Riaan_The_Legend
Senior Member
So, i finally finished my honors degree yesterday and BassMasterNONPro and myself decided that nothing less that the best celebration would do. After a 20min phone call the plans were made, kit was packed and rods were rigged in anticipation on the following morning's early start.
04:00 and the alarm was tripping out, time to get up. It always amazes me how easy it is to get up to fish, yet I wrestle with my snooze button when its a meeting which I have to make... Anyways. 04:40 and on the road. After a slight detour we arrived at the Slanghoek section of the Breede river, our main target for the day. After parking, we made our way down to the river, only to be treated to the most amazing sunrise. There was a light mist which made the fact that there was no wind even more noticable. Epic.
After getting no fish at what seemed to be an epic spot, we decided to head back to the car and head to a new section of river. As we strolled along we took a few mandatory casts at obvious pieces of structure. The only catch was that BMNP caught some structure on his backcast and generated an overwind which I doubt has ever been rivaled. We tried for a while to sort it out but to no avail, the scissors came out. With only half a spool of line remaining we made it back to the car without further incidents. For now at least...
On we went to the legendary Nekkies campsite which borders the Breede river on the one side and Brandvlei dam on the other. We took a walk down to our favourite spot and started casting. On my first cast, my gold and black Rapala Rattle-Trap went very tight on a text book cast next to a vertical concrete bank. Fish on, and a tank to boot! Wow, what a mad fight! The smallie dominated me to the Nth degree. After quite some time, I managed to get the fish close enough to gauge the size and it was a gem. A new PB for sure! For quite some time we smashed the fish and ended somewhere 12pm. I managed 8 of these bronze beasts and BMNP got 2. It was a rad start to the day to say the least.
We then made the trip down to Eikenhof which looked a little sketchy and so we decided not to fish. Somewhere between the dam being super empty and "Team America" being there to fight the fire's it just didn't seem worth it. After reciting some of our favourite Team America lines we made a move and on we went to Somerset Sports where we were told that Eikenhof was in fact nothing short of brilliant at the moment with lots of fish coming out, and we realised we had made a stupid call. But, whatever. On we went and tried a small dam in Somerset West but with no luck.
As much as the day was getting later and later, we just weren't satisfied. We decided to check in at a few small farm dams to see if we could get permission to fish, and sure enough, one lady was kind enough to accommodate us. The dam looked amazing with stacks of structure and a good amount of grass in the water which the bass seem to love this time of year. We started fishing and went our own ways. Neither of us had caught anything and I though I would make my way round the dam to BMNP to see what was cutting. Although we had both seen huge barbel and good size bass, nothing seemed to want a shiny snack, so back to the car it was. As usual BMNT insisted on taking one final cast and narrowly missed the strike with the Rattle-Trap rocketing out the water and onto my chest. As much as it was funny, I couldn't understand why the crank wasn't falling off my shirt. I did the logical thing and tried to shake it off, but to no avail. I now understood the problem. The crank was not attached to my shirt, but unfortunately to my nipple. No this is not a joke. 110% wedged, past the barb into my nipple. My frikken nipple. It reality started to sink in. Into my brain, not the nipple as it was already quite sunken enough. Oh flip this sucked. After watching many hours of educational television in the form of "Ultimate Survivor" it dawned on me that Bear would just push that treble straight through. Pff, if he could do it, so could I. This turned out to be a little harder that initially anticipated. I found out that my nipple is extremely though and a possible point of research in the ongoing search for a better bullet proof jacket. With everthing I had I managed to push it out till I saw the point and slightly later the barb made an appearance as well. With a great sigh of relief, I crunched the barb and popper the treble out. Man it sucked so bad, but somehow the pain was justified by the fact that it was a flippen cool story to tell and I had living proof in the glorious form of photo's!
On we went. Now just with a slightly bloody shirt... We still felt like we had a little "Go" in us so we popped into the PicknPay and got ourselves some chicken livers. Yummm! Naaaaaaaat! At least we knew of someone who would in fact like them, Mr Whiskers. We proceeded on to one of my favourite barbel haunts and loaded the rods with bait and away we went. The expectation was mounting as we waited for the bite, BMNP had yet to catch his first barbel! Suddenly, his rod took a dip and with the reflexes of a pre-2001 Bruce Willis, set the hook like Hennie Papenfoes on roids. That poor barbel had no chance and soon enough it lay before us. A little beaut of around 2kgs. BMNP asked for the Leatherman to remove the hook and I turned around to grab it for him. As I bent down, my rod started running like I had never seen before and I managed to grab it and set the hook. I was on to my second beast of the day. With not much left to give from all the driving and the loss of nipple blood, I brought the fish in slowly. And what a gem she was...
