Adventure will always find a way no matter what, most of you that know me by now would understand that when it comes to bass fishing I pretty much lose myself to society and just go all out no matter the conditions or the temperatures. This month I want to share one of my expeditions along with a young man that shares in my passion for kayak fishing, putting in long hours on the water and just being out there with every chance he gets!

Out There!

The piece of water where we went fishing I believe holds about a million cubes of water, which has in the past most definitely delivered me some great fishing opportunity, this private dam is not open to the public and just has it all! Over 10 meters deep at the wall, offering some great vegetation and epic shallow water with a variety of beds to fish, from thick grass to rock or gravel and everything in between, this is just one of those rare gems! A honey-hole like my friend in the States call them and boy-oh-boy this sure is the case – since I started going to this spot about a year or so ago I have since not once had a blank day on the water there and I can see since they are controlling the dam a lot more in terms of how many people come there to fish the quality of fish has dramatically increased and my last trip there proved just that once again!

This time round it was one of those trips where you just realise that winter is coming! Having had warm weather for the better part of two weeks straight and then suddenly out of the blue a misty cold frosty morning in the valley. Myself and the land owner planned for me to come fish along with his son Tristan on the kayaks as Tristan was now the proud owner of a Fluid fishing kayak of his own and he could not wait to fish with me, so the planned weekend came up and dreadfully I had to cancel as I was down for the count with a bad case of tick-bite fever and could not make it, so we postponed the trip by a week to see if the fever would be broken by then.

As the week went by, I got busy with other obligations and needless to say felt a lot better than the previous week and as my mind was racing between making arrangements to possibly buy a new camera I almost forgot that I am still to go fishing that coming weekend, so before I could make contact the owner of the dam phoned me and asked if I am still to come  out that way and also how is the fever going, so I confirmed with him on the Saturday morning that I would be leaving home around 5 am the Sunday morning to be there bright and early to spend a quality day out with his son Tristan – who by then was fishing that dam just about every day he had a chance to do so.

Fishing Blues!

Sunday morning my alarm went off and I jumped out of bed running up and down the house trying to get the last lot of things sorted and loaded up, making sure the dogs have food and water for the day and off I went, feeling the ambient air temp is pretty low that morning but nonetheless didn’t make much of it at the time and off I went.

Upon reaching my destination a tad later than expected due to heavy fog cover on the way there, we had a quick meet up at the house for a coffee and then off we went to the dam that’s just about located on their doorstep. As we went down to the dam I then start realising just how cold this morning really is and start wondering about tactics for the day, apparently they have been having great fishing on Senko’s for the last week or so just about any way you could throw them by the sounds of it, so I thought that would be a good start, fishing slow and deep down. Then as we reached the water and I see Tristan’s kayak is covered in a layer of frost I knew we were going to be in for a hard day of fishing as the sudden temperature change can make thing a bit more difficult and my tactics once again change. I decide to roll out only with one casting setup and one spinning setup and as we leave the shore on the small boat they have at first I start working a Culprit Frog pretty hard, deep into the vegetation cover, hopping the Lilly pads and even tried a quick top water retrieve or two but every time the frog would just come back and not even a bite was produced, I then decide I’m going with a Googan baits Trench Hawg to see what I can conjure on a slow retrieve deep down but also not producing anything, about 40 minutes later I change baits again, this time casting my current favourite soft bait, the Keitech mad-wag and just work the water as hard as I could, cast for cast trying everything from dead stick to fast retrieval and still no results. I then told Tristan that I’m reverting to old tactics for this dam that I know would work…Out comes the Chatter bait, so I start casting all over, in between the reeds and thin grass all the way to the more mangrove like trees and Lilly pads and open water just letting the chatter do its job causing hectic vibrations and hopefully in that manner I can land a decent fish. After a good couple of casts we move up into some more shallow water and then I spot a place where I need to drop the chatter bait into and I flung the bait right to the spot and with the second turn on the reel handle I feel that ever illusive tug on the other side! This was it I think to myself! As I strike and make sure I utter the words…FISH ONNNN! And what a beauty it was! 1^st fish for the day and now the proverbial ice has been broken and I tell Tristan to hook himself up with a spinner bait as he does not have a chatter bait yet.

We carry on to work all the nooks and crannies and don’t come up with anything else and decide by now its warm enough to go out on the kayaks so we mission back towards the vehicle and ready ourselves for the kayaks, Tristan on his Fluid Bamba and I was to use his dads C-kayak Pelican. Packed a little bag and grabbed a cold drink and off we went back onto the water. By now I have my favourite spinner bait tied on and I am ready to rumble along with the lad that also is yet to catch a fish. We make our way out and into a little gully/bay area right where we started and work that part of the dam hard for the next 30mins where I managed to hook up my 2^nd fish for the day, this on on a spinner bait. I call out to Tristan to try a spinner with white or bright skirt and/or a white trailer if he has, now trying for the young man to get his first fish! We carry on making our way out of the bay area and I decide I’m going to make one last cast before I leave the gully in search of new fishing spot and as my spinner hit the water it felt like a train hits it!! Pulling out my tightly set drag at least 5 meters before I could turn it around and keep it out of the heavy vegetation, FISH ON!! And this feels like a good size fish! I try to keep calm and follow all the protocol not to make any dumb mistakes and lose this good fish when all of a sudden majestically leaps out of the water and I get a full size view of just what a bus this was and then back into the water and up and out a second time, but this time round I see my spinner bait hooked perfectly in the corner of the mouth and I just focus to keep tension on the line at all times and then finally when I got the fish to the side of the kayak I actually see the hookset is not in a good place and can tear out at any moment as I reach out to lip it but fail as the fish had not yet given up on this fight. I almost lost my balance on the narrow kayak and took a dive but managed to re-centre and focus myself on an instant as this is not a fish I would want to lose! Again, got the fish right up to the boat as I reach out and grab that bottom jaw with my thumb clamping like a vice-grip! I have done it I think to myself, as I get a good grip and pick the fish up the hook just falls out from its mouth – this time luck was on my side! By then Tristan was up close already so I asked him to just snap a photo and off it went into the cold depths of the dam again alive to fight again on another day.

Fish Fantastic

In the end we called it a day around 13:00 to go back to the house for a lovely sit down with his family where we shared stories and a couple of cold ones around a perfectly puffing oxtail potjie that they made for the day! Truly a great adventure and I am surely to return again to fish with the young lad hopefully getting him onto a big train as well as this time round the universe was in my favour.

Its really nice to see the younger generation to still show interest in the sport and outdoors in general as society has changed to such an extent that children of modern times know more about tech than what they know about anything outdoors, so I thoroughly enjoyed this day out on the water being able to help and guide this young man to refine his skills and techniques and pursue  what he loves in life – being on the water, kayaking and pulling out those green trains!

Till next time, keep the rods bent and the hooks sharp, lines tight and the smiles big!

Cheers

i..