Last weekend Northern Gauteng had there last league for this fishing season at Rusties. Even before the league everyone who prefished were very sceptical. I have heard for a while now that Rusties was not delivering. But I have had some very lekker fishing at Rusties in the past, but now I know that lekker fishingtrips at Rusties is going to stay in the past. The most species caught was 5 species by Derek Nel. He weighed barbel(only one of the day caught in the river on calling), bass, canary, vlei and dwarf. Most anglers weighed 3-4 species. This dam use to deliver up to 9 species. I don't know for sure what happend to all the fish, but the water is a clear as is have always been. Don't know if there was any pollution accidents, but the water shows no sign of this. The only remaining factor - bass. Rusties was known for its plenty and big vleikurper, yet there was a few anglers who did not even weigh vlei and almost every one struggled to get a vleikurper. You will work down kilometers of banks without spotting a single vlei. Dwarfs were also very scarce and they were found in very very shallow water in thick grasses (wonder why they were hiding in these abnormaly shallow waters?!). Not one bluekurper was weighed although I had a biggish female on that broke my line. I saw a total of 2 blues for the day and I worked a lot of banks. Canaries was also scarce, the only one's that came out was supersized (I know that they are also alien, but why are there no smaller to just just size one's?). I know why! Bass! They are everywhere. I caught 4 size bass for the day and 6 undersize. Everywhere you go you see average sized bass in the shallowest of water. They are all very aggressive and very thin. I even caught size bass on my curlytail rig while fishing for vleis and even caught a size one on a ghielierig while trying to catch dwarfs between the rocks. The fingerling bass are EVERYWHERE! If your curlytail moves you are one with a small bass. The bass at Rusties have wiped out most of the dwarf and vleikurper populations. No ghielies or glassies have been caught or seen there in a long time and I'm pretty sure the bass have wiped them out. I think the dam use to cope with all the bass because it had lots of watergrasses, now the watergrasses are gone and the bass are overpopulated and thus the dam is going down.
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Rust de Winter going down
- Thread starter The Owner
- Start date
I agree with Ryan, Renosterkop is your best bet. Some anglers say that Renosterkop's bass have become less and more difficult, but the trick is to find open channels between the grassbeds and fish between them. You won't believe how much bass you would see, let alone catch.