Fished Rietvlei a couple of weeks ago. During the weekend a really serious Carp Specimen angler pitched camp next to me, all of this fella's equipment was camo, from his rods to the water buckets, unhooking mat etc. I just watched this guy go to work and quickly realised he was no mug. He came over and introduced himself to me and suggested we assist each other during runs etc and I duly obliged. He took his lines out with an Optimus bait boat, wow what an impressive piece of equipment, what was interesting was the huge amount of ground feed he added to the drop zone of each line. It took about 2 hours before his first rod took off with a fish he could not turn, Christo from the hut was with us at that moment, it was amazing! During the evening I netted a 16.2 kg for him, he lost another 3 nice fish before sunrise. Next day we had early morning coffee and my lines were out for a reload, he asked to look at my setup and he was happy, he then asked if he could look at my ground feed and I once again had no problem as one of the tackle shops had mixed my ground feed for me and felt comfortable that I was well prepared. He pulled his hands through the mix and asked where I got the mix and I told him, he laughed and said "nog n ou vir n ride gevat"!
I was obviously inquisitive to know more, he brought his one bucket over and we compared notes, yip his was by far the better mix, it had an almost sour smell. He insisted that I use his mix when taking out my lines which I duly did. Now Rietvlei is known as a "night dam" at 15h43 my one rod took off and I lost a nice fish at the side as it was being netted.
My fishing neighbour kept telling me the importance of the quality of the ground bait and he had proven it to me. That evening the weather turned bad and we had no further bites. The moral of his story is the ground bait is the first attractor and the quality will keep the fish interested, the hook bait is the bonus "meal" and if the whole lot is complimentary of each other you will have success.
Am I any wiser, for sure!! On Sunday I left for home with a great feeling of satisfaction, having learnt a whole lot from someone who was prepared to share, not leaving behind the renewed motivation to go angling again and hunt for that big one!
I was obviously inquisitive to know more, he brought his one bucket over and we compared notes, yip his was by far the better mix, it had an almost sour smell. He insisted that I use his mix when taking out my lines which I duly did. Now Rietvlei is known as a "night dam" at 15h43 my one rod took off and I lost a nice fish at the side as it was being netted.
My fishing neighbour kept telling me the importance of the quality of the ground bait and he had proven it to me. That evening the weather turned bad and we had no further bites. The moral of his story is the ground bait is the first attractor and the quality will keep the fish interested, the hook bait is the bonus "meal" and if the whole lot is complimentary of each other you will have success.
Am I any wiser, for sure!! On Sunday I left for home with a great feeling of satisfaction, having learnt a whole lot from someone who was prepared to share, not leaving behind the renewed motivation to go angling again and hunt for that big one!
