POLOKWANE – The Limpopo Junior fly-fishing team recently came home from the South African Fly Fishing annual junior nationals with a gold medal.

The competition was hosted on the Vaal River in the Vredefort dome area during the October school holidays with a large number of small mouth yellow fish caught.

The Vaal was divided into five sectors of which each team member rotated with young fisherman from the other provinces. Each session lasted three hours.

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The Limpopo junior team is coached and managed by Dr Peter Schulenburg, The are six boys that make up the team include Kade Thompson (captain), Luke Fairhead, David Mulder, Cambell MaClean, Cary Owtram and Bodo Schulenburg. Most of the boys are in Stanford Lake College, while others are from Hoërskool Merensky and Southern Cross.

According to Schulenburg, fly fishing is largely a technical sport and involves three different subsections.

“The most difficult and time consuming subsection is the actual tying of the flies used to lure their pray. You need to have vast knowledge in the Entomology of the area fished. Each section of the life cycle of the insect is then imitated in the form of a fly. The caddis fly life cycle is very important and flies imitating the nymph, streamers or the actual fly are tied,” he explained.

He adds that casting the fly line is another aspect which takes years to master.

“These boys can land a fly on a tiki if asked to do so. The most enjoyable part is the actual fishing and landing of the fish. They practiced mainly Czeck nymphing, which involved the drifting of a nymph through different columns of water.”

During the competition the target fish were mainly Yellow and mud fish respectively. Large numbers and sizes were caught, the largest being a small mouth yellow of 663 mm.

“The Limpopo team prepared well in advance and went on planned coaching weekends and fly tying clinics prior to the event. They gelled well together and exchanged a lot of information on WhatsApp groups and weekly meetings at SLC. The boys fished and worked hard to claim the ultimate prize.”

Limpopo finished with a gold medal, with Kade an overall second, Luke sixth, David ninth and Cambell thirteenth.

This, Schulenburg said, should be sufficient for an invite to national trials in December.

“Luke managed to make the national team last year and toured the Czek Republic with the SASACC Team. We are hoping and expecting that more of our team will get national colours this year.”

Those interested in fly fishing can join the Haenertsburg Trout Association (HTA) and call Willem Nel on 082 879 8305 or André Gouws on 082 570 2782 for more information.