Tigerfish wrote:
So what's the secret mielies??
Please help
I am fairly new to the carp fishing, having moved here from Zim but over the years have learnt to be fairly proficient at catching carp. I initially started out, as I'm sure most do, as a pap gooier but have since progressed to specimen angling. My initial forays into carp fishing were on the vaal river and dam and eventually to Kilpdrift in 2006.
I consider myself (or at least used to) somewhat of a guru as far as this dam goes. I remember the first time I went there and thought what an absolute dump of a dam - the stench was almost unbearable. Sadly, given the lack of venues close by it was a dam that I had no choice but to learn. In 2007/8 I must have fished this dam at least 50 times and learnt a helluva lot. In fact my brother-in-law and I suffered through many freezing winter nights to earn our Klipdrift colours and one particularly cold night lead to us investing in waders! You know those nights where you land a fish and 30 seconds later the landing net is frozen solid.
This dam can be extremely difficult to fish unless you've battled through and learnt a few sterling tips. Suffice to say that we have certainly benefitted as demonstrated in the following scenario:
I had a couple of visitors down here from Zim (father & son) who had never carp fished before but were very eager to try. It being a public holiday I offered to take them to Kilpdrift. When we arrived, the place was absolutely jam-packed and we managed to get the absolute last fishing spot on the lakeview side. Absolutely no one was catching including our two neighbours. I rigged up for the 3 of us (rietvlei), baited and off we went. It wasn't 15 minutes before we landed the first of about 30 fish for the day. At one stage the action was so fast and furious that I gave up on the long trek for every cast and decided to just fish from where I was casting, landing all fish by hand as we'd forgotten a landing net. Those of you that have fished the dam know that that's about 80m out. Needless to say we had queries from our neighbours as to what bait we were using but they wouldn't believe our answer! The one neighbour benefited having offered us the use of a landing net which we ultimately didn't need. I gave them some of my mielies and they were, apart from us, the only guys catching. That day highlighted for me what it means to put in the time to learn how to fish a dam. ( I don't have them with me now but will try and upload some pics from this trip).
I have since late 2009 stopped fishing this dam for two reasons. 1 - I was introduced to Bloemhof and 2 - the new owners/managers at lakeside are, I believe, going overboard in terms of what they charge. At one stage it was so reasonable that I would pick my brother-in-law up at 5pm on Friday in Lens, drive out there, fish for a few hours and be back home by 2am. This was once we'd figured out how the fish behave and we'd literally leave with our rods, mealie bomb, 1 bottle of mealies, 1 bucket of KFC and lots of firewood.
Pros
Cons
- Fairly close to JHB.[/*]
- Safe - I was once the only person on the dam as my brother-in-law could only make it the next day.[/*]
- A fairly well-stocked shop (lakeview resort side)[/*]
- Access 24/7[/*]
- Some chalets have been built (lakeview side) but I can not vouch for the quality/cost of these.[/*]
- Electricity is available on the left-hand side of the entrance for which you pay even more.[/*]
- Quite a number of fish if you have the knack.
[/*]
Having been converted to specimen angling (thanks to an 8 day trip to bloemhof that allowed me to experiment) I would like to return there at some stage to try but given the latest feedback would find that highly unlikely.
- Poor water quality (including blue algae) and sometimes a terrible stench (particularly when the water has come up). Also not advisable to fish in windy conditions as your line comes in looking like a clothes-line.[/*]
- Very poor facilities for campers, particularly on the right-hand side of the entrance.[/*]
- Fish are genereally small 1-2kg average. Largest I've caught is 7kg.[/*]
- I once almost bumped into a sizeable python 80m out just as I was about to cast. I'll let you guess how quickly I did the 80m sprint.[/*]
- Very shallow, particularly on the right and you have quite a walk to get your line deep. (it is significantly deeper on the opposite side although no camping is/was allowed there).
[/*]- The fish generally have very specific times at which they feed, what my brother-in-law and I referred to as happy hour and hence the 17:00-01:00am fishing 'trips'. Honestly, you can sit there the whole day, even if you know what you're doing, and not get a single pull and trust me I've done it just to prove that we knew what we were doing.[/*]
As mentioned, I've not fished there since 2009 but this is as much as I recall of numerous trips there. Btw if any of you are heading to Zim and are keen to get into some carp I can recommend the fishing at Lake Chivero (previously Mclwaine). Although I haven't yet fished there personally I have seen the evidence and there are regular 7kg+ caught there. The funny thing is that most people in Harare don't have a clue how to catch carp as they are relatively new to the lake.
So what's the secret mielies??
Please help
