A YETI TIMESHARE

TheWhatsApp message advertising the Yeti cooler had that closing-down sale urgency.

“Hazzit? Got a Namibian farmer connection, fokken loaded. He’s shipped in a bunch of Yetis for his hunting buddies and he’s asked me to flog the spare ones. Do you want me to hold onto an XL one for you?”

Did I need a giant Yeti? Possibly, in the way that I need a flats skiff and a 70 Series Land Cruiser to err... better do my job. Did I want a giant Yeti? Yes. In much the same way that I, a non-smoker, wanted to smoke Peter Stuyvesant in the 90s because their ads featured good-looking people waterskiing and laughing on their yachts as a Concorde took off over and over again. Like anyone else in fly fishing, I’d seen the Yeti ads and films over the years and I wanted some of that action.

But an XL Yeti?! There have been those trips where my regular cooler seemed a bit small. And what if I went somewhere and I needed enough ice to last longer than the melting glaciers will? Plus, I reasoned, I had a bunch of stickers that needed a home.

In what I can only describe as an incredibly adult moment, I decided that, taking into account the rand/dollar exchange rate, I would not flash the cash on this luxury item.

At least not on my own.

Instead, I would rope in Conrad, Platon and Dre, three friends whom I fish with the most, and we would split the cost. The thinking was that a lot of our fishing is local, day trips, where you do not need a massive cooler in the trunk. The multinight trips to regional destinations would be where it would be useful AND, for the most part, we are all on those together. In between, for each guy’s trips with family or other friends, there would be a simple, first come, first served approach. In effect, it would be like a week at the Beacon Isle at Plett or a Qwantani cottage. We had established a Yeti timeshare.

A rough constitution or memorandum of agreement was established along with a WhatsApp group for tracking who had the cooler last. Stickers that had lain dormant for years, awaiting a worthy surface to be stuck on, emerged from cupboards belonging to us, four middle-aged men who are 11-year-olds at heart.

Dre booked it first for a weekend out in the Koue Bokkeveld with the Cape Fly Fishers*. None of the rest of us was invited so off he went.

The problem arose when, after Dre had booked it, Platon, Conrad and myself decided to go fishing ourselves that weekend, somewhere deep in the Cederberg. The fishing was average, but the vibe around the campfire was great except for one thing. As we scrabbled around in our ammo boxes and diminutive coolers to make our meals and retrieve our beers, we became painfully aware that somewhere, no less than 100km away as the crow flew, Dre was probably lounging around on his own with the Yeti, the one we owned 75% of. He was probably using the vast expanse of the lid to prepare food on, eat off, sit on and play cards (Solitaire) on. This photo captures the moment that formal communication was made with our missing committee member to inform him that a quorum had been reached to amend the constitution and we had established that, in future, the Yeti timeshare would operate under the dictum of majority rules. Always.

*It’s a secret club with secret waters, secret rules, and secret members. We’re not entirely sure it actually exists and isn’t just an elaborate ploy by Dre to make it seem like he has other mates.

CONTACT THE MISSION

The Mission Fly Fishing Magazine for Soutie Press (Pty) Ltd

EDITOR

Tudor Caradoc-Davies

ART DIRECTOR

Brendan Body

EDITOR AT LARGE

Conrad Botes

CONTENT COORDINATOR

Matt Kennedy

COPY EDITOR

Gillian Caradoc-Davies

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Ingrid Sinclair

ADVERTISING SALES tudor@themissionflymag.com

CONTRIBUTORS #39

Sebastian Murphy, Jazz Kuschke, LeRoy Botha, Blaede Russel, Craig Hill, Peter Coetzee, Matt Kennedy, Leonard Flemming, Ryan Sandes, Marius Rousseau, Bradley Young, Jako Lucas, Oliver White

PHOTOGRAPHERS #39

Blaede Russel, African Waters, Alphonse Fishing Co., Jazz Kuschke, LeRoy Botha, Peter Coetzee, Matt Kennedy, Craig Lodge, Alex Kennedy, Andrew Kennedy, Leonard Flemming, Mark Murray, Riley Meyer, Steffan Shultz, Austin Coit, Hayden Dobbins, Adrian Pehrson, Stephan Dombaj