Well, the 2011 BETT season has come and gone. We competed in the qualifying final event at Craigie Burn this past weekend with most anglers in the event being grateful to the season’s end after such a testing event.

During practice, the anglers were somewhat disheartened by the reward less venue and goals had not been set to high for the biggest event of the season. To add to the negative disposition, the weather building up to the event tossed a drastic curveball into the mix and the rapidly dropping water level further squandered the scene. One thing was for sure, the top anglers in KZN were not going to let a few setbacks stop them from proving their point. Besides, we had fished the whole year to be there and a bad choice in venue had only increased the competitive edge.

Garth and I were scoreless by 11am until we found a small school of fish huddled in the grass. We sieved through a handful of scrappers of which Craigie Burn is full of, until we boated the first small keeper. Garth followed up soon after with a circumstantial giant of 1.2kg’s and a few minutes later I boated another small keeper. We were on a roll and were enjoying a constant bite, albeit from more undersized fish than weighers. We ascertained that 2 more keepers could seal the deal for us and we were vying for the win.

Anyway to cut a long story short we made every cast count for the rest of the day and fished with victorious intent and………did not catch another keeper!! Congratulations to Kieron Sampkin and Gerhard Nortjie of Team Hotdoggy for snatching the win from under the noses of father and son duo, Lloyd and Barry Muirhead of Team Yamaha KZN by 35 grams.

Grant Hewitt out!!