Sitting at he office waiting in anticipation for the clock to turn to 11:00. The only noise my colleagues will hear is the screeching of the Fortuner wheels as I speed off to a new venue.
It has been far too long since I properly fished for carp. Sitting here and typing this my carp angling takes me back to 2 January 2014. The 14th day of a 15 day session at Tzaneen, with loads of fish up to 38lb's. It was about midday when the missus came back from town with a tear of joy in her eye. To cut a long story short, she broke the news that we were pregnant. Unknowingly that would be the last 24 hours of fishing for carp at a wild venue for a very long time. The rest of 2014 saw all our extra money going into house renovations and baby clothes, prams, cots, bottles etc. With the odd half day session every couple off months with small rewards I geared up for a proper trip over x-mas 2014.
The trip to Klaserie was a disaster. As we left Boksburg on boxing day it starter raining heavily from Gauteng to Mpumalanga. The rain only subsided on the 29th after flooding the entire area. Eventually on the dam on the 29th December after a couple of dreadful days at the mother in laws house. It took a good day to clear the swim of all the debris that washed into the dam with the big rains. Day two on the dam and the 3.6hp Parsun coil fails. Jumping into the Fortuner and heading for Klaserie to find a workshop to fix the motor and R500 later I am back on the water. Rods in and the waiting game begins. At three o clock that morning the first alarm screams off only to be confronted with a Hippo bull that must have traversed his way from the Timbavati or Klaserie Reserve. A little voice in my head said I should rather give it up for a bad job and spend the rest of my holiday with the family and do the tourist thing after everything that could go wrong did go wrong. With high spirits our first day in the Kruger we got rear ended by another tourist while we were stationary viewing a herd of kudu, fortunately the towbar saved the Fortuner and caused serious damage to the vehicle behind us.
So 16 months off no proper wild carp adventure my longtime friend and fellow carp angler Cornelius decided we should take advantage of the public holidays at the end of April. We decided that we need to target a new venue as the ave size of fish in Tzaneen has dropped drastically from the hay days of early 2000's. We have been looking at a dam for the last couple of years and all our social braai's this dam came up as a topic. We decided that we will do a rekkie and prebaiting session a week before we would leave for our session at this new venue. Last week Sunday we left Boksburg early in the morning to do the 3 and 1/2 hour trip to the venue. We arrived at this beautiful piece of water after a horrendous dirt road and got the boat and fish finder set up. Not long and were on the water to see what lies beneath. We found a couple of features that we expect to produce some scaleys. Baited the features with approximately 40kg's of maize. Each bucket of maize flavored with something else just to condition these carp to flavors and make them confident in feeding in the areas. The venue has produced a couple of big fish in the past so we are very hopeful for the session. When baiting the swim we saw a beautiful Klipspringer ram perched on a rock on the opposite bank. He clearly knew he would not be shot at and gave us the privilege to watch him for a good 20mins before following a young ewe into the thickets. On a different day he might have received a .22 trough the heart but he lives to be pursued another day. We have named the lake "Klipspringer Dam" as "Private Venue" has already been taken.
Hopefully there will be some photos of some proper carp available for the catch report on our return. Time is ticking and I still have some work to do. See you guys next week. If you are fishing, stay safe and tight...... or slack lines.
Cheers
Kusaf
It has been far too long since I properly fished for carp. Sitting here and typing this my carp angling takes me back to 2 January 2014. The 14th day of a 15 day session at Tzaneen, with loads of fish up to 38lb's. It was about midday when the missus came back from town with a tear of joy in her eye. To cut a long story short, she broke the news that we were pregnant. Unknowingly that would be the last 24 hours of fishing for carp at a wild venue for a very long time. The rest of 2014 saw all our extra money going into house renovations and baby clothes, prams, cots, bottles etc. With the odd half day session every couple off months with small rewards I geared up for a proper trip over x-mas 2014.
The trip to Klaserie was a disaster. As we left Boksburg on boxing day it starter raining heavily from Gauteng to Mpumalanga. The rain only subsided on the 29th after flooding the entire area. Eventually on the dam on the 29th December after a couple of dreadful days at the mother in laws house. It took a good day to clear the swim of all the debris that washed into the dam with the big rains. Day two on the dam and the 3.6hp Parsun coil fails. Jumping into the Fortuner and heading for Klaserie to find a workshop to fix the motor and R500 later I am back on the water. Rods in and the waiting game begins. At three o clock that morning the first alarm screams off only to be confronted with a Hippo bull that must have traversed his way from the Timbavati or Klaserie Reserve. A little voice in my head said I should rather give it up for a bad job and spend the rest of my holiday with the family and do the tourist thing after everything that could go wrong did go wrong. With high spirits our first day in the Kruger we got rear ended by another tourist while we were stationary viewing a herd of kudu, fortunately the towbar saved the Fortuner and caused serious damage to the vehicle behind us.
So 16 months off no proper wild carp adventure my longtime friend and fellow carp angler Cornelius decided we should take advantage of the public holidays at the end of April. We decided that we need to target a new venue as the ave size of fish in Tzaneen has dropped drastically from the hay days of early 2000's. We have been looking at a dam for the last couple of years and all our social braai's this dam came up as a topic. We decided that we will do a rekkie and prebaiting session a week before we would leave for our session at this new venue. Last week Sunday we left Boksburg early in the morning to do the 3 and 1/2 hour trip to the venue. We arrived at this beautiful piece of water after a horrendous dirt road and got the boat and fish finder set up. Not long and were on the water to see what lies beneath. We found a couple of features that we expect to produce some scaleys. Baited the features with approximately 40kg's of maize. Each bucket of maize flavored with something else just to condition these carp to flavors and make them confident in feeding in the areas. The venue has produced a couple of big fish in the past so we are very hopeful for the session. When baiting the swim we saw a beautiful Klipspringer ram perched on a rock on the opposite bank. He clearly knew he would not be shot at and gave us the privilege to watch him for a good 20mins before following a young ewe into the thickets. On a different day he might have received a .22 trough the heart but he lives to be pursued another day. We have named the lake "Klipspringer Dam" as "Private Venue" has already been taken.
Hopefully there will be some photos of some proper carp available for the catch report on our return. Time is ticking and I still have some work to do. See you guys next week. If you are fishing, stay safe and tight...... or slack lines.
Cheers
Kusaf
:lol:1