The South African Carp Masters took place for the 2nd time at the famous Roodekoppies Dam in North West just outside Brits. This year’s tournament had a great line up of some of the biggest names in Specimen Carp fishing in South Africa competing for the top spot in SA. The atmosphere was electric as anglers arrived for the registration with their team apparel and high spirits. Fox South Africa was the main sponsor for this year’s event and they sponsored branded tshirts for all the competitors who entered. Fuzion Baits also looked after their hookbait needs by sponsoring 3 tubs of Flavoured Tigernuts for each team as a welcoming gift.
The Exhibition area was packed with stalls and brands who wanted their products visible to the top Specimen anglers in the country. Brands like Halfway Toyota, Psycho Baits, Protein Solutions and many more were present on the morning to show case new products. Angler could all compete in the Toughest Carp Angler competition where they had a number of physical activities to compete in, each one accumulating points to see who is the toughest carp angler in the country. This event was very popular and really tested the anglers to their limit.
Then it was time for a good dinner prepared to perfection. On the Menu was Lamb and Beef Spit Braai with loads of excellent side dishes, and for some this was the highlight of the day. Peg draws followed where all the teams had to draw their position on the bank from which they would chase the best anglers in SA. The favoured pegs were obviously the pegs that did well at the previous year’s event and some were very happy with their draw and others not so much but would soon find out that the big ones were to be found all over the dam this year. After the draws all the team were allowed to head out to their spots and set up for the start of the tournament the next morning at 9am.
Day 1 started with bang! Not long after the start it was Elroy Knott and Ziyaad Mills with the first weigher of the tournament. That same day we saw some great fish all over the dam being caught. Ferdie Swarts from Team Fox Specimen was soon in the lead with a nice Common and by end of day one its was still anyone’s game to win. As the days progressed some teams stood out above others and it was Carp Assassins on day 2 who lead the pack with 4 big fish early on. They needed to extent their lead and kept calling over the marshals for another weigher every few hours. It was only on day 4 when that lead slipped away from when Hungry Boys managed to land 2 very big commons right after each other. Only 2 pegs further was Karpioene busy catching up from behind and they started to show good skills as their scores climbed the ladder. Tera Karp were also climbing very quickly and it was understood that this Competition will be won or lost in the final minutes. On day 5 the marshals were called over to Molly And Wors on peg 11 who had managed to land their first big one. Not long after they were on again with an even bigger carp and at 12:30 they landed a 11.16 common which pushed into 1st place. As night fell on the final day it was all to play for and thats when thing changed.
Team Karpioene on peg 16 had suddenly landed on a school of big fish and from the start of the evening they were weighing one big carp after the other. It was around 3am in the morning when the marshals had a call to come weigh the biggest fish of the tournament. Pieter from Karpieone had caught a monster 12.94kg common along with a number of 9.5kg fish. They jumped to the front of the que in one night and by morning we knew it was going to be very close between 1st and 2nd but did not expect it to be that close.
The Winners of SACM were Molly and Wors who won by only 20grams followed by Karpioene who fought hard on that final night and Hungry Boys in 3rd. The competition was tough and very exciting all throughout the week. Winners of this tournament will compete in the World Carp Masters 2018 in Czech Republic later in the year.Here is the highlights video of SACM 2018 Enjoy!
