Steve Catlin
New member
In all my years of Fishing I had no idea of what I had missed out on until yesterday when I went out with The Owner, Rudolph Venter. Firstly I had never been out on a boat before and immediately realized that we were up close and personal with the fish. We launched at around 06h00 at our venue and about 300m out witnessed a school of Barbel probably 300+ drifting on the surface feeding on little insects, it was unreal watching all these fish on the top the water.
Rudolph, who I can contest to is an expert in this type of fishing and is an excellent teacher/coach set about showing me the ropes. You can read as many articles as you like, watch it on You Tube a million times but until you have actually experienced Artlure for yourself you have no grasp on the concept. It may sound dramatic but I was and still am so overwhelmed that I keep playing it over and over in my mind.
We started off Dipping for Barbel on Roepstok and I must say that starting off it was not easy getting the lead-head in the right spot with the correct action so it was a challenge. We came across some Blue Kurper on nests and set about fishing for these. It takes patience and alot of skill persuade these fish to take your Curly Tail. I spent about 30 minutes on one nest aggravating, coaxing and tempting this particular Blue. It was in and out of the nest clearly peed off, often it would try to ignore the Curly Tail but I persisted with Rudolphs guidance. Eventually the Blue had had enough and took the bait. What a lekker fight, the head shaking and aggression was amazing and at the end of it my first Blue Kurper weighed in at 1.96Kg. I trust Rudolph will post the pick later. Rudolph was next and also landed a nice fish, pic to follow.
We moved onto Carp and Rudolph after a perfectly executed cast was into a very nice specimen.
Back to Barbel and after a lot of coaching from Rudolph I was into my first Barbel on Roepstok, after feeling the brute force of the take I now fully understand the reasons behind the setup we were using. My final tally on Barbel for the day was 7 which I was happy with as I really started to get the hang of things. Dipping for Carp was another story altogether, they spook very easily as their vision is so much better than Barbel. I came up fishless in this discipline but am wiser for it, really an art.
We searched around for small species but it seems they are not out yet at this venue.
I will be back on the water soon.
September has been amazing for me so far:
First Bass on lure.
First Barbel casting lure.
First Blue Kurper.
First Barbel on Roepstok.
Rudolph will probably add to this report and post the pics.
Rudolph, who I can contest to is an expert in this type of fishing and is an excellent teacher/coach set about showing me the ropes. You can read as many articles as you like, watch it on You Tube a million times but until you have actually experienced Artlure for yourself you have no grasp on the concept. It may sound dramatic but I was and still am so overwhelmed that I keep playing it over and over in my mind.
We started off Dipping for Barbel on Roepstok and I must say that starting off it was not easy getting the lead-head in the right spot with the correct action so it was a challenge. We came across some Blue Kurper on nests and set about fishing for these. It takes patience and alot of skill persuade these fish to take your Curly Tail. I spent about 30 minutes on one nest aggravating, coaxing and tempting this particular Blue. It was in and out of the nest clearly peed off, often it would try to ignore the Curly Tail but I persisted with Rudolphs guidance. Eventually the Blue had had enough and took the bait. What a lekker fight, the head shaking and aggression was amazing and at the end of it my first Blue Kurper weighed in at 1.96Kg. I trust Rudolph will post the pick later. Rudolph was next and also landed a nice fish, pic to follow.
We moved onto Carp and Rudolph after a perfectly executed cast was into a very nice specimen.
Back to Barbel and after a lot of coaching from Rudolph I was into my first Barbel on Roepstok, after feeling the brute force of the take I now fully understand the reasons behind the setup we were using. My final tally on Barbel for the day was 7 which I was happy with as I really started to get the hang of things. Dipping for Carp was another story altogether, they spook very easily as their vision is so much better than Barbel. I came up fishless in this discipline but am wiser for it, really an art.
We searched around for small species but it seems they are not out yet at this venue.
I will be back on the water soon.
September has been amazing for me so far:
First Bass on lure.
First Barbel casting lure.
First Blue Kurper.
First Barbel on Roepstok.
Rudolph will probably add to this report and post the pics.
You wont sommer beat that pb any time soon! You couldnt have chosen a better guide for your first trip!
