Dear Forum,
I took some time off between 1 and 4 May of this year to do some smallmouth bassing on the lower Doring and Olifants Rivers in the Trawal/Klawer area near Vredendal.
I was last there 2 years ago and experienced the best smallmouth bass fishing that I had ever experienced. I moved to Cape Town in early 2002 and fished this area regulalarly until work & Study demands forced me to put my fishing on ice for about 2 years.
Well words cannot describe the absolute disappointment that I experienced. I recall that in September 2008 the Cederberg experienced severe floods, with the water flowing over the bridge at Vredendal at one point!
I could only appreciate the damage of the flood when I found my favourite fishing hole on the Doring river, which had always been a pool of approx 1,5kms with an average depth of 3meters, being totally filled with sand!
The culmination of 3 severe floods over the last two winters have resulted in the lower Doring river being totally choked in sand. I was able to fish other pools further upstream but these were dramatically shallower resulting in the average size of the fish dropping from 1,4 kg's to about 250 grams. I also struggled to catch the numbers of fish that I was used to catching. I normally lost count of the number of bass that I would catch there, estimating that I would often catch over 50 smallmouth and over 10 spotted bass a day. Well the best that I could do was a paltry 6 bass a day for the 2 days that I spent there. Does anyone know if the Doring river has ever recovered from such severe siltation before?
I then proceeded to fish the lower Olifants river in the same district close to the Klawer turn off. The water colour has changed dramatically form a crystal clear green to a milky brown. The reason, an absolute carp population explosion! There ware carp jumping all over the place in the large pool where I often caught dozens of spotted, largemouth and smallmouth bass. I could only manage 2 small large mouths. The low water bridge was also covered with sand with evidence that bulldozers had to grade tons of sand away to ensure that the river water could flow its previous course.
This is a very sad development as smallmouth bass venues are vanishing at an increadible rate. In the last 5 years we have lost the entire Breede river as well as Voelvlei dam.
I stayed over in Clanwilliam for a night and fished it on the last autumn day before this recent deluge that we are currently experiencing in the Cape. For the first time I caught more largemouth bass than smallmouth bass in the dam. I fished the area just before Rondegat. The water was dirty but very warm. I did not catch the real monsters that have been coming out there recently but I will admit that even though the dam does not have a lot of bass in my opinion it does have big fish as both the largemouth and smallmouth bass that I caught or missed were significantly bigger than those in Kwaggas.
I fish from a float tube and when I fish the Clan I almost exclusively resort to trolling curly tail grubs with deadly effect. Do this by casting the grub out until it hits the bottom. Then play out some line to account for the lift when you are drifting. Then either drift with the wind or slowly propel yourself at a speed where the grub is constantly in contact with the bottom. It's deadly! This technique also allows you to cover a large area of water and water depths that is a necessity when covering such a large and varying body of water.
I took some time off between 1 and 4 May of this year to do some smallmouth bassing on the lower Doring and Olifants Rivers in the Trawal/Klawer area near Vredendal.
I was last there 2 years ago and experienced the best smallmouth bass fishing that I had ever experienced. I moved to Cape Town in early 2002 and fished this area regulalarly until work & Study demands forced me to put my fishing on ice for about 2 years.
Well words cannot describe the absolute disappointment that I experienced. I recall that in September 2008 the Cederberg experienced severe floods, with the water flowing over the bridge at Vredendal at one point!
I could only appreciate the damage of the flood when I found my favourite fishing hole on the Doring river, which had always been a pool of approx 1,5kms with an average depth of 3meters, being totally filled with sand!
The culmination of 3 severe floods over the last two winters have resulted in the lower Doring river being totally choked in sand. I was able to fish other pools further upstream but these were dramatically shallower resulting in the average size of the fish dropping from 1,4 kg's to about 250 grams. I also struggled to catch the numbers of fish that I was used to catching. I normally lost count of the number of bass that I would catch there, estimating that I would often catch over 50 smallmouth and over 10 spotted bass a day. Well the best that I could do was a paltry 6 bass a day for the 2 days that I spent there. Does anyone know if the Doring river has ever recovered from such severe siltation before?
I then proceeded to fish the lower Olifants river in the same district close to the Klawer turn off. The water colour has changed dramatically form a crystal clear green to a milky brown. The reason, an absolute carp population explosion! There ware carp jumping all over the place in the large pool where I often caught dozens of spotted, largemouth and smallmouth bass. I could only manage 2 small large mouths. The low water bridge was also covered with sand with evidence that bulldozers had to grade tons of sand away to ensure that the river water could flow its previous course.
This is a very sad development as smallmouth bass venues are vanishing at an increadible rate. In the last 5 years we have lost the entire Breede river as well as Voelvlei dam.
I stayed over in Clanwilliam for a night and fished it on the last autumn day before this recent deluge that we are currently experiencing in the Cape. For the first time I caught more largemouth bass than smallmouth bass in the dam. I fished the area just before Rondegat. The water was dirty but very warm. I did not catch the real monsters that have been coming out there recently but I will admit that even though the dam does not have a lot of bass in my opinion it does have big fish as both the largemouth and smallmouth bass that I caught or missed were significantly bigger than those in Kwaggas.
I fish from a float tube and when I fish the Clan I almost exclusively resort to trolling curly tail grubs with deadly effect. Do this by casting the grub out until it hits the bottom. Then play out some line to account for the lift when you are drifting. Then either drift with the wind or slowly propel yourself at a speed where the grub is constantly in contact with the bottom. It's deadly! This technique also allows you to cover a large area of water and water depths that is a necessity when covering such a large and varying body of water.