Lowveld brother and sister hook up to win national bass fishing championship
Team Matumi Golf Lodge's Etienne and Felicity Carey won the 2022 Victron Energy SABAA National Team Championships at Spioenkop Dam in KwaZulu-Natal recently.
The Lowveld Bass Trails (LBT) did exceptionally well, with four teams finishing in the top 10.
Etienne and Felicity's brother Charl caught the biggest fish of the event, a bass weighing 3.335kg.
LBT claimed second place in the provincial competition at Spioenkop, with Gauteng first. LBT were also declared the winners on the national standing for the season.
The Team Matumi Golf Lodge siblings weighed in a bag of 15.69kg over the twoday competition.
"We still can’t believe we won, but we are super proud and honoured to have come out on top while representing the Lowveld Bass Trail," said Etienne and Felicity. "We have never fished Spioenkop, but we heard the stories of the big fish. We have been fishing consistently well for the last two years and were excited to test our skills against the best anglers in the country.
"On day one, our tag start was 26, which is not the greatest of tags. We were super chuffed that we got a spot on the point where we wanted to start our day. It was a bit quiet, but we stayed calm and collected. We have a coalition of boats that help one another during the year. Our older brother Charl and his son Leonard make up our coalition.
"Charl called us around 09:00. He had already caught his limit and we had only one. I said to Felicity that perhaps we should move, but then decided to stick to my guns and stay. It wasn’t long after that that Felicity had our first 2kg fish in the boat, and followed that one up with another. Our biggest fish for the day was 2.56kg and our bag weighed 10.26kg," Etienne said.
"We caught all our fish on day one with speed craws made by Zoom. We knew day two would be a very tough day on the water, not only bad weather and strong winds, but the teams behind us wasn’t going to hand us the win on a platter. We knew we would have to work for it.
"I have to admit we were both very nervous and when we had zero fish by
10:00, we were starting to panic a little bit, but we composed ourselves very quickly and got three fish on the boat, one caught with a 14ft dredger and two caught with a Vision 110 + JNR jerkbait.
"We were stoked that we had three fish on the boat, but we needed another two. During the practice day, we had two decent fish on at the spring, so we hoped they would still be there and that no one else had caught them. It was like a dream. At exactly the same little tree we landed the two we needed.
"I gave my sister a hug and said no matter what happens today, I am super proud of us. We weighed 5.43kg and had no idea if that was going to be enough as the second day was a silent weigh-in. By the evening, we were nervous, and believe me, walking into a tent where 144 incredibly good anglers were sitting in a sea of green Protea and blue president's jackets all waiting to hear the results was rather intimidating.
"The local boys from Ladysmith, who we knew would be chasing us hard, were second. We couldn’t believe it - we won! I brought my sister and my best friend to the fight and we won with a combined weight of 15.69kg. We also received our president's colours, which was a super proud moment for us.
"Last, but definitely not least, we would like to thank the most important people in our lives, our family who supports our dreams and give us so much time to be away from them on the water. We know it’s not always easy to be involved with obsessed anglers, but we do appreciate you and would not have been able to succeed without your love and support," concluded Etienne.
Charl and his boat partner Hannes van Wyk finished third and received their Protea colours.