Mark Allen: As I said earlier, sometimes, in order to get confidence using a bait, you can’t try it for a few minutes and then put it down. Persistence is key. Today I decided this was going to be one of the baits that I would throw the majority of the time, to see what happens. I’m pretty positive I will get something on it if I persist, so we’ll see how it goes. So far, what’s amazing about this jig is how weedless it is.
Bass Digest: Scenario: It’s winter on Albert Falls Dam. How do you approach your day? What do you throw first? Where do you go? Talk us through what you would do...
Mark Allen: Winter in KZN is very different to Gauteng. These fish acclimatise so I’ll usually fish deep, target deep points and target rocky areas that will warm up quickly during the day, or target areas that I think have retained their heat from the day before.
However, one very important thing that I have learnt is that bass don’t read the same books we do. They don’t read the articles and magazines, they do their own thing. So I also believe a key thing to do is to keep trying different things and try different areas until you latch onto a fish. Inevitably that fish will come with a story, and it will tell you what it was doing and why it was there. It’s very important to take note of that first bass that you catch – take notes of what depth you were in, was it an aggressive strike or a soft bite, what cover was close by, etc., and then try and replicate that. If you get another fish, then you could almost say that you’ve cottoned on to a pattern, and then persist.
Of course all dams have fish that have multi-patterns,
so you will have the fish that frequent the depths, and then you have the bass that will live shallow. Generally the bigger fish will be deeper, in the more secure areas, and will move up into the shallow areas when it’s feeding time. The smaller, general population of fish, will be shallower or in the deep.
Bass Digest: Best time of the year for KZN dams?
Mark Allen: I think we all know that spawn time is pretty popular in any dam; however it’s a contentious issue because, although you will get your bigger fish at spawn time, you also want to preserve the dam / species during this time. Take Inanda as an example – Anglers were asked not to fish in the spawn last year, and look at the dam now – it’s fishing really well, which I think is one of the reasons it is doing so well. The other reasons could be the high water levels, which we’ve experienced over the last 2 years. In the past, the water levels used to drop quite drastically. But in the past 2 years or so, water levels have remained pretty stable, so it has given the baitfish in the shallows a food opportunity to thrive on, and anywhere where you have an abundance of bait fish, you will have an abundance of good bass.
The bait balls sometimes look like the sardine run against the banks here at Albert Falls. But that also makes it quite challenging to actually catch the fish, because the fish are very well fed. When we do get them, we caught bass that were 25cm long that weighed about 500g. Their stomachs were as round as saucers.
Bass Digest/July, 2014