Bass fishing farm dams

I still love fishing in Farm dams, and the funny thing is you can get some big farm dams with some big fish in. 2 spots that come to mind is a dam in Gingindlovu and one in Richmound. The Gingindlovu dam I used to fish there often when I lived in Mtunzini. I must have caught about a 4kg bass there. It was a monster, it was the king of thing that takes your breath away when it comes out the water. For me it is can a bass get that big.
This weekend I went fishing on a farm dam, thanks to my neighbor for inviting me to pop around and see his parents. It is not a huge dam but it still had lots of bass in. My neighbor on his first cast hooked a bass, he was so excited and I think he is hooked. He wants to now go and visit a fishing shop and get some equipment. The main story I want to share is safety. My neighbor has a boy of 2 years old, the dam had a boat on it so we decided to all hop on the boat and see if we could fish. I insist on wearing a life jacket, my neighbor feels the same way. Well we where on the boat and Matt was hanging over the side because he wanted to touch the water. Well as you can imagine disaster was about to strike, and sure enough it did. Over board went Matt, headfirst. His dad dived in right after him causing the boat to capsize and I was in the drink also. Eish the water was cold and it took my breath away. Lucky I had my tackle box attached to me and I did not let go of my rod. Matt's dad did let go of his rod, fully understanding on that one as he was saving his son. Lucky the boat did not fully capsize and we manage to get Matt back in the boat as we swam it ashore. Poor Matt he was in a shock and very cold. Now we had one rod missing and I was not keen to do any diving. I removed my rubber worm and just had a bare hook and sinker, I started casting hoping that I would pick up something. Well lucky us after about the 20th cast I managed to hook the line and ended up pulling in the rod and reel.
I must say Matt is doing fine and I don't think he is afraid of the water and we will be back in summer so that we can go for a swim.  We all caught lots of fish and to top it off we chowed down on a fantastic curry for supper, that warmed us up on the inside.
So be safe on the water, you never know what might happen.

A quick bass fish at Golden Harvest Park

I had been slaving away at my computer all morning and decided I needed a break, so I popped my rod and tackle into my car, raced off to Golden Harvest Park which is 5 min from my house. I have not ever had any luck there before. I have seen many a big carp there and that is still something I am keen to catch but not the normal way. I want to catch them off my fishingski. Anyway that is another story for another post. I have also seen the odd bass so I know they are in there. I meet and chatted to a chap that was fishing there and he said yesterday he managed to hook a nice bass that was why he was there today. Well I decided to give it a bash. I walked round the dam and casted where I could. I must say I am not a very keen bank fisherman. Anyway I ended up close to the island and made a cast into the tress that had fallen down. Well I was surprised when I felt the jerk of a fish. I struck and was on. Soon it was landed photo taken and put back in the dam. I am glad I have broken my spell of not catching any fish. I am now keen top go back with my boat and see what else we can catch.
I was using a chartreuse moto oil worm, with no weight.
Until next time, tight line and keep on trying you never know what is in the water.

Umhalanga on a awesome day

I often go fishing and diving from umhalanga, my in-laws have a flat
there so that is a big bonus as I have cool accommodation in
umhalanga. My mission at umhalanga is listen to the sea from the flat
early in the morning and if it sounds good rush down and go out to
sea. I normally do a few laps along the back-line. There are some
rocks just out from the lighthouse. If you get there early you can
pick up a a few kinds of fish. I have managed to catch some king fish,
sea pike, shad and snoek. The other place is south of the light house,
just off the car park opposite from from the hardware shop. You get a
lot of fisherman there and the bait in the water attracts the fish.
The one time I collected lots of shad traces there as the guys must
have been having a shad run and lost a lot of traces. There where
corks floating all over in the water.

After that I head out to sea to the barge, it is about 1.2 km out and
in about 24 meters of water. Normally there are lots of other boats
around as this is where lots of ski boat fisherman come and get bait.
I caught a very nice grunter not the way I am used to catching them. I
was fishing for mackerel using a yozri, i managed to catch a few so I
popped on on live to a bottom trace and sent it down. I was using a
circle hook so all new to me. I had a good pull and as with circle
hooks you don't strike i just hung on. What a great fight and soon I
had the grunter in the hatch.

So that is a quick sneak into umhlanga and later I will be posting
more stories on my fishing and diving in this area.

The pictures of of me and my brother in-law at umhlanga on an awesome
day. If I remember we did not catch anything.

See the full gallery on Posterous

A little bit about my fishing

I am a very passionate fisherman and was lucky to have some great mentors along my way. My grandfather was a big fisherman and that was in the days of pioneering South Africa. My uncle was another one that I have learnt so much from. All the people that I have meet along my journey had something to share and now I continue this adventure with my 2 daughters and son. Not to mention I still have so much to see and learn.

I lived on a farm outside Eshowe in the Kwa Zulu Natal area. Started with fishing in the rivers catching red tails using bamboo as our rods. Later getting fishing rods and doing bass fishing in the local farm dams and the dam on the farm. My grandfather even had king carp in the dam that would catch using pap. We would go to Kosi Bay for our annual holiday. Such good fishing and lots of fun. My grandparents have a place on the St Lucia lake called Makakatana we would go there on school holidays in July and catch Salmon. I remember having such fun catching bonies (glass nose) with hand-line and then I would hook them up as live bait and catch springer. It was such fun using a scarborough reel, you would just let the live bait swim out and soon enough it would pick up speed and you would know you where on.

I tried rock and surf but it just was not my scene. We would go to Amatikulu with my uncle and spend the night doing rock and surf, but being kids we would have such fun playing in the dunes. When I got older I started going deep-sea and bottom fishing. We would either launch from the beach or through the mouth at Amatikulu. I have done deep-sea at Sodwana, Mtunzini, Mapelane, Cape Vidal, Amatikulu. My father bought a 14ft6 ski boat, so I got my skippers licence to go out to sea. I have also fished in Mozambique which is such a fantastic experience because I am so big into art lure fishing.

I found out many years back about fishingski’s and was hooked! My first fishing ski was from erics’s canoe shop. I had this for many years and patched it a few times. It went to Cape Town with me and I did lots of paddling but no fish, I did have fun catching crayfish. Moving back to Durban I did some fishing on my ski from the south coast all along the north coast. I once even got a lift on a dive boat at Sodwana to nine mile and we paddled back catching bonnies and using them as bait on the way back to the point. That was a trip I will never forget as the guy I went with was later eaten by a shark as he was diving.

All this time I was doing a lot of bass fishing, if there was water I would throw a line in it. Before our move to Capetown I lived and worked at Mtunzini. I would drive up the beach to the mouth and do a lot of fly fishing or just casting lures, those where the days when you could still drive up the beach. I caught some kingfish and moonfish, it would always be such fun as you never know what was going to attack your lure.

I have so many fishing stories and I think I am going to post them on my blog. My aim of this blog is a few things. I want to share my fishing stories and I am going to sell kayaks as they are such affordable boats to allow you to get to fishing waters that a lot of people don’t even know are out there. Because it is so quiet I have also see some amazing fish long before they knew I was there. Keep watching this spot.