HI All,
This is not a story but fact...........
I wish to share an incident that happened to me on the weekend and even now it causes the hair to stand up on the back of my neck.
We had a all weekend club artlure compo at Arabie dam this last weekend gone by.
The weather did not grace us too well and certainly on Saturday the condtions were rather adverse with howling wind.
Anyways Sunday started out great with little wind and partly cloudy skies. Arabie is a beautiful long narrow dam with much structure in it in the form of dead trees and vast floodplain flats filled with fish.
It was in these floodplains that most of our fishing took place and tempting as it was to get out and wade for carp n barbel the ever presence of humongous crocs made one think twice about doing this.
So I managed to get a couple of big barbel fishing for size as we may only weigh one of each species. and I saw a spot that help many carp. I motored back up to this area cut the motor upwind and drifted into the "spot" and true's nuts I came across a cruising carp - dipped the leadhead and bang was straight on. Whilist I was fighting the carp I saw a couple of good size blues swim past and head up into the flood plain (I was still short a blue at this point). ANyways got carp in the boat and started heading up after the blues. Now I was right in the heart of the floodplainin about 75cm of water and off to my right maybe 100m or so was a treeline of large trees marking the edge of the rivercourse in amongst these trees was a Large Knersis (crocodile).
Now I have worked with dangerous game most of my working life being a game ranger/trails/fishingguide etc and not saying I know everything but I am probably more aware of animal behaviour than most. Now with all big game you don't want to get between them and their safety zone (in the case of crocs deep water). Now the fact that the croc was on the edge of the deep channel and I was in the flats I felt quite confident that I was okay. Needless to say as I moved up into the flats the croc started moving out towards me. Again the tought crossed my mind well I'm fine here the croc is not coing to come look for shit with me......
Just in case I put the trolling motor on "Haasie" and moved out infront of the croc by 50 M. Anyways the croc passed behind the boat and headed up into the shallows were it was virtually crawling half out of the water (by this time it is 150M from me and I'm getting into the real shallow stuff (the trolling motor is starting to catch) so I continue looking formy blues".
From behind me in the direction of the croc I hear a "moer" of a commotion of splashing water and I turn to see the croc literally surfing the bow wave that it is creating in my direction. Now I look at the ultra light tackle rod in my hand back at the croc and back at the croc - yeah right I'm really gonna beat a croc with an ultra light tackle outfit...................
Anyways by this point I'm still calm and collected - hell I've had much closer calls with lions and stuff whilist doing walks in the KNP. So the croc surges forth and I deciede well I call it's bluff it is probs going to veer off at anystage and go around the boat I mean the water is now only 60cm deep and crystal clear. Just to be safe I turn the boat and put the main motor towards the croc and I am on the nose with the trolling motor.
But hey the croc has no fear and comes straight for the boat and I really begin to shit myself. Now the croc cruises under the boat just to the left of the main motor and stops. this croc is so "dik" that I can feel the boat rubbing against the croc.Now I carefully look over the nose of the boat and just over the nose I can see the "Hooter"(nose of this croc) which is about the size of a side plate. Out the back there is still 11/2M of crocodile( man this is one beeg MOFO) My boat is 4.1 m long so this croc is well over 5 m and almost 2/3 as wide as the boat and now it is parked below my boat in 60cm of water.
What to do now you ask? The boat is loaded with tackle in every concivable form all over the place and this croc could "rock the boat at any given point". I decide I'm going to take agrressive action against this brazen beast. I decide that I'm going to take a flying leap and land as hard as I can amidships and hopefully this will scare the Shit out of the croc.
So I pschye myself up take a fling leap come crashing down amidships ontop of one of my tackle boxes (broken box trebles and other artlure parrinallia all in mid air now) the croc shits itself - takes off upwards and forwards rocking the boat precarisly close to toppiling over. Needless to say by this point I have the main motor on and I'm churning mud all the way to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Now the question I pose is why would a croc show this type of behaviour?
Crocs are stealth hunters they ambush 90% of their prey?
I have two possible answers.
The croc has maybe schnacked on people before and therefore has no fear of boats.
The other is that it is almost the end of the croc breeding season OCT/NOV and maybe unbeknowns to me I was heading towards the nursery and she was showing aggression in the form of maternal care.
What ever the case I "KAKKED" myself and it took me a good couple of hours to stop the kees from knocking and the hands from shaking.
In many ways I was glad I was alone on the boat as often people can loose it and decide that swimming was a better option.
So just be warned if you are going to visit Arabie dam be very very wary of mother crocs especially thos that are more than 1m between the eyes.
Be safe and enjoy our favourite pastime
This is not a story but fact...........
