We’ve all had them, albeit infrequently, the moment when the planets line up for the proverbial ‘perfect storm’. In bass fishing terms, this is as close to Nirvana as you will ever get. It’s even more unlikely to occur when fishing one of our larger public waters during the hook n cook brigade!
We found ourselves fishing on a very low Roodekoppies dam just outside the town of Brits in our barely big enough floating bath tub, the H.M.S. Knotalot. I was being guided by my boat partner and long-time buddy Murray, who had fished here with some success a few times before. His initial dismay at how low the level had gotten since his last visit left me a bit concerned about the chances of any success we might experience. This really hit home when, at one point, he pointed to a rocky crevasse with a tree sticking out of it some 15m up the dry bank and fondly recounted that that was where he got his big one last time. It was looking a little dismal with all the visible structure high and dry until he stuck a whipper snapper, which came flying onto the foredeck. It was a relief to see there were some suicidal takers to be had.
This lifted our spirits somewhat.
We continued to drift the shallows throwing everything from mojo flukes to Rapala X Raps and it was with much excitement that Murray again bent into a nice fish on a Strike King Z2....things were starting to happen!
The next fish to cross our path was the Satan fish, aka Mr Whiskers. It seemed like a bad omen. The 7kg barbell grabbed onto a perfectly presented Texas creature bait - again Murray’s handy work. Everyone knocks them but there are still few more powerful runs, than the first run a decent barbell offers up. Still, a little bit of a buzz kill, when collectively we were expecting to shatter the largemouth longstanding record of the Midmar monster with echoes of “get the net!!!” still ringing out into the Highveld afternoon. Once we sent the bubbling beaut back to his whiskered lair, everything went into slow-motion and we couldn’t buy a bite. I reckon any self- respecting bass worth his weight, could still smell the un-scaled one’s presence on the H.M.S and resolutely refused our offerings.
THE PURPLE PATCH
Bass Digest/January, 2014