The SA Championships for SA Junior Angling was hos

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The SA Championships for SA Junior Angling was hosted at the Bloemhof Dam

Premier Division U19, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Central Gauteng, North West, KZN, Free State, Gauteng North,

President Division U19 - NE Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Central NW, WP, EP, Southern Cape, Northern Cape

B Division, 7 of the B sides of representatives in both divisions above.

U/13 - All the above teams

The U/19's are teams of 12 Anglers a reserve, Captaoin and Manager and the u/13's are 6 Angler a reserve and Captain

The Practice days were on Saturday and Sunday and the Championships Monday and Wednesday

Thursday a rest day and Friday / Saturday national trials for the invited members (top 20% of the SA Champ participants)

The under 19's were hosted on various sections of the Verlatenkraal shoreline and the U/13's at the Bloemhof sloep near Sandveld

Total fish caught in the competition 13,023 fish for 11,889kg with estimated catches over the practice days equaling this giving us around 25,0000 fish caught for 24,000kg in last week

Largest Carp in the 4.5kg class, Grasscarp in the 4.5kg class and Catfish in the 11kg class

90% of the catch was carp, 9% Grasscarp and the other 1% made up of Catfish and Yellowfish

 

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My children Micaela (14) and John-Craig (13) participated in the Presidents division, Limpopo U/19A side.

We arrived to cloudy skys and Storms brewing and not to favourable weather forecasts.

 

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Day 1 was practice and confirmation of the peg pairings and John-Craig and Sage Ward moved as pair from last year's under 13 team into the under 19 team.

They showed straight from the outset that they meant business and got some good practice of netting their own catches where their fish averaged over 1.5kg

 

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Micaela and Johan paired up again and showed good signs of preparation

 

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Micaela couldn't wait to get fishing in her Awa-Shima gear with her custom Pink IM7 Enigma Series 12'

 

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Day 1 was a ding dong day starting with some rather snide comments about our team and especially John-Craig and Micaela being so small and "Inexperienced" and that the opposition would walk over them.

End result was John-Craig and Sage tied for 1st and Micaela anf Johan walking their zone taking 1st place with Micaela 2nd in the Zone and Johan 3rd

The tournament was stopped for 1 hour for lightning as the static caused light shocks to the kids.

The officials then came around confirming the tournament would cease at 14:00 (much to all the kids disgust) because of an imminent storm.

2 minutes after the final siren we were hit by winds of over 100km and hour. Trailer lids blown off, boxes blown off stands, umbrellas blown away, rods broken and my 2 small kids hanging onto parents and peg partnes to stop being blown away.

The Approaching storm

 

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Sandblasted

 

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Rain ended and sandblasting stopped but still miserable

 

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Day 2 and the fish were difficult in the morning but John Craig and Sage still managed a 2nd place as pairing as they adjusted from a 100m line clip to a 120m+ distance

Micaela and Johan slipped as they snagged a lot losing a lot of fish and fishing time

 

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Day 3 and Sage and John Craig awoke on a mission and their mission was to put the perception of their being the smallest and youngest and thus most inexperienced to rest.

They hit the ground running and contrary to my advice of starting at 80 and 100m they started at 100 and 120m and stayed there all day.

My advice was to keep an eye on Ruandre Roux of Central north West, an 18 year old fishing Machine who was clearly on his way to winning the SA's and to follow suite as I knew J and S could beat the Central Northwest pair and true to form the walked the Zone as they were the only balanced pairing on the Zone

What a Stand Up Performance by the "Young, Small and Inexperienced 13 year old's, they were the top pairing in their zone over 3 days and one of the best if not the best pairing of all pairs over the 3 days.

 

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Micaela and Johan were just not ready or strong enough for the 120m plan their adjacent opposition were employing so they built a feed spot fished it with deadly accuracy, continuously landing fish keeping them in the running.

