Tagged Trout

The week before the Biltong Festival, Alan needed to catch four trout for the tagged trout competition to be held on the Sunday of the Biltong Festival weekend. Having kitted the bakkie (pick-up truck) out with a drum and oxygen tank, Alan & Annabelle headed up to Mountain dam, in a howling gale and icy winter weather, to catch the four prized fish. It was important to get photographic evidence of physically tagging and releasing the trout into the Mill dam at Glen Avon.

Luckily when they arrived at Mountain dam, the hand of divine intervention laid the wind to rest. The water came alive and a spectacular rise commenced. Alan with the help of Chris Prudhon – a local farmer / angler – soon had four fish successfully tagged. Being such a perfect evening rise, Alan simply could not miss the exciting conditions, and fished until dark. After dodging a Kudu and a Bushbuck on the journey down the mountain, they successfully released the four fish into Mill dam with a week to settle before the competition. One fish of about 400 grams (27 cm), two fish of around 600 grams (30 & 33 cm) and a 42 cm 1 kg fish now reside in Mill dam, with weekend getaway packages allocated to the number of their tag.

A breathless, crisp, bright, sunny Sunday greeted thirteen anglers, all of whom looked very apprehensively a the half full Mill dam, not optimistic that they would catch anything, never mind catch the tagged fish.

There was a high catch rate, and 12 fish were landed, but to the disgust of the participants, not one of them was tagged. The trout, despite the drought conditions, were in prime condition. Alan and the riparian owners Bill & Alison Brown, made the offer to anyone for the rest of 2009, if a tagged trout is netted, the angler would still be eligible for the weekend prizes. It would be preferable if a photograph could be provided as proof of the catch, remember to record the number of the tag. Two tags qualify for the Angler & Antelope prizes and two trout have tags for the Glen Avon prizes.

The prizes are as follows:
A weekend for four people in the self-catering Fisherman’s cottage at the Angler & Antelope with a free day’s guided fly fishing – value R 5000
A weekend for four people at the Glen Avon self-catering cottages with a morning’s birding with Greg Brown or free fly fishing – value R 2500

A visit to our waters might turn into a lucky one …

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