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CTC Article Archive 3 ~ Corporate Trophy Challenge
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Hunting that elusive Trophy
It’s not very often that you feel the urge to leave that snug feather-down duvet before the light of day breaks, but there are some things that can make you spring out of bed to take on Jack Frost. It never fails to amaze my wife that the only time I can be found tip toeing around in the pitch black of a Midlands winter morning is when there is fishing to be had.
Not just any casual fishing mind you, but a weekend of festive fly fishing in South Africa’s premier fly fishing event, The Hyundai Corporate Trophy Challenge. It had taken many favours to press my way to a team invite into this illustrious competition and pregnant wife or not, the allure of a Million Rands worth of prizes and the chance to fish 15 of Natal’s most exclusive trout waters forced my hand.
So having got the reluctant green light from the C.E.O., it was off to the legendary Notties Hotel, the hub of the Natal Midlands, where the Wildfly team was hosting this gathering of fly fishers.
Registration is always an eye opener, the parking lot equals the GDP of a small country and the teams saunter in, brimming with confidence, everyone a Goliath in their own minds. Genna George, Tammy Price and Zet Hardie kept the rabble under control, enticing or dragging them from the pub, ensuring everyone was checked into their comfortable accommodation and dishing out the corporate gift packs that made you feel like a kid in a candy store, packed with over a thousand Rand worth of fly fishing goodies
Nothing quite matches the atmosphere of an opening night of the Hyundai Corporate Trophy Challenge. If you could bottle the enthusiasm and good cheer in the room on that 1st night, it would put Prozac right out of business. No broken dreams, just the infectious expectation that tomorrow is the day. If the trout had a looking glass and were witness to the collective will power that is invoked on such a night, they would evolve into amphibians and head for the hills.
Notties pub is awash with predictions and toasts, and the cheap talk always turns to the one that invariably got away. Following the opening ceremony and the obligatory rules and regs the party steps up a notch and this is where the wheels can completely come off. Fortunately sanity prevailed and it must be said that our team didn’t mean to pick up the gauntlet that was laid down time and again by the visiting compatriots.
Dawn hadn’t quite broken by the time we staggered up to our rooms.
Who’s idea was it to fish in the first place? Are your first thoughts.
Amid the blurred vision, dry mouth and dull pain that is working it’s way to the forehead, we manage to stumble across our first stretch of water. Temperature measures about 2 inches and you struggle to comprehend that anything would be swimming in these frigid conditions.
Until of course your nearest competitor is whooping in delight at the rainbow hen that is stripping his line with an acrobatic display. Ever seen a man with a fighting a fish getting sea sick? It’s amazing what relativity can do for your hangover. It’s instantaneously lines wet and then you start to work the water like your life depended on it. We all like to congratulate our fellow competitor, “Nice Fish” we say as he nets another beauty, but beneath the congenial exterior lurks a beast that won’t be shown up by any man on any water.
Fortune favors the despot as far as I’m concerned and the WildFly waters did not disappoint. The fishing is always magic in those first two sessions of any compo and if it wasn’t for the hearty pub lunch at Notties, I wouldn’t waste time between waters.
The float tubers generally get the bigger bag, being able to cover substantially more water, but everyone catches; or at least everyone who made to the water. The premature celebrations start for those that fared better than others and then the experts materialize.
It’s incredible how catching a few fish turns a mere mortal into Lord Fly. A fly fishing guru who has the answer to questions nobody poses. A Rand for every piece of advice freely offered would give you an enviable retirement fund.
Tomorrow brings a more earnest approach to the task of landing a few fish. The nature of this unique competition is that, not only is it a catch and release format, so you measure each fish (100 points per fish and 20 points per centimeter), but it’s how your whole team places in each session that counts. So you need to catch in each of the four sessions or you won’t shape. It is all about consistency, not just the lucky big one, although if you catch a ten pounder you automatically get a Kosi Kat ski boat valued at R140 000 and if you hook the tagged fish, a R300 000 Hyundai Terracan is yours. Rewards all round really, especially with three international holidays up for grabs
By the end of session four, your arm feels like it might have done as a pent up teenager. You’ve braved the early morning icicles, heat of the midday sun and abuse of your team mates. You realize that you’re going to get little to no sympathy from your better half when you present your tired bones back home, so with a resigned approach to the peer pressure from everyone back at the pub, it’s time to go big.
The prize-giving of a Hyundai Corporate Trophy Challenge is nothing short of a show, the duo of The Hustler (a.k.a. Colin Hardie) and Mr Wildfly, Gareth George, make sure that everyone knows this event has nothing to do with fly fishing. They reward the most outrageous antics with unbelievable prizes. From the Christopher Columbus award for the bright spark who got lost to the Betty Ford Award for the Team that are in dire need of Rehab. Thousands of Rands in prizes go to all in sundry, even the worst fly fisher (The C.A.R.P Award, as an anagram) gets an armful of goodies.
Only the top five teams got through though and they are the anglers who performed over the two days, in this case being -:
Team Amity, Zululand MediCross, Amptech, N.B.P. Engineering, Regent Insurance, who all get to return to Notties on the 20th July for the Final and another chance to walk away with a bootful of prizes and some unforgettable memories. With 387 fish caught in the first leg, I can’t blame the trout for not getting into the final, but I sure wish I’d picked up a token trophy so that when I face my hormonally charged wife, I can at least nurse my statue along with my conscience. |
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