Mercury Overnighter @ Rynfield Dam

WORDS: Riaan Riekert & Lorna Botha | PHOTOS & VIDEOS: Anel Riekert & Lorna Botha

This annual boat angling competition has become synonymous with generous prizes and is a social occasion on the fishing calendar that boat anglers look forward to each year. This year’s event, presented over the weekend of 2-3 March attracted 450 spectators on the banks and 225 anglers in the boats, and was once again a huge success.

The competition spans 12 hours overnight and took place at the well-known Rynfield Dam in Benoni. The big prize hunted (fished for!) every year is the R60 000 tagged carp that is caught, tagged and released a few days before the competition.

The prizes were awarded in four divisions: heaviest carp, heaviest barbel, heaviest combined carp and barbel and juniors. 

The competition works as follows: everyone receives a number with their goodie bag when they enter the competition and that determines the order in which their boats are launched. The organisers have experienced teams that help with this task, so on Saturday afternoon around 80 boats were safely launched and ready for the twelve hours of action. The boats were launched from 14:00, but anglers were only allowed to start fishing at 18:00 when the start flare lit up the sky.

Launch time

Rynfield Dam is not one of the biggest dams, so this many boats crowd the water quite a bit, but this only adds to the fun of this event – all the boats are anchored close together, so the anglers have a good time entertaining each other and sharing stories of the ‘big ones’ that got away. What adds to this family-friendly event is the fact that all the visitors can spend time together on the bank, braaiing and hanging out until early in the morning while the anglers on the boats ‘work hard’ to target the big, tagged fish.

The 12 hours ended at 06:00 on Sunday morning when the red lines-up flare joined the half-moon in the dawning sky.

Although the elusive R60 000 tagged fish once again evaded the anglers, the sponsored prizes – to the value of R250 000 – were so generous the winning anglers didn’t mind at all! There were also many lucky draw giveaways to put smiles on the non-winning anglers’ faces as well.

Anglers show their catches

PRIZE WINNERS

• Heaviest Carp (Snr): Riki Hales on the boat Rickelieu – 4,87kg;
• Heaviest Barbel (Snr): Bianca Trauernicht on the boat Expression 600 – 4,72kg;
• Heaviest Combined Catch (Snr): George Johnstone on the boat Tradunsie – 9,6kg;
• Juniors Heaviest Carp (3rd biggest carp overall): Wesley Fish on the boat Reel Busy – 2,95kg.

Heaviest Carp

• 1st: Riki Hales – 4,87kg;
• 2nd: Michael Johnstone – 3,29kg;
• 3rd: Brandon Jones – 2,91kg.

The winner of the grand prize sponsored by Escape Boating, the Crackleback 360 Lite boat on a trailer and a Mercury 5HP 2-stroke hand tiller outboard was Riki Hales with the biggest carp of 4,87kg. 

Heaviest Barbel

• 1st: Bianca Trauernicht – 4,72kg;
• 2nd: Johan Schoeman – 2,8kg;
• 3rd: Zaaki Hoosen – 2,58kg.

Heaviest Carp & Barbel combination

• 1st: George Johnstone – 9,6kg;
• 2nd: Omri Cronjé with a nice bag of fish;
• 3rd: Charl Greeff – 4,45kg.

Juniors

• 1st: Wesley Fish – 2,95kg carp;
• 2nd: Sheldon Kruger – 1,79kg carp.
• 3rd: Markus Boshoff with a decent-sized carp.

Congratulations to all the winners and a big shout-out to all the sponsors. Thank you to every angler and spectator, as well as the people who prepared eats and drinks for everyone.

This event was once again a huge success – see you all in 2025!

The latest digital edition of THE BANK ANGLER / DIE OEWERHENGELAAR is now available!