohibit spearfishing in estuaries, tidal rivers and lagoons - at any hour, with or without a light. This is one of the few blanket spatial bans in the recreational conditions themselves rather than in a separate notice.

Penalties

• Section 58 of the Act is the offences section: fines up to R2 million for the offences a recreational fisher could commit (the higher tiers, up to R5 million, are for commercial and high-seas offences).
• Regulation 96 of GN R.1111 makes contravening a regulation its own offence, capped at R800 000 or two years.
• The abalone regulations carry fines up to R500,000.

The pre-dive checklist

• Permit on you, endorsed for spearfishing.
• Outside every MPA, or strictly within what that MPA's own regulations allow.
• Outside the five abalone dive-ban areas - remember two of them are plain open coast.
• Not in an estuary, tidal river or lagoon.
• Within bag limits, size limits and closed seasons; off the prohibited species list; leave the crayfish alone.
• Boundaries loaded into your GPS - the DiveFree map draws both the MPAs and the abalone dive-ban areas.
• Expect a conversation on the beach. A diver in the water after dark is what abalone poachers look like, and enforcement around poaching hotspots is aggressive. Being legal and being hassle-free are not the same thing.

Sources

• Marine Living Resources Act 18 of 1998, section 58.
• MLRA regulations: GN R.1111 of 2 September 1998, as amended through GN R.6888 of 28 November 2025.
• Regulations for the Protection of Wild Abalone: GN R.62 of 1 February 2008.
• 2019 MPA regulations: Gazette 42479 of 2019 (iSimangaliso GN R.788; Aliwal Shoal GN R.781).
• DFFE brochure withdrawal announcement, 31 January 2024.
• Written correspondence with DFFE Fisheries Management, August 2026 - reproduced in full in the appendix below.
• The DFFE fishing e-permit portal, which hosts the Act, the consolidated regulations and the abalone notice.

Appendix: the correspondence, in full

For the record, here is the exchange with the Department, reproduced verbatim.

My email:

Dear Fisheries Management Branch,

I am a recreational fisher and hold a recreational fishing permit endorsed for spearfishing. I would appreciate the Department's written confirmation of the following, to settle a point of public confusion:

1. Under the Regulations published in GN R.1111 of 2 September 1998 (as amended, most recently by GN 5645 of 6 December 2024 and GN R.6888 of 28 November 2025), am I correct that there is no time-of-day restriction on recreational spearfishing - i.e. that spearfishing at night is lawful outside Marine Protected Areas and outside the areas listed in the Regulations for the Protection of Wild Abalone (GN R.62 of 1 February 2008), subject to the standard conditions (superclass Pisces only, no estuaries, no artificial breathing apparatus other than a snorkel, bag/size limits and closed seasons)?

2. Am I correct that no provision of the Regulations prohibits the use of an artificial light or torch in the course of lawful recreational spearfishing?

3. I note the Department's public announcement of 31 January 2024 withdrawing the Marine Recreational Fishing Information and Permit Conditions Brochure (Version 23/1) and replacing it with the MLRA Regulations pending a review. Can you confirm whether the updated brochure has since been published, and if not, that the MLRA Regulations remain the applicable permit conditions for recreational fishing in the interim?

A brief written reply would be greatly appreciated, as I want to ensure I am fully compliant before diving.

Kind regards,
Joshua

The Department's reply:

Dear Mr Joshua.

We acknowledge the points raised in your email.

The Department advises that recreational spearfishing is regulated in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act, 1998 (Act No. 18 of 1998), and the Regulations promulgated thereunder, as amended. A person engaging in recreational spearfishing must be in possession of a valid recreational fishing permit endorsed for spearfishing and must comply with all applicable species restrictions, bag limits, size limits, closed seasons and area restrictions.

With regard to your specific question concerning the time of day, the current Regulations contain a specific prohibition on recreational cast-netting between sunset and sunrise. The corresponding provision dealing specifically with recreational spearfishing does not contain the same express sunset-to-sunrise restriction. The Regulations also prohibit spearfishing in estuaries.

However, the absence of an express sunset-to-sunrise prohibition should not, on its own, be interpreted as a general authorisation for all forms of night spearfishing or the use of artificial lighting. Additional restrictions may apply depending on the location, including Marine Protected Areas, other declared restricted areas, species-specific provisions and any applicable permit conditions or other environmental legislation.

Regarding the use of an artificial light or torch, we are unable to confirm that the use of such equipment is generally authorised for recreational spearfishing solely on the basis that there is no specific prohibition identified in the Regulations. The applicable legislation and permit conditions must be considered in their entirety.

We further note your reference to the withdrawal of the Marine Recreational Fishing Information and Permit Conditions Brochure (Version 23/1). The Regulations published under the Marine Living Resources Act remain applicable, as amended, and should be read together with any valid permit conditions and applicable area-specific restrictions.

Accordingly, we recommend that you do not rely on the absence of a specific prohibition as confirmation that night spearfishing using an artificial light is lawful in a particular location. Where necessary, the Department's relevant Fisheries Management officials should confirm the position for the specific area in which you intend to fish.

We trust that the above provides the necessary clarification.

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This is not legal advice. It reflects the position as at August 2026. Regulations change and MPAs get re-zoned - check the current Government Gazette position and the relevant MPA authority before you dive. Every gazette cited is a public document.