The South African Fly Fishing Association (SAFFA) B-Nationals competition took place last week in Haenertsburg. The three-day competition saw over 50 anglers from all across the country come together for the angling tournament.
One Hoedspruit resident, Steve Benbow, represented the ‘Mpumalanga 1’ team and helped his team achieve bronze overall in the competition. Meanwhile, a number of local fisherman from Tzaneen competed in the ‘Limpopo 2’ team which achieved fourth place.
The opening ceremony was held on Wednesday evening with the anglers taking to the water first thing on Thursday morning.
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The event which went through until noon on Saturday was split into five fishing sectors, giving each fisherman three dam fishing opportunities and two river fishing opportunities.
For the river sectors, a section of river is split into a 200-300 metre portion, known as a beat, and each fisherman is drawn at random to fish that beat for three hours. All trout caught are measured and recorded by a marshall before being released back into the water.
The five fishing sectors were as follows; Dap Naude Dam and dam wall, the Dap River, Lakeside and the Broederstroom River.
The fishermen, and women, worked together in a team a five to represent their province or region. Ten teams competed, including; Western Province, Free State, Central Gauteng, Northern Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Boland, Eastern Cape and three teams from Limpopo.
The anglers commended the organisation of the event as well as the difficulty and variety of fishing, “There was a great variety between the sectors. It kept you thinking all the time, changing your tactics and changing flies,” said Korrie Broos, an angler from the Western Province who has fished 18 National competitions.
The individual angler who caught the most fish was tied between John Gavin from the Free State with 40 fish and Albert Smith from Tzaneen, also with 40 fish. However, John Gavin’s fish measured longer and so he took the accolade.
The biggest fish of the competition, caught by Limpopo angler Dirk Myburgh measured a huge 58cm.
On points, the top three anglers of the competition were Dylan Straw from Boland, followed by Luke Pannel from Western Province with Karl Krull from the Eastern Cape taking gold.
The top three teams were Steve Benbow’s team ‘Mpumalanga 1’ with Bronze, Eastern Cape with Silver and Western Province taking Gold. Another local team, ‘Limpopo 2’ took fourth place. Benbow also ended up the fourth top individual fisherman of the tournament.
