Ten Pound Trout takes the TOPS at SPAR Kamberg Trout Festival
Pounds were invented for us fly fisherman, as were centimeters for that matter.
When you talk about trout of half a meter, it grabs a person’s attention and double digit fish roaming in any dam is what drives us to any destination, let alone distraction.
The TOPS at SPAR Kamberg Trout Festival is one of the oldest fly fishing gatherings on the calendar and it has taken a tremendous amount of effort from this close knit community to build one of South Africa’s finest events. The hospitality embraces every angler who visits and the festivities might leave you wondering about your ability to maintain.
But it’s the fishing that the 164 enthusiastic contenders invade the Kamberg Valley for, which has over the years proven to yield the desired results.
This year was no exception, with 826 trout being caught and duly released to fight another day. What was remarkable was that despite the unseasonal warm weather conditions, the average size of the fish was exceptional.A testament to the stocking strategy of the Kamberg Trout Festival over the last 7 years.
To many anglers caught fish over 50cm to mention, but the few that breached that 60cm mark do.
Adam Fowls at 61cm deserves an accolade, as the girth on his Rainbow hen looked like it could make it into the 10 pound club and Stu Du Toit, Jon Bromilow and Simon Bunn’s 63cm fish were noteworthy catches indeed!
But it was Greg Zeiler who walked away with the biggest fish of the first 2014 TOPS at SPAR competition with a beast of 66cm, taken from DanieSteyn’s Hlatikulu dam that broke that hallowed double digit mark.
A total of 322 meters of Trout were released back into the Kamberg waters, with the WildFly team taking top honors, accounting for just over 30 meters of fish over the 4 sessions.
Kudos to Ed Erskine and his committee who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to host such a satisfying event and of course to TOPS at Spar for driving our sport of Fly Fishing. With fishing of this quality, make sure you book early for next year’s event by contacting -: secretary@kambergtroutfestival.co.za
As such, he is included not as a Guide in terms of the someone who can give you any indispensable tuition or direction, but to provide us with some fishing tales from the events that WildFly hosts and of course from the locations that the the WildFly team happen to be filming.
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