{"id":15331,"date":"2022-08-10T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T14:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=15331"},"modified":"2022-08-15T13:19:34","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T11:19:34","slug":"its-not-a-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=15331","title":{"rendered":"It’s not a Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We\u2019ve been hunting one animal or another with limited success since we could walk on two legs and chasing down anything that swims as soon as we conquered our fear of water.<\/p>\n

All that has really changed is us swapping the satisfying meal for the satisfaction of a good picture and letting it roam free.<\/p>\n

So I always find it very amusing when any angler tries to compete with another, as it can only be the fish that represents the challenge, not the fellow who joins you in celebrating our noble pursuit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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For 21 years the TOPS Corporate Challenge has spread the ethos and throughout the illustrious event, you will hear then words echo \u2019this festival has nothing to do with fishing!\u201d The vast majority of fly fishers embrace this spirit (amongst a skinful of others), taking the weekend to rekindle old friendships and embellish on angling anecdotes. But with a Million Rands worth of prizes floating around at the grand final of the TCC, in a few corners of the legendary Notties pub, cunning plans are hatched to take the title.<\/p>\n

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In the first qualifying leg, the benchmark of 320 Trout was set, with fish gorging themselves on the smorgasbord of flies being served. However, as the Winter temperatures plummeted, so did their appetite. It has been one of the coldest Winters I can remember, which coupled with the overflowing dams made the next two legs a task for the determined. 319 further hard earned fish were recorded, but what had many an entrant beaming was the average size of the specimens, with every dam in the WildFly stable yielding a fish in excess of 55cm.<\/p>\n

The final of the TCC can cause some to take it too seriously, but a Dalmore whisky tasting and the introduction of a new rule soon changed all that! The norm is for 10 Trout per fly fisher to count, 4 in the 1st session, 3 in the second, 2 in the third session and only a single one in that final afternoon. It was decided to invert this, to 1,2,3,4 and with only one Trout to count in the opening session, the party got into full swing!<\/p>\n

A target of 62.5cm (every inch counts) was set by Stuart McLoud from the Highland Hookers by the time everyone returned for their lunchtime Heineken recharge and at the end of day one, another 132 Rainbows had been notched up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Day two witnessed a fresh onslaught, with the fish a little fly shy and some doughy anglers a little battle weary.<\/p>\n

It took the bagpiper and a hearty lunch to kickstart a very social crowd into action for the final session, knowing the Trout were going to be very skittish after 15 hours of water flogging.<\/p>\n

As everyone exited the dams, the Boks annihilation of the All Blacks started the early celebrations, making for a memorable prize giving!<\/p>\n

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Kobus Potgeiter took top honours for the biggest Trout of 63cm, fittingly caught on his birthday! And Karl Engelbrecht earned himself the top fly fisher accolade with 12 Trout landed at an average of 44cm.<\/p>\n

Every team won a holiday away, just for making it to the final, compliments of WildFly Travel and their affiliated fishing destinations, but despite the phenomenal prizes on offer, you could see it was the bragging rights that held sway.<\/p>\n

Out of a total of 875 fish caught during the event, 47 of these great catches measured in the 60cm \u00a0\/ 8 pound range, marking new milestones for many happy anglers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Trout fishing is a great leveller and one incredible statistic revealed was the three winning teams of the respective legs all blanked in one session of this grand final, proving conclusively that it is always the Trout we compete against and invariably they tend to have the last say!<\/p>\n

But there can only be one champion and narrowly pipping the Artav team in 2nd and the Zimmers in 3rd was the newly crowned Cathedral Peak Hookers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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The celebrations continued until the wee hours, with all paying tribute to each others performance on the field but toasting the time you spent with fellow fly fishers and making unforgettable memories.<\/p>\n

Celebrate your Catch and Celebrate the Moment with TOPS at Spar.<\/p>\n

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We\u2019ve been hunting one animal or another with limited success since we could walk on two legs and chasing down anything that swims as soon as we conquered our fear of water. All that has really changed is us swapping the satisfying meal for the satisfaction of a good picture and letting it roam free. So I always find it very amusing when any angler tries to compete with another, as it can only be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":15373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[279],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tops-corporate-challenge"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Banner.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3220,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3220","url_meta":{"origin":15331,"position":0},"title":"Madagascar Maki Cat adventure","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"August 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"We recently returned from a trip to northern Madagascar, where we spent five days on a liveaboard yacht, exploring some of the areas around the Mitsio islands and Cap San Sebastian. Dr Paul Cowley accompanied us on the trip, as we were hoping to catch a species of kingfish that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Madagascar-cCat-adventure.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Madagascar-cCat-adventure.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Madagascar-cCat-adventure.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Madagascar-cCat-adventure.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Madagascar-cCat-adventure.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Madagascar-cCat-adventure.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3541,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3541","url_meta":{"origin":15331,"position":1},"title":"Zambezi River God Adventures","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"November 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"When conditions present a challenge, then sometimes we have to adjust our focus and our techniques, in order to make the most of our trip.This happened to us recently on a fishing trip to the lower Zambezi, where we had been invited to fish with a new operation called; Zambezi\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3110,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3110","url_meta":{"origin":15331,"position":2},"title":"Semonkong – Big Mountains and Wild Trout","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"March 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We recently got back from an epic trip to Lesotho, where we experienced some spectacular flyfishing in some of the most incredibly remote mountain rivers you can imagine. The Wildfly team planned this trip and invited me to come along, in order to try save me from myself and civilise\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3141,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3141","url_meta":{"origin":15331,"position":3},"title":"Orange River Expedition","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"May 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I was recently invited to join the Wildfly crew on an epic expedition on South Africa's largest river, the Orange River in the Northern Cape. The guys were to be fishing with fly, but invited me to come and try my hand at seeing what I could get to eat\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3494,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3494","url_meta":{"origin":15331,"position":4},"title":"White Marlin Fiesta","author":"Rhuan Human","date":"September 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Inside Angling was invited by Rico Sakko to fish in Morocco for white marlin in August 2017. Rico is an old friend who we have fished with in Angola many times, he had fished Morocco last year for white marlin and had an amazing experience. This year he was bringing\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2153,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=2153","url_meta":{"origin":15331,"position":5},"title":"White Marlin Fiesta","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"June 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Inside Angling was invited by Rico Sakko to fish in Morocco for white marlin in August 2017. Rico is an old friend who we have fished with in Angola many times, he had fished Morocco last year for white marlin and had an amazing experience. This year he was bringing\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WhiteMarlin-.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WhiteMarlin-.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WhiteMarlin-.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8sv9-3Zh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15331"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15391,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15331\/revisions\/15391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}