The winter catfish are biting

Although there are way less species to be caught on lure during the winter months, the colder weather brings with it one plus - cleaner water conditions in most dams.


This coupled with catfish's need to warm up by sunbathing in the shallow water creates a great opportunity to target them on lure.

Here are just a couple of my catches this winter - all caught by light calling/ploncing and sight dipping with loodkoppe.

Here are a couple of small catfish from a small park dam close to where I stay in Randburg. These 2 were caught by a combination of ploncing and light calling with a loodkop.

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Started ploncing then calling and saw the reeds move about 4m to my right. Kept going and saw this fellow cruising in slowly from there and eventually striking the loodkop.

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Another shot of the same fish.

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Got an awesome hookup on this one!


These are from an impromptu session with Droomvanger at Roodeplaat Dam this past Saturday.

They were all dipped on the whiskers with one of my homemade loodkoppe.

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Catfish of 6.84kg. The first one landed and released for the day.

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6.91kg catfish that completely cleared the water going aerial a couple of times before safely landing and releasing it.


Will keep trying over the next couple of months until the first rains of the spring and warmer weather.

Will keep posting my catches here ... maybe add yours too!

Cheers
Werner
 

Ant86

Sealiner
Thanks Werner for the report,good fish for a winter session. Can you PM the location of the dam?
 

Arrie87

Member
Looks amazing! I just recently started going for cats on artlure (only have three trips under my belt, before I had to fly to Moz for work) Will be back in November targeting them on Krugersdrift dam outside Bloem.

How long does one "call" before moving to the next spot? I have not had any luck with calling, only on casting hard baits at rising fish.
 

aquadementia

Sealiner
check out my channel, video called ultimate catfish on lure - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO69gV8mGwkO8ADE25azePQ

there you see exactly how I call and catch the barbel. basically start out very quiet and gentle
 

EugeneC

Sealiner
Cool YT channel Aqua! I didn't know there's silver carp in SA, so that was interesting to see.

Kaptein, the cat in that last photo is a beautiful specimen, the colours on the head remind me of snakehead. Congrats on your catches.
 
You'll know you're calling correctly when you see the reeds in the vicinity start moving and/or the mudclouds of searching catfish.

If you get no reaction in max. 5 minutes I would probably move on.

But start ploncing gently and work your way up to calling with the rod's tip.

Here's another clip (not my own) of Bloemhof Dam calling in open water flats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmrPQw8QFD4

Cheers
 
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