HI All,
RDW what can I say - pitched up there on Saturday for a club artlure compo.
Needless to say there was S. gauteng Bass divisionals being fished and a whole herd of boats on the water 60+. NO disrespect to the Bass Pro's on Sealine but what a bunch of &%^&%^. If you came with in 200m of their boats they were already telling you to back off and not come any closer - artlure guy 90% of the time operate within less than 1M of water (so very shallow) these guys were 200m off the bank in most cases as because of the temp (very hot) the bass were deep. Syaing that one or two guys were very helpfull in assisting us with info on what the small bass were eating (we only require 1 of 200mm to weigh for artlure).
So we started put the boat in the water. Captains meeting and while we were having this I noticed that Glassies were jumping around the back of the boat.
Compo starts - My boat partner Gavin and myself try for Glassies - I get one after about 10mins (yay one species on the boat) Hand Gavin the rod and i walk down the bank a bit - Water level has risen substantially recently and there is much vegetation in the water edges. I notice Vlei's dip dip bang got me a size vlei (two species). Gavin still on 0. Wait 10 mins longer and say to Gav we needs to get carp before the wind comes up. Now GAv and myself are large fellas and we had somwhat ov a problem with getting my little boat and 40HP to get on the plane only to passed by a triton with a 275merc going at full taps - anyways we give the bass guy the queens wave and move on.Out comes the Carp dipping rod out on the trolling motor and away we go. Before long we see a carp all of 6kgs having a good nosh in the mud - I have a springbok carp loodkoppie os (I still have little faith in this) dip perfectly for him no response he sees us and spooks off. Quick change of the carp loodkoppie to my favoured we see a few more carp but they are very skittish. Now we move into dense vegetation I spot a carp with head down dip bang on - Chaos as all this fish wants to do is wrap me up on all the surrounding vegetation. ANyways 10 mins of fighting tangled undergrowth he comes to the boat 3.560kg and heaviest carp for the day by more than 1.5kgs.
We also saw herds of bass and blue kurper in the shallows but they all had locjaw so we spent the next hour tryin to get Gav a carp but with no Joy. I suggest to Gav we go try get canaries (very scarce in RDW) try for 30 Mins no luck. Move up into the river where ther are large banks of phragmities reeds. Find a goliath heron on a nest and a whole herd of weavers nesting just below the goliath. Sneak the nose of the boat in as quiet as possible. Take the Klop stok plonce a few times. Then Start calling (rough movement of the rod tip just in the water causing splashing intermittedly) do this for 30 min when bang I almost get hauled off the boat by this barbel - haul him into the boat 3.45kg also the biggest barbel for the day and my first offical klopped barbel within a club compo.
RDW what can I say - pitched up there on Saturday for a club artlure compo.
Needless to say there was S. gauteng Bass divisionals being fished and a whole herd of boats on the water 60+. NO disrespect to the Bass Pro's on Sealine but what a bunch of &%^&%^. If you came with in 200m of their boats they were already telling you to back off and not come any closer - artlure guy 90% of the time operate within less than 1M of water (so very shallow) these guys were 200m off the bank in most cases as because of the temp (very hot) the bass were deep. Syaing that one or two guys were very helpfull in assisting us with info on what the small bass were eating (we only require 1 of 200mm to weigh for artlure).
So we started put the boat in the water. Captains meeting and while we were having this I noticed that Glassies were jumping around the back of the boat.
Compo starts - My boat partner Gavin and myself try for Glassies - I get one after about 10mins (yay one species on the boat) Hand Gavin the rod and i walk down the bank a bit - Water level has risen substantially recently and there is much vegetation in the water edges. I notice Vlei's dip dip bang got me a size vlei (two species). Gavin still on 0. Wait 10 mins longer and say to Gav we needs to get carp before the wind comes up. Now GAv and myself are large fellas and we had somwhat ov a problem with getting my little boat and 40HP to get on the plane only to passed by a triton with a 275merc going at full taps - anyways we give the bass guy the queens wave and move on.Out comes the Carp dipping rod out on the trolling motor and away we go. Before long we see a carp all of 6kgs having a good nosh in the mud - I have a springbok carp loodkoppie os (I still have little faith in this) dip perfectly for him no response he sees us and spooks off. Quick change of the carp loodkoppie to my favoured we see a few more carp but they are very skittish. Now we move into dense vegetation I spot a carp with head down dip bang on - Chaos as all this fish wants to do is wrap me up on all the surrounding vegetation. ANyways 10 mins of fighting tangled undergrowth he comes to the boat 3.560kg and heaviest carp for the day by more than 1.5kgs.
We also saw herds of bass and blue kurper in the shallows but they all had locjaw so we spent the next hour tryin to get Gav a carp but with no Joy. I suggest to Gav we go try get canaries (very scarce in RDW) try for 30 Mins no luck. Move up into the river where ther are large banks of phragmities reeds. Find a goliath heron on a nest and a whole herd of weavers nesting just below the goliath. Sneak the nose of the boat in as quiet as possible. Take the Klop stok plonce a few times. Then Start calling (rough movement of the rod tip just in the water causing splashing intermittedly) do this for 30 min when bang I almost get hauled off the boat by this barbel - haul him into the boat 3.45kg also the biggest barbel for the day and my first offical klopped barbel within a club compo.