Christiaan Pretorius joins The Fly Shop Pro-Staff Team

The Fly Shop has announced that Christiaan Pretorius has joined The Shop’s Pro-Staff Team. Christiaan will host select destination fly fishing adventures, as well as act as The Fly Shop’s ambassador on exploratory trips around the world.

Read more in the press release below.

Christiaan Pretorius joins The Fly Shop Pro-Staff Team

From The Fly Shop:

The Fly Shop is excited to announce that Christiaan Pretorius has joined The Shop’s Pro-Staff Team.  Christiaan will be hosting a handful of exciting destination fly fishing adventures each year, as well as acting as The Fly Shop’s ambassador on exploratory trips around the world.

Christiaan has experience guiding in some of the most remote, adventurous fly fishing locales across the globe, including the Zambezi River in Africa, St Brandon’s Atoll, Alphonse Atoll, and Astove Atoll in the Indian Ocean, the Zhupanova River in Kamchatka, and he is now the manager at Abaco Lodge in the Bahamas.  He’s also a great photographer and an up-and-coming filmmaker and will be helping share his fly rod exploits with exciting new video projects.  We are looking forward to some incredible stories and fly fishing odyssey’s from this professional, well-respected young man.

Christiaan Pretorius Profile

Memories from my early childhood are vague, but one thing that I really remember as if it had happened yesterday, is the day I caught my first trout on fly at the age of six. Since that day fly fishing has been everything to me. I knew for certain that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I was introduced to this amazing sport by my father who is also a very keen fly fisherman and photographer. We still share the love of the sport till this day. Growing up in South Africa, most of my weekends were spent either fishing for yellow fish on the Vaal River or casting some longer lines at trout in the lakes of Dullstroom and surrounding areas. I started representing my Country on the competitive circuit at the age of fourteen in 2005. I have since represented South Africa at 7 world fly fishing championship events all over the world.

Competitive fly fishing has led me to some of the most amazing places in the world, including Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Norway, Italy, America and Russia. Through the years I have also been privileged to fish all over the continent of Africa including Indian Ocean, Namibia, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Swaziland and Lesotho.  Fishing all these different locations, I had to learn how to analyse – and adapt to – any given stretch of water in a short period of time to successfully catch the target species. In guiding this is very valuable as conditions differ every day and sometimes it is necessary to think outside the box to get your client a memorable specimen.

After completing my studies (Landscape Argitechture), I started full time guiding straight away on the mighty Zambezi River for Tigerfish, also doing the annual season for largemouth and smallmouth yellow fish. Seven years later I have seen and guided some of the most remote fisheries on the planet including 3 seasons on St Brandons in the Indian Ocean whilst working for Fly Castaway, and 3 full seasons as head guide on the Zhupanova on the Kamchatka peninsula. My last two seasons in the Indian Ocean I spent both on Alphonse Atoll as well as Astove Atoll which are probably some of the best GT fisheries on the planet. I also acted as Photographer/Guide at Rynda in the Kola peninsula for the past two seasons. Apart from all these guided trips I have also been fortunate to host some trips to various destinations including Nicaragua, Guatemala, Austria etc. Currently me and my girlfriend Lindi are the managers at Abaco Lodge in the Bahamas.

Over the years I have also developed a passion for photography and videography- which to me is essential as this sport takes us to the most breathtaking sceneries on the globe and the only way to capture the moment, is with a good quality photograph that the client can keep forever. I also write the occasional article for various magazines including South African Fly Fisherman, This is Fly, Vagabond etc.

I can honestly say that for me personally, fly fishing provides the most amazing opportunity to make a living from something that I truly enjoy and are extremely passionate about.

I am very fortunate as a 26 year old to be joining the team at The Fly Shop as a travel ambassador. I feel that I am at a point in my life where this is the next step. Through a lot of time spent travelling I have learnt first hand the importance of preparation leading into a once in a lifetime fishing trip. I want to assist in making sure that you do as much as you can as far as preparation to avoid not being ready. Over the years I have come to love the preparation as much as the trip itself. Let me help you make that once in a lifetime trip extra special.

– Christiaan Pretorius

You can email Christiaan at [email protected]