Barbel and Carp beaching en masse.

Skindiver

New member
Hi

I have a home on the Peninsula on the Vaal Dam.

Day after Christmas I saw the strangest thing while working on my deck. I saw a very big barbel lying curled in two in four or five inches of water on my beach.
When I approached and tried to grab him he jumped three feet into the air and disappeared in a froth of water. I then noticed many more along the beach as shallow as they could get without actually climbing out. Many times their tails were actually on dry land. This abated at about 15.00 but from 18.00 and till I went to bed after 2.00am, I must have seen hundreds of fish practically one or two per meter of shoreline very active splashing around, twisting and turning back and forth and burping and bubbling. Often two of them quite inter-twined. If you closed your eyes you would swear that people were swimming there.

If I had been so inclined i could have landed scores with a garden fork.

I saw many fish that would have measured 1.2 - 1.6m in length with heads wider than a spade. I'm not a great judge of weight but 20kg + would have been easy.

The only thing that was notable was no wind, algae on the edge( which is not unusual depending on how the wind has been blowing) It had been a very hot day and so was the shallow water, and the water level had risen by 5% in about a week and a half causing grasses etc that had established on the dry shore to be flooded. Also what was unusual was frogs making a racket at night along the beach, presumably in the flooded grass on the edge.

My water gets deep with a rocky bottom quickly. About 1.3 m depth per linear 15m.

I dropped a plattie straight down from my rod in amongst the turmoil and they were eager to grab it within a few seconds. This is literally 500mm to 1m offshore in as little as 3-6 inches of water.

Other than hunting frogs in the flooded grasses, any ideas what this was all about ?
They were very healthy and by the midday of the next day they had left.
The next morning I awoke to find my gardiner coming from over the neighbors fence with four large carp. 6 odd kg each. I asked in amazement where he got them. He said the neighbors gardiner caught 20 of them, all of similar size with a chicken wire net by throwing a hoop over 3 or 4 them at a time as they swarmed the same beach 100m down from me at 5-6am that morning in 6-10 inches of water too.

WTF is this about ? carp dont eat frogs ? So that leaves my, frog and recent rains, theory a bit dented.

I have seen a barbel "run" along my beach in about 2- 3 feet of water with thousands of feelers up out of the water single mindedly and slowly making their way along the shore. This could have been some spawning behavior. I have also seen smaller carp -2kg - in water so shallow amongst the bluegums that they had to swim on their sides ( more spawning behavior ?) but the events of the past week were truely astounding. I know spawning time is over.

BTW I have limited success fishing for both carp and barbel as I have submerged saplings from 2 feet to even 3m down in a strip just offshore from my beach. Obviously from a time when the dam levels were low for long enough for these trees to establish. My ratio is 1-5 for getting anything decent out of those snags. Often I try dive my snagged lines out as they zig and zag from snag to snag. ( yes I am a diver first and foremost)

PS. I'm not joking or exaggerating about the beaching fish, quantities or sizes.

If anything I now have first hand knowledge of what busses actually lurk in my waters. Would be nice to get one on a line.

regards
Greg
 

dorsalfin

Sealiner
It could only have been spawning. It is not neceserally to late for spwaning either. The past weekend, I caught a few muddies and karp that dropped a lot of sperm on the side which means thei havn`t spawned yet although I have caught barbel early summer with definite sighns of spawning marks.
There is no specific time of year they spawn but it happens during summer, usually early summer, but there are exceptions that the fish wait for changes in weather patterns or temperature.
You will struggle to catch these fish as the last thing on their minds at that time is food.
 

Ant86

Sealiner
I fished the Vaal River this last week on a private property above the barrage.The fish were also very close to the edge and turning but couldnt get them to commit to a bait. We tried chicken livers,hearts,giblets,day olds,carp heads/fillets ox blood paste and blanked until yesterday morning with a small 4 kg cat. We caught a fair amount of carp during short periods in the day but none at night?

The fishing was exremely difficult given the time of year. The fish were just mouthing the baits and bumping them for a second or two.

I would like to hear others thoughts and maybe a tactics to use when fish are hitting your bait every few minutes but only for very short runs ie most 2 seconds
 

nobbles

New member
For spawning look to get a protective bite from the fish. They will be protecting eggs and in an aggresive mode. Personally get a cheetha special in amongst them and see what happens. They should take the fish on instinct to get a predator away from eggs. Give it a try
 

The Owner

Senior Member
I have seen this on various occasions, usually the cat's are either spawning or just feeding on bugs due to the water rising into the grasses. I also saw the same thing last weekend at Vaalkopdam. The best way to catch these barbel is with loodkop by dipping them on the whiskers and triggering a reaction bite. You can catch loads of them when they are feeding like this in the shallows.
 
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