Aspects of the demersal longline fishery in South Africa for kingklip and hake are described. Longline effort was distributed in five distinct regions in 1985 and a trend of increasing catch rate for kingklip was observed from the West Coast to the South and South-East Coasts. Most of the effort was expended between 350 and 449 m, the depth range where the kingklip catch rate was highest. Over three-quarters of the hake caught by longlines was also taken in the same depth range, but the best catch rates were between 150 and 199 m. The bulk of the hake catch probably consisted of M. capensis. Although the longlining method has substantially increased the rate of exploitation of the kingklip stocks, it is concluded that, at the time of writing, the stocks were not being adversely affected.