Page 1
May 2014 Report
Venue: Rhenosterkop Dam
Date: 17 - 18 May 2014
WINNERS WORDS by John Halstead
Total fish: 8
Total Weight: 6.97 Kg
Average weight: 0.87 Kg
Arrived at Rhenosterkop at about midday on
Friday and promptly launched the boat to try and
ascertain what the weekend would hold in store
– after about three hours on the water I returned
to the launch with one dink to account for, caught
on a spinner bait on the edge of a weed line – an
indication that fishing was not going to be all
that easy. The launch area was frantic with lots
of tents and boats, and it became apparent the
Easterns were also holding their final in-house of
the season, and with their contingent of over 20
boats, the rapidly deteriorating “slip way” would
prove to be interesting on Saturday morning.
After a chilled evening with the Oosterhuizens we
launched shortly after 0500 (a good call ‘cos we
caught Easterns still napping) and were joined by
Mike H, Pierre and Roy who had left Gauteng at
about 0300 am. We were off at just before 0630 ,
shortly after the Easterns mass start and despite
their large field, there weren’t many congestion
issues on the water.
We all ran down to the river section where we
tended to spend most of the day, the weather being
cloudless with temperatures reaching about 23
degrees. The weather remained sunny throughout
the day, with the wind picking up and getting
progressively stronger as the day progressed.
Bite patterns differed with reports of the odd
reaction bite, on spinner bait, top water frog, even
a Chatterbait (Hendri), however it seems that the
bulk of the fish caught came off plastic of one sort
or another.
Sadly Rhenoster is falling foul of gill netters,
and Pierre and Roy spent a good couple of hours
pulling, cutting, pulling cutting and releasing fish from a net in the main part of the dam – this
following an incident on Friday afternoon where I was asked to assist in the recovery of equipment
being jettisoned from a poachers boat – the three poachers were arrested by SAPS, their boat
confiscated (after they had dumped a 115hP Mariner motor mid dam) – apparently not the first time
these three have been caught.
Back to the Top