When dean Pelser walked past and forgot his small bucket of coloured grasscarp cutletts she pounced upon the opportunity, snatching one and rigging it on a Bottom Trace but sent it out on 0.16mm line.

5 minutes later she was hanging onto a Solid fish and played it like a pro and landed a 5kg class Catfish bumping here 5 positions up in the Zone standings.

 

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Her Catfish

 

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The team fought hard but the drop in points on the Tuesday cost them badly and they ended in 4th position.

 

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Prize Giving went well with our team taking 2 gold medals with George Henning landing the biggest carp of 4.66kg and Max with the biggest catfish of 11.2kg (he also landed a 11kg the same day - blank to 2 fish 22kg in 30 minutes)

Those that don't know the system of SA and National trials, in short the process is, Provincial leagues to qualify for trials, Trials on Provincial Level, Compete in National Champs.

To be able to accommodate the teams and provide reasonable fishing the teams are split into 2 divisions and the top 20 anglers per division (A and B sides) in all u/19 division are invited to the National trials 2 days after the SA's.

1 rest day and then 2 days trials (this year in the Sloep)

Christopher Pelser had his 5th top 10 finish and is treading solidly in his dad's footsteps (Dean Pelser with 9 Protea Caps and 5 SA Champion Titles) he was the first invited and we initially believed him to be the only possible Trialist from our team.

Low and behold when Position 12 was called out it was John-Craig, he and I totally flabbergasted, 3 positions later Sage was called out and then we were all elated to hear Micaela's name called out.

How proud could a father be, both the children in the top 20.

Micaela's dream of being invited to trials on merit had come true (All girls invited on Merit receive immediate inclusion in the Federation U/19 Girls Team for the Junior Tour) All other girls compete then for the remaining team births in an additional trials.

So it was off to tie traces and prepare their already exhausted bodies for another 2 days of fishing - 7 in total - but Micaela still wanted to try for a big Cat at the river....... No takers, only small ones

 

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Trials went OK with J and M ending in the middle of the total pack but Micaela ending well among the young ladies. What they learnt and observed however was huge in terms of future participation and on Day 2 of the trials they took out all the stops.

Micaela on her 2nd cast landed a 5kg+ Catfish and then later another 3 nice Carp and immediately after the turn got a 4kg+ Carp

 

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Ever seen a girl this happy about landing a nice catfish when it counts?....... This one put her 2nd amongst the U/19 girls for the day

 

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John Craig and 9 others in his block of 22 anglers ended the first 4 hours before moving on a blank and it didn’t go much better after that.

He and his peg partner held fast at 65 and 80m because before the turn the anglers had got fish there but eventually he decided to go long and planted a P4 trace at least 130m

Just after doing so his partner for the afternoon session “Martin from GN” got a screamer of a run. It was a big fish that picked him up on his 5lbs rig and it took him all of 300m to stop and turn the fish and he was clearly being over cautious as he was still on a blank.

John-Craig was watching this and didn’t see his Carp rod (P4 at range) biting (I did however see the bite) The next thing line was peeling off of his reel and he was onto a good fish and he decided it was coming in and coming in fast. Although he was fishing 0.16mm C+ Hyper Cast he really stuck it to the fish and kept it from going out of the swim.

His neighbour Louis Piek helped him land the fish and as he did so the catfish spat a carp out. The next thing John-Craig is standing there with a Carp swinging on the line and a Catfish in the net.

He had hooked the carp deep and the barble had swallowed the Carp and because he pulled it hard the barble couldn’t regurgitate the Carp so he took the blank off with a Double.

The fact that the cat had been bitten by an Otter also made the fight a bit easier.

His partner had hooked his barble of similar size in the tail on similar tackle and due to the way it was hooked and that it was his first and subsequently only bite for the day it was played extremely cautiously.

 

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The barble showing the otter bite

 

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They went fishing at the river the next morning while we packed up and landed a few fish but no monsters and it was soon time to leave.......