Up close and personal with Masters World Champion Richard Gorlei

Andrew Mather

I was a fisherman from an early age due to my father’s influence and growing up on the coast. I was pretty competent with my KP scarborough reel at a young age and catching shad on a sardine drift-bait was what I really enjoyed. Also used to spend a lot of time kite-fishing so I guess I was always looking for new methods and challenges.

Moved onto ski-boat fishing in high school and spent a lot of time out at sea. Also got to head up to the Kamberg for weekends away with a schoolmate whose father was a keen fly fisherman and after my second trip and getting some decent fish was hooked and started gathering together some tackle and have not stopped flyfishing (and gathering tackle) since then.

You come from a highly competent flyfishing family. How did you get your spouse into flyfishing, I’m asking on behalf of hundreds of flyfishing widows?

As a fisherman – fly, rock and surf and skiboat – you spend a lot of time away from home and wife and there was more than one occasion where I was told in no uncertain terms it was “Her or the boat” Needless to say the boat was sadly sold and the funds used to re-do the kitchen! I still had to go fishing tho and realized that flyfishing was a little more inclusive to young kids and wife than donsering daga’s at night on the Griqua and coming home smelling of Captains and sardine. We started going to the midlands for weekends away – and the first time Linda put fly to water she managed to outfish me and the rest of the anglers at the venue. I must just add that conditions were not good – hot as hell, dirty water etc and it was my rod, my fly, tied on by me blah-blah-excuse.

Anyway the wife took to flyfishing from then on and we always tried to fit in fishing together whenever possible. We bought into a share in Mbona in the Karkloof and spent lots of time up there with the kids and flyfished quite a bit. As to advice on how to get the wife involved ….. for us it was our son. Matt was keen from an early age and decided at 12 or 13 years of age after seeing an article on Youth Nationals in Africa’s Original Flyfishing Magazine that he wanted to fish competition and become a Protea.

When did you take up competitive flyfishing? Rumours are rife that you won the Masters with a Blob fly…is that true?

I started competitive fishing when Matt started – mainly to support him but also because it is not so much fun to sit and watch others fish.

Yeah, I used a Blob. A Blob is a competition angler’s go-to fly a lot of the time but it doesn’t always catch fish and it is traditionally a Stillwater fly.In the Championships there were 4 sectors – 3 lake and 1 river. I fished the river sector in the last session and on the 3 stillwater sectors I did not catch a single fish on a Blob – although a blob was one of my team of flies from time to time and my boat partners did catch on blobs.

I managed to win all of my Stillwater sectors by a very small margin over the other competitors so there was a bit of luck on my side. Catching a fish in the last 2 minutes to take the first place from USA, and getting some bigger fish than Spain when we finished on the same number of fish.

I was fishing with a lot confidence and that always helps and seems to swing the odds in your favour when luck is being dished up.

One thing that I did work out on the stillwaters was that when you found the fish, changing flies often was the key. I got 5 fish on 5 different flies on one sector so there was no real secret fly that won me the session.

The SA guys worked as a team in our prep and during the event and one of the tactics we had was to target the stocked fish in the river. The last session on a river sector is always a tough one as the fish have been pressured – so the idea was to try to find fish in spots that would not have been fished too much and secondly to offer the stockies that had been caught something different.

My thinking was to cover as much water as possible in the first hour to see if I could find fish. I had set up 4 rods 2 nymphing, 1 dryfly & 1 streamer. On the one nymphing rod I had a squirmy and a blob. The squirmy was working from the outset but I was getting short takes and they were nipping off the tail – so out with the “No.1 Blob”. It was named by teammate MC and myself just before the session started. The river was running quite strong from the rain the night before and it was important to get the fly down as fast as possible – Blobs don’t sink too quick - so out with the scissors and we gave a couple of blobs from MC’s Stillwater box a No. 1 ‘short back and sides’.

So it was not really a blob but rather an orange egg-pattern size fly with a 3.8mm tungsten bead. I fished 2 of these 70cm apart using the top fly as a subsurface indicator. Of the 7 fish in the session 4 of them were on the No.1 Blob, 1 on a red squirmy, 2 on olive CDC nymph and 1 on a size 16 brown booby with orange eyes. So the No.1Blob did the business yes, but it was not pretty delicate fishing at all ! You do what you have to do in competition fishing and it worked out for me this time round.

On the board

What do you think the benefits of competitive flyfishing are for someone thinking about starting?

Competition fishing does speed up the mastering of techniques learning of new tactics – as a competitive angler you are always looking for that little extra that will give you an edge or slight advantage over those in your group you are fishing against so you are always thinking, planning, scheming not only while you are fishing but also in your preparation for an event. You are also constantly learning from your opposition and team mates and all of this makes you a more accomplished angler. Competitive fishing is also a great leveller – one day you are on top form and the next day you cannot get a fish - that’s how it goes and most guys accept this but always in the back of one’s mind is the question – What could I have done different or better ? There does however need to be a balance between how you approach fishing on a social level vs. a competitive level or the enjoyment of fishing.

People are often reluctant to try competitive fishing because they believe they don’t have what it takes or they are not good enough. Like any sport there are lots of skills levels in the group of guys you compete against and so even if you are not at the top you are still learning and will always be improving the more you compete.

What are some of the bucket list destination you would still like to fish?

Too many on the list and not enough money in the bank to tick them off – I would like to get at least a Tarpon, Atlantic Salmon and Dorado before the cash or the years run out. At which specific lodge or destination – doesn’t really matter.