With that we were back in Jozi for a week of festive food, holiday hooch and spoiling children before reloading and heading back to the eastern Transvaal. This time with my wife and girls, the latter, who at this stage were only one holiday behind dad. I was ordered to sacrifice tackle for a trio of pink bikes and the mother load of recently acquired Xmas girl gifts, my kingdom for a remote controlled plane, a pellet gun or a punch bag!
We were staying at Pine Lake Inn, a time share inherited from my in laws, yes indeed they have their uses. The days were glorious as compared to anything previously and Gauteng had experienced one of the wettest Christmas’s in history. We would wake up really early spend the twilight on our kick boats (thank God for roof racks) catching largies up to a pound and a half again strong pullers for their size before heading back for breakfast with the family. The heat of the day was spent in the pool throwing children until our backs ached, just add a bobbing watermelon and nothing really changes, we were on holiday, again, and loving it.
We had a final date with the smallmouth before hitting fishing saturation levels and I was all too aware of how much we had battled previously. The weather had been a whole lot more consistent since our last visit and things looked promising as I struck into an early surface hitter this time from the comfort of my kick boat and not as a mad bank scramble. What was to follow was an incredible day of all surface action with the Sallys smashing anything that landed on them, they were holding incredibly tight to the dense bank side structure. If your lure landed 20cm out of the strike zone, there would be no reward and I took time to watch the boet skipping his Z2 right under the overhanging trees where it would be engulfed as soon as it came to a stand- still. There is simply nothing that matches surface action in any facet of the sport and using light gear and Nanofil meant long casts and significant scraps with battling bronze backs. These fish are renowned for their aggression and fighting ability with a 900 grammer fighting way above his punching weight. We ended on 36 fish with the vast majority on top. I did try for the deep bite and got a few slightly bigger fish but hastened back to the surface for sheer visuals.
The drive back to the resort was spent recounting what a good day we had been privileged enough to have spent on a great piece of water in each other’s company. The Chivas, now two holidays old was worthy of being sipped at last. It was the end of a fine trilogy of holidays with the protagonist as indulged as any soul can be and as I tucked my daughters into bed that night I prompted them as I always do with the question, “Life is?” and reassuringly came their programmed answer........”Brilliant !”
LIFE'S TOUGH IN AFRICA
Bass Digest/February, 2014