I wish to share an incident that happened to me on the weekend and even now it causes the hair to stand up on the back of my neck.
We had a all weekend club artlure compo at Arabie dam this last weekend gone by.
The weather did not grace us too well and certainly on Saturday the condtions were rather adverse with howling wind.
Anyways Sunday started out great with little wind and partly cloudy skies. Arabie is a beautiful long narrow dam with much structure in it in the form of dead trees and vast floodplain flats filled with fish.
It was in these floodplains that most of our fishing took place and tempting as it was to get out and wade for carp n barbel the ever presence of humongous crocs made one think twice about doing this.
So I managed to get a couple of big barbel fishing for size as we may only weigh one of each species. and I saw a spot that help many carp. I motored back up to this area cut the motor upwind and drifted into the "spot" and true's nuts I came across a cruising carp - dipped the leadhead and bang was straight on. Whilist I was fighting the carp I saw a couple of good size blues swim past and head up into the flood plain (I was still short a blue at this point). ANyways got carp in the boat and started heading up after the blues. Now I was right in the heart of the floodplainin about 75cm of water and off to my right maybe 100m or so was a treeline of large trees marking the edge of the rivercourse in amongst these trees was a Large Knersis (crocodile).
Now I have worked with dangerous game most of my working life being a game ranger/trails/fishingguide etc and not saying I know everything but I am probably more aware of animal behaviour than most. Now with all big game you don't want to get between them and their safety zone (in the case of crocs deep water). Now the fact that the croc was on the edge of the deep channel and I was in the flats I felt quite confident that I was okay. Needless to say as I moved up into the flats the croc started moving out towards me. Again the tought crossed my mind well I'm fine here the croc is not coing to come look for shit with me......
Just in case I put the trolling motor on "Haasie" and moved out infront of the croc by 50 M. Anyways the croc passed behind the boat and headed up into the shallows were it was virtually crawling half out of the water (by this time it is 150M from me and I'm getting into the real shallow stuff (the trolling motor is starting to catch) so I continue looking formy blues".
From behind me in the direction of the croc I hear a "moer" of a commotion of splashing water and I turn to see the croc literally surfing the bow wave that it is creating in my direction. Now I look at the ultra light tackle rod in my hand back at the croc and back at the croc - yeah right I'm really gonna beat a croc with an ultra light tackle outfit...................
Anyways by this point I'm still calm and collected - hell I've had much closer calls with lions and stuff whilist doing walks in the KNP. So the croc surges forth and I deciede well I call it's bluff it is probs going to veer off at anystage and go around the boat I mean the water is now only 60cm deep and crystal clear. Just to be safe I turn the boat and put the main motor towards the croc and I am on the nose with the trolling motor.
But hey the croc has no fear and comes straight for the boat and I really begin to shit myself. Now the croc cruises under the boat just to the left of the main motor and stops. this croc is so "dik" that I can feel the boat rubbing against the croc.Now I carefully look over the nose of the boat and just over the nose I can see the "Hooter"(nose of this croc) which is about the size of a side plate. Out the back there is still 11/2M of crocodile( man this is one beeg MOFO) My boat is 4.1 m long so this croc is well over 5 m and almost 2/3 as wide as the boat and now it is parked below my boat in 60cm of water.
What to do now you ask? The boat is loaded with tackle in every concivable form all over the place and this croc could "rock the boat at any given point". I decide I'm going to take agrressive action against this brazen beast. I decide that I'm going to take a flying leap and land as hard as I can amidships and hopefully this will scare the Shit out of the croc.
So I pschye myself up take a fling leap come crashing down amidships ontop of one of my tackle boxes (broken box trebles and other artlure parrinallia all in mid air now) the croc shits itself - takes off upwards and forwards rocking the boat precarisly close to toppiling over. Needless to say by this point I have the main motor on and I'm churning mud all the way to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Now the question I pose is why would a croc show this type of behaviour?
Crocs are stealth hunters they ambush 90% of their prey?
I have two possible answers.
The croc has maybe schnacked on people before and therefore has no fear of boats.
The other is that it is almost the end of the croc breeding season OCT/NOV and maybe unbeknowns to me I was heading towards the nursery and she was showing aggression in the form of maternal care.
What ever the case I "KAKKED" myself and it took me a good couple of hours to stop the kees from knocking and the hands from shaking.
In many ways I was glad I was alone on the boat as often people can loose it and decide that swimming was a better option.
So just be warned if you are going to visit Arabie dam be very very wary of mother crocs especially thos that are more than 1m between the eyes.
Be safe and enjoy our favourite pastime
