Inked in next to it was a fish.
It has proved to be a good omen.
Beaux, 14, started fishing with his father Sam Muntz by the Mataura River when he was 5 years old and has not looked back.
He estimated he had hooked 200 fish, including 19 in one day while fly fishing.
Beaux recently added the Gore Shooters World Fishing trophy to his stack of accolades.
The inter-club competition was held in Poolburn, Central Otago in April, where he competed with the Mataura Anglers Club.
Beaux caught two fish, one weighing nine pounds (4kg) and the other four pounds (1.8kg).
“I got the heaviest bag out of everyone there,” he said.
Beaux is the junior president of the Mataura Anglers Club, where he is joined by his uncle Tyler Byron, the club’s president, and his father, Sam Muntz, the vice-president.
In Mataura, the club won the Speight’s Cup on February 6 and the Quadrangular Shield on March 14. Both were regional competitions where Wyndham, Gore and Mataura faced off; Otago also competed in the shield.
Fly fishing was part of the competition, which Beaux has been doing for past six years.
An exception was made for him to compete in the adult competition to make up team numbers.
Beaux said he won the club’s weekly factor fish competition on April 18, where the winning catch was the stockiest salmon of the shortest length.
Beaux, who lives in Tuturau, casts out a line no fewer than three days a week, and most of his weekends are spent by the Mataura River.
“I’ll go fishing till like midnight if I have to ... straight up,” he said.
