Every so often as an avid bass angler you will find yourself fishing your backside off trying everything possible in your bag of tricks and yet come out empty, not being sure if it’s the weather not playing along or just your own dumb-luck…but then, you also get those days where you feel untouchable where you feel like you can just about cast a clean hook into the water and a fish will still bite and I am sure everyone who ever held a fishing rod in their hands has experienced this in one way or the other. The art of fishing is to learn how to survive those bad days and be strong for you never know when your next great day out will be, and yet any day spent out there is worth so much more than sitting at home. In this article I will share some insight to my favourite tackle and another fishing adventure with my old man.
Let Adventure find you.
Sitting around on a lazy Saturday afternoon talking nonsense to my dad, I suddenly have another bright spark – I quite often have these moments of clarity where I become very impulsive and just want to do something adventurous – nonetheless my plan was for my dad and I to go fishing together but to somewhere that both of us have not yet been to, uncharted waters if you will.
I start my sentence by asking if he has a certain old friends number that we know that I have heard has some decent fishing on his farm, so my dad jumped at his phone to scan for the contact info so that we could make a call but alas the number was not on the new phone, so we resorted to plan B…I am to make contact with the guy on Facebook to get hold of him and so I sent a message and there we were now waiting and hoping that the fishing gods will be on our side.
A few days went past and as I walk around plotting what my next photography mission will be I hear the distinctive Facebook “ping” sound on my phone and as I open the phone my smile instantaneously grew when I saw the name popping up, I instantly phone my dad to give him the good news and that we were on for some fishing for the coming weekend.
We prep all our gear and make sure we have enough of everything that we know usually works in that general area of farms in Northern KZN.
D-day
My alarm starts buzzing at 03:50am as I jump out of bed excited to what the day might hold in store, but also slightly worried as we had some hectic rain the previous day so I was just hoping that the water would still be clean enough and not too cold and that the fish would still be on the bite.
I carry on as to get myself ready for the day as I wake up my dad and start loading the Land Rover, we had already strapped the kayaks to the roof on the previous night so just needed to get those rods loaded in along with some snacks and drinks for the day ahead. Its now 04:55am and my dad had his morning coffee and we are ready to take the drive out towards the farm, as the darkness starts lighting up with the amazing morning colours of the sun I get a grin on my face just knowing that today would be a good day.
As we get to the farm after some fun and muddy dirt roads, we end up at the 1st dam for the day, the conditions are prime, no wind, no rain, sun is out, and the water feels and looks fantastic! Between my dad and I we almost trip over each other as to get our rods out the back of the van to get that all important first cast for the day. My dad going with his favourite lure the Zoom Baits Horny Toad in a black colour and I decide to break out the Damiki Baits Mr Jumbo Grub in Junebug colour also weightless. We walk down to the waters edge in a moment so perfect it almost feels surreal, I grab hold of my lure one last time making sure the bait is properly presented as not to hook any water grass in the process. Almost simultaneously we cast our lines each aiming for a spot that’s looks good, I stand and look at my dad retrieving his lure like a motorboat not even thinking about mine as I see a big splash of wate on his side and the horny toad flying through the air as a fish hit him hard from the bottom and right in that instant of excitement I also pick up a bite but due to me not being focussed about what is happening on my side of things I end up missing the strike and both of us come out empty on the 1st cast, from there I decide its time to offload the kayaks and get cracking into all the spots you cannot reach from the small piece of bank that is not covered in reeds.
We carry on working the gulley’s and reed banks both being successful with landing a span of fish for the morning before the weather turned drastically and us having to pack up.
Since then we have been back at this honey hole for some more adventures landing some decent fish along the way as well, definitely a contact worth having.
In my backpack
As it goes my dad always teases me about my fishing bag as it apparently looks like a fishing shop about to open, see I have this “problem” where I cannot walk into a fishing shop without at least buying one packet of plastics and so keep myself stocked up for any fishing that might happen. I prefer fishing with plastics and also weightless in most of these farm dams in NKZN, but on my last couple of trips I have been having great success on chatter baits as well as dual blade spinner baits especially when it comes to size of fish, as I might not catch the most fish using spinner baits or chatter baits but definitely landing bigger fish more often.
In my coming articles I will focus more specifically of what’s happening inside my tackle bag and when I use certain lures and also my ‘Go-To” favourites for when the going gets tough, so stay tuned till next time – keep those fishing rods bent, lines tight and always be ready for that ultimate bite!
Cheers
…i