Rho Boat…

Rho's Boat!

Here are just a few photos of a Largemouth Bass that my young cousin Rho caught at Bass-O-Mania sometime earlier this year. It was a slow day, my uncle and I really struggled the day through catching not a single fish between us if I recall correctly. While fishing a bed of lily pads, which riddled the dam’s bank, a seemingly obvious hideout for the bass we were targeting, Rho (9 at the time) decided to cast his crawdad coloured lipless crank into the deeper water behind us. A short time after the plop he was screaming for mercy!  I thought he had got hooked up on the bottom but low and behold he seemed to be gaining line, and to our disbelief he had actually hooked into an absolute giant of a bass. I haven’t seen a rod bend like that in all the time that I have spent targeting bass.

A better indication of size.

Once he had eventually gotten the fish close enough to the boat I grabbed the fish by the lower jaw and lifted it from the water in awe. The beauty weighed in at no less than 2.4 kgs (+-5.3 pounds). Needless to say Rho seems to out fish us on every occasion, and I am certain that it must have something to do with the fact that, as older folk, we seem to think far too much about how to actually catch fish. I think that sometimes we need to just stop thinking about how to fish, and just fish.

BASS-O-MANIA: THE RETURN

I returned to Bass-o-Mania this past weekend (30 August 2008) to what I thought again would be the first great day of the new season, after my previous miss prediction, a couple weeks ago. Again, I was wrong…

My 650 grammer

This time I returned with a newly found angling buddy, Damien, and our Ark Inflatable. I say again, what a dam for light boats and float tubes. Just too bad we are not the best at predicting weather just yet, as we were literally blown off the water, double anchors and all! BUT at least this time I eventually managed to land one of those green flashy fish we like so much, albeit a 650 gram tiddler. A fish is a fish! And caught on a slightly new rig for me, which consists of a 4” Yum Dinger (watermelon red), with a tiny ball sinker mojo-rigged between 20 and 40cm up the line. I’m used to the big old Yamamoto senkos, but at about R45 a bag of 15 Dingers I am pleasantly surprised with the Yums. Especially since they are not only completely filled with salt on the inside, but also covered with salt AND a product called Live Prey Technology (LPT), which is basically a scent attractant. Just holding the full bag of visually salted, senko-like baits gave me confidence in them. To put it simply, the salt basically allows them to sink nice and quick and on top of that the action of the bait as it sinks makes ME want to dive in and bite it myself!

So that is my boring story of one small fish and a bag of fake senkos, but Damien’s is a far more exciting one. After battling with the wind until lunch time we decided to do what no die-hard angler ever should… We decided to go home. For a guy who is hardly deterred from fishing by the setting sun and threats of grievous bodily harm from his girlfriend, you can imagine this decision a heartbreaking one. Not even lunch time and the mission had officially been aborted. Anyhow it was only after beginning our return to the opposite bank of the dam where we had parked the bakkie that the fishing gods smiled upon us.

While I rowed frantically against the wind, unbeknownst to me Damien had been trawling a watermelon seed Horny Toad behind, or rather, to the side of the crabbing boat. At that very moment he yelled for me to stop: “I’m stuck” he said. All of a sudden whatever he was stuck on began to shift… it began to move off… and it began to fight!! His tune changed: “Nice fish!” he yelled to me as he began to fight an obviously decent specimen. What a mission, I paddled myself silly against the wind to keep us off the rocks while Damien carefully and methodically played the barley hooked fish towards us. At times I had to stop rowing as the fish got nearer so as not to scare him into erratic, mad dashes.

Damien's 1.9kg toad crusher

What were the chances!? Not high, that’s for sure, but the fishing gods must have felt sorry for us to give us the gift of a near 2kg fish (seen above) for our troubles on the water. The day may have been windy and short, but a 2.5kg bag between two is not bad for a couple hours, and it’s always satisfying watching a friend land a largemouth bass of that size. What was learnt on this trip is to diversify our angling stratergies. The fish Damien caught was hooked in a seemingly structure less area that I would never actively decide to fish. In future, I at least, will return to similar spots (with rocky sloped bottoms) to throw crank baits of various shapes, colours, and sizes, along the length of the bank, and just maybe a fish or two will be inspired to strike.

BASS-O-MANIA

As promised here is our post regarding our recent trip to Bass-O-Mania, which we have decided to conclude before we make mention of our personal tackle and technique choices for the upcoming season.

Plenty of reeds surround the clean open water at Bass-O-Mania.

Bass-O-Mania*…. Where do we start?! What a venue to say the very least. I contemplated for a while whether it a wise decision to post about such a reasonably untapped bassing resource, knowing that it could well be lost to the potentially destructive, and often ruthless, angling onslaught that has knowingly hit other, previously magical, inland angling destinations of our country in the past. However! This is a venue we simply could not help but be compelled to write about, and on top of that we have full faith in the consistently proactive founder/manager of Bass-O-Mania, Danie, who we know will do everything in his power to keep the venue alive with bass for a long time still to come.

Bass-O-Mania consists of a number of dams, I want to say 3 but somehow Danie constantly manages to get his hands on more and more exceptionally healthy bodies of water, all of which are absolutely alive with bass. The main dam is a fairly large body of water as well, which could probably accommodate a number of floatation devices and small boats, with a source dam slightly higher up from that boasting a rather large crystal clear body of water, that could carry the promise of some magical sight fishing this summer.

The "Bass Bugger with his 1st Bass-O-Mania largemouth

Our recent excursion found us at Bass-O-Mania on the 2nd of August on what we initially thought would be the best bassing day of winter so far but turned out to be an average, colder than predicted and windy, angling Saturday. However, that did not stop “the Bass Bugger” Shaun Taylor from outshining me on the water from dusk till dawn on our brand new Ark Seal SP 300 series (which is a future post all on its own). From the first solid hook-set and noisy disturbance of the waters glossy surface he managed to land his 5 fish bag limit by the end of the day, without letting a thing get away. This performance hardly mirrored my own, which saw me landing a grand total of not one, not two, but in fact ZERO fish for our approximate 7 hour total out on the water.

Plenty of these, with the odd report of catches over 2kg

I think, after a few lost fish, the one thing that I really took away from the trip, and something that I have slowly began to learn over my short angling career is that no matter how powerfully rewarding angling can be, it is also at times agonizingly heartbreaking as well. On a happier note however, Bass-O-Mania is a location that we are going to be returning to time and time again, hopefully for many years to come in the hunt for that illusive 7 pound plus fish, we believe he is there!

And another...

* Fishing at bass-o-mania is by appointment only, Contact Danie at: 082 551 8088