Thank's a lot D-Dawg. What an epic day...
04:00 and the alarm was tripping out, time to get up. It always amazes me how easy it is to get up to fish, yet I wrestle with my snooze button when its a meeting which I have to make... Anyways. 04:40 and on the road. After a slight detour we arrived at the Slanghoek section of the Breede river, our main target for the day. After parking, we made our way down to the river, only to be treated to the most amazing sunrise. There was a light mist which made the fact that there was no wind even more noticable. Epic.
After getting no fish at what seemed to be an epic spot, we decided to head back to the car and head to a new section of river. As we strolled along we took a few mandatory casts at obvious pieces of structure. The only catch was that BMNP caught some structure on his backcast and generated an overwind which I doubt has ever been rivaled. We tried for a while to sort it out but to no avail, the scissors came out. With only half a spool of line remaining we made it back to the car without further incidents. For now at least...
On we went to the legendary Nekkies campsite which borders the Breede river on the one side and Brandvlei dam on the other. We took a walk down to our favourite spot and started casting. On my first cast, my gold and black Rapala Rattle-Trap went very tight on a text book cast next to a vertical concrete bank. Fish on, and a tank to boot! Wow, what a mad fight! The smallie dominated me to the Nth degree. After quite some time, I managed to get the fish close enough to gauge the size and it was a gem. A new PB for sure! For quite some time we smashed the fish and ended somewhere 12pm. I managed 8 of these bronze beasts and BMNP got 2. It was a rad start to the day to say the least.
We then made the trip down to Eikenhof which looked a little sketchy and so we decided not to fish. Somewhere between the dam being super empty and "Team America" being there to fight the fire's it just didn't seem worth it. After reciting some of our favourite Team America lines we made a move and on we went to Somerset Sports where we were told that Eikenhof was in fact nothing short of brilliant at the moment with lots of fish coming out, and we realised we had made a stupid call. But, whatever. On we went and tried a small dam in Somerset West but with no luck.
As much as the day was getting later and later, we just weren't satisfied. We decided to check in at a few small farm dams to see if we could get permission to fish, and sure enough, one lady was kind enough to accommodate us. The dam looked amazing with stacks of structure and a good amount of grass in the water which the bass seem to love this time of year. We started fishing and went our own ways. Neither of us had caught anything and I though I would make my way round the dam to BMNP to see what was cutting. Although we had both seen huge barbel and good size bass, nothing seemed to want a shiny snack, so back to the car it was. As usual BMNT insisted on taking one final cast and narrowly missed the strike with the Rattle-Trap rocketing out the water and onto my chest. As much as it was funny, I couldn't understand why the crank wasn't falling off my shirt. I did the logical thing and tried to shake it off, but to no avail. I now understood the problem. The crank was not attached to my shirt, but unfortunately to my nipple. No this is not a joke. 110% wedged, past the barb into my nipple. My frikken nipple. It reality started to sink in. Into my brain, not the nipple as it was already quite sunken enough. Oh flip this sucked. After watching many hours of educational television in the form of "Ultimate Survivor" it dawned on me that Bear would just push that treble straight through. Pff, if he could do it, so could I. This turned out to be a little harder that initially anticipated. I found out that my nipple is extremely though and a possible point of research in the ongoing search for a better bullet proof jacket. With everthing I had I managed to push it out till I saw the point and slightly later the barb made an appearance as well. With a great sigh of relief, I crunched the barb and popper the treble out. Man it sucked so bad, but somehow the pain was justified by the fact that it was a flippen cool story to tell and I had living proof in the glorious form of photo's!
On we went. Now just with a slightly bloody shirt... We still felt like we had a little "Go" in us so we popped into the PicknPay and got ourselves some chicken livers. Yummm! Naaaaaaaat! At least we knew of someone who would in fact like them, Mr Whiskers. We proceeded on to one of my favourite barbel haunts and loaded the rods with bait and away we went. The expectation was mounting as we waited for the bite, BMNP had yet to catch his first barbel! Suddenly, his rod took a dip and with the reflexes of a pre-2001 Bruce Willis, set the hook like Hennie Papenfoes on roids. That poor barbel had no chance and soon enough it lay before us. A little beaut of around 2kgs. BMNP asked for the Leatherman to remove the hook and I turned around to grab it for him. As I bent down, my rod started running like I had never seen before and I managed to grab it and set the hook. I was on to my second beast of the day. With not much left to give from all the driving and the loss of nipple blood, I brought the fish in slowly. And what a gem she was...
Thank's a lot D-Dawg. What an epic day...