Garth Plank

Garth took up fly fishing in the early 1990’s back in South Africa. Most of his early fly fishing days were spent fishing at various trout farms. This then progressed to fishing some of the lakes and rivers around Natal and Eastern Transvaal as well as fishing for yellow fish in the Transvaal area.

He fished a lot of the Bells Fly fishing competitions and won the Belfast competition in 1999. He then moved to New Zealand In 2000 and joined the Auckland Fresh Water Anglers club where he was introduced to competition fishing. This was very different to the competitions in South Africa and the first attempt was a bit of a disaster. Things improved and he came 2nd in the Auckland regional’s in 2002 and1st in the Rotorua Regional champs in the same year. He has been in the top 3 in the Auckland regional ever since and came 1st in 2003. He came 12th in the Nationals in 2004 and was reserve for the National team at the 2005 Ociania champs.

In 2006 He came 4th in the nationals and is a member of the 2007 Ociania team. He also came 2nd in the Waikato Regionals in 2006.

He is a fanatical fly fisherman and has caught some very memorable fish the 2 best were a 14lb rainbow and the best was a 16 to 18lb rainbow hen caught on a dry fly. He also does a lot of satwater fly fishing with his best saltwater effort a 9Kg King fish. He is hoping to catch a marlin on fly.