About the Festival

The Wild Trout Association’s flagship flyfishing festival has developed into four days of flyfishing and five evenings of talk about flyfishing and much more. Established in 1996, it has been an annual feature on the flyfishing enthusiast’s calendar. It is the single most important opportunity for monitoring the region’s wild trout populations by way of daily catch returns submitted by participants.

The Wild Trout Association’s flagship flyfishing festival has developed into four days of flyfishing and five evenings of talk about flyfishing. Established in 1996, it has been an annual feature on the flyfishing enthusiast’s calendar. It is the single most important opportunity for monitoring the region’s wild trout populations.

The Rhodes Wild Trout Festival

The annual fly fishing festival is the centrepiece of the WTA’s calendar and has been held in Rhodes each year since 1996. Originally sponsored by Bell’s Extra Special Old Scotch Whisky (1996 – 2006) followed by Epson South Africa (2011 – 2018) and since 2019, when it became known as the Dirt Road Wild Trout Festival sponsored by Dirt Road Outfitters.

The festival takes place during the third week of March and brings together 40 – 50 anglers for four days of relaxed flyfishing across as many of the WTA beats as weather and personal preferences permit. It is the WTA’s primary source of comprehensive catch return data and provides an annual benchmark for the health of the fishery.

Walkerbouts Inn in Rhodes is the festival’s home – the gathering point each morning where “sheppards” meet their guests for the day. On their return after their day on the water, all gather at Walkerbouts to enjoy the evening fare. The second last evening of the event includes an auction where Rhodes Stoepsitfees blankets form part of the offerings and the proceeds of which accrue to the Rhodes Animal Care Project. The funds generated from the sale of donated items are used to support other charitable organizations and activities in the village and all of this with the backdrop of the famous Tom Sutcliffe murals (drawn 1996, 2012 and 2022)

WTA Marketing Activities

The WTA has organised successful expos, workshops, and festivals dating back to 1992, starting with the Spoornet/FOSAF Flyfishing Expo in Barkly East. The association has attended five Hooked on Fishing shows, six Getaway Shows, and Indaba for four years. The most productive marketing has been thousands of words in dozens of articles by writers such as Ed Herbst, Tom Sutcliffe, Miles Divett, Peter Brigg, Fred Steynberg, Peter Baxter and many others.

The WTA is also active on Instagram; @wildtroutassociation