Mark Allen: I’m more of a power fisherman. I battle a bit with the finesse stuff. I like the bigger, heavier baits. I think that’s also a reason Brian du Toit and I do so well, because we complement each other’s fishing - he has lots of patience so it’s no problem for him to fish a weightless fluke in 40ft of water for instance - I just can’t.
Cameron Allen: I don’t seem to have any issues, I can basically fish anything. I can fish topwater, weightless, crank, mojo, texas, anything really. Even if someone had to give me something I’ve never tried, I would try it until I caught something on it – I wouldn’t be uncomfortable.
Of course my expertise would be the jig.
Bass Digest: What’s your Personal Best? Tell us a bit about it
Cameron Allen: My PB is Triple4 – 4.44kg, caught at Midmar Dam. My Granddad came up from East London for a visit so we decided to go to Midmar. It was a pretty good day – we were catching a number of fish. Then we got to this one point where the rocks formed this platform. I threw my jig out, and then I sat down and had a couple of chips. I then noticed my line start moving, so I struck and as soon as I struck I knew it was a good fish. It gave me quite a good fight and we didn’t know how big it was until it neared the boat. My Dad netted it and it weighed in at 4.44kg – what a fish!
I can remember how sore my side was from the butt of the rod that was digging into my side.
Then on a very windy day, I hooked a 3.9kg at Goedetrouw Dam. I threw a shakey-head rig with a brush-hog into some big rocks. Again, I was busy eating when it thumped me. That fish made the windy day worthwhile, that’s for sure!
Mark Allen: The winning fish I caught at the Albert Falls Classic 2013 of 4.41kg, is my Personal Best. I caught it on a jig at Ghost House.
My first big fish that I caught after I moved down to KZN was at Midmar Dam. Cameron and I were fishing the ESA circuit, and we ended up winning the team event. I caught a good fish of 3.99kg, and then Cameron followed it up with 2 good fish – one of around 2.5kg and another one of 1.58kg, and that helped us secure our win that day.
Bass Digest: You must have had some “Epic fail” moments along the way. Any you want to (or don’t want to) share with us?
Mark Allen: I had a really horrible, surreal experience, when my boat overtook my bakkie once. There was a malfunction on the coupling of the boat and as I drove over a culvert, the coupling popped off and the safety chain snapped. The boat (fortunately) went into a ditch and I was all alone, but because of the way it landed, I managed to get it out of the ditch. That was scary.
And then we’ve just done the odd silly things like leave the bungs out, or forget to untie a rope, you know.
And then on a lighter note, when I fish with Brian I have these days when I want to go look for the fish myself, by taking these involuntary dips into the dam.
I’ve also had a treble hook in my shoulder blade, which Brian surgically removed - with force. It was my own fault, so luckily nobody had to feel bad except myself (Cameron is seen laughing at this point).
Bass Digest: Cameron, have you fallen off the boat before?
Cameron Allen: No, luckily not yet. However I have been pushed! Daddy dearest thought it would be a good idea to go for a swim one day, so he tackled me off the boat (Paul now cracking up laughing).
Another thing that’s quite funny, is we call ourselves “The Matrix Brothers” – reason is when we get stuck in the reeds, we like to rip our baits out. This sometimes forces us to perform some amazing moves you would usually only see in the Matrix movies. It’s quite hilarious, and we’ve had some really close calls with tungsten-loaded baits almost lodging themselves in our bodies somewhere.
Bass Digest: What do you guys call each other on the boat when you’re in “competition mode”?
Cameron Allen: We just call each other “CHOP”
Bass Digest: Aha! So whoever loses on the day gets the title of “The Biggest Chop”?
Cameron Allen: Not really. My Dad’s always the biggest Chop!
Bass Digest/July, 2014