{"id":2670,"date":"2016-06-13T11:38:18","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T09:38:18","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2019-02-19T16:35:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T14:35:36","slug":"off-to-a-flying-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=2670","title":{"rendered":"Off to a Flying Start…."},"content":{"rendered":"

Only once in a Blue Moon does a weekend’s angling outstrip expectations. And this is made all the more difficult when it’s the benchmark of a TOPS Corporate Challenge.  To state categorically that it was the Party of the year would be like calling the All Black rugby team reasonably good……it was Epic! The four man teams always arrive in fine spirits on the Thursday evening, but this atmosphere seemed to compound every day until the hilarious prize giving on Saturday night. Incredibly the legendary festivities at Notties did not detract from the fishing. Well, that is to say, those fly fishers who made it to the water, certainly got the desired result.<\/p>\n

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420 Trout was the final tally, averaging 9 fish per angler, proving that the WildFly waters have no shortage of stocks to test your flies on.<\/div>\n
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The patterns that performed really did vary though, depending on the water.   The first two sessions saw a lot of streamers, mainly tied on natural materials, like marabou and zonker strips doing the damage, with Olive as a colour reigning supreme.<\/div>\n
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Then in the colder waters, the trigger of white and orange attracted the fish already displaying spawning behaviour. In most cases, a little nymph trailing the larger fly proved irresistible to the Rainbows chasing the attractor patterns. But it was the cold front that moved up from the Cape that changed the playing field. Bitterly cold and blustering winds kept many contenders around the warm hearth of Notties; those that braved the conditions, incredibly still recorded fish, albeit by resorting to very slow, deep fishing tactics. The statistics were 149 – Session 1136 – Session 2   70 – Session 3   65 – Session 4 The Biggest Fish was 55cm, caught by Brad Stephens on Oakbrook Dam.  Top Angler was Dean Lailvaux from the Afriguide Logistics team, who averaged 40cm in his tally of 17 Trout, catching in every single session.<\/p>\n

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The 5 teams that qualified for the grand final in July were -: 5th Place-  Sasfin Securities 4th Place – The Finance Team3rd Place – Team WildFlies2nd Place – Afriguide Logistics1st Place –  Stealth Fly fishing<\/p>\n

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As usual the official placings were overshadowed by the rewards for the antics off the field with #partycomrade awards. Needless to say, the TOPS Corporate Challenge continues it’s tradition as South Africa’s #1 fishing event.<\/div>\n
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only once in a Blue Moon does a weekend’s angling outstrip expectations. And this is made all the more difficult when it’s the benchmark of a TOPS Corporate Challenge.  To state categorically that it was the Party of the year would be like calling the All Black rugby team reasonably good……it was Epic! The four man teams always arrive in fine spirits on the Thursday evening, but this atmosphere seemed to compound every day until the hilarious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":4934,"comment_status":"open","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/b2ap3_thumbnail_Da-Boyz.JPG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2651,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=2651","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":0},"title":"TOPS Corporate Challenge Leg 3","author":"Gareth","date":"July 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0 Never has so few been caught by so many. To say that the fishing was slow on the last leg of the TOPS Corporate Challenge, would be like calling Leicester City's premier league win predictable\u2026\u2026.which the Trout clearly were not. Sixty anglers toiled and when in the very first\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3325,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3325","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":1},"title":"Storm Gomoku Jigs have arrived!","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"April 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The new range of small jigs from Storm has finally arrived in South Africa. This range of jigs is for micro jigging, whether slow pitch or speed jigging. They have been specifically designed in Japan for this type of fishing. 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But, with over half a Million Rands worth of holidays up for grabs and every\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\/11\/WFWEB_BlogBanner_TCCFINAL.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFWEB_BlogBanner_TCCFINAL.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFWEB_BlogBanner_TCCFINAL.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFWEB_BlogBanner_TCCFINAL.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFWEB_BlogBanner_TCCFINAL.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13919,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=13919","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":3},"title":"Count Out","author":"Gareth","date":"September 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve never considered fly fishing to be a competitive sport, amongst anglers that is. It\u2019s the fish you have to battle with after all, so another fly fisher can only really be considered company on the water. \u00a0 Hence, the TOPS Corporate Challenge has never been about fishing, despite some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Competitions"","block_context":{"text":"Competitions","link":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?cat=80"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Count-Out-TCC-Final-blog-copy-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Count-Out-TCC-Final-blog-copy-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Count-Out-TCC-Final-blog-copy-3.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Count-Out-TCC-Final-blog-copy-3.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Count-Out-TCC-Final-blog-copy-3.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3293,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3293","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":4},"title":"Williamson Pro Stickbaits, versatile and cost effective","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"October 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Williamson Pro series of stickbaits are one of those lures which have caught a massive variety of fish- from billfish to grouper and do not hurt the wallet each time you buy one. 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