The next day positions 1 and 2 would fish together, so I fished with Nick Milligan. We drew another skipper out of the hat. We would toss a coin to see who gets the morning session, and who gets to make the calls in the afternoon session. I got the morning session, which is what I wanted, so we went off to my spot first. This was a good call, because I really wanted to get to the spot first thing in the morning.
Bag weights:
Day 1 – 3 fish @ 2kg
Day 2 – 4 fish @ 3kg (3kg was the heaviest bag for the tournament too)
Bass Digest : And what does the skipper do while you guys are fishing – what’s his role in all of this?
Gareth Potgieter : Most guys are too young to have a skipper’s licence, so they are our skippers for the day. They have a map on the boat, so you can tell them where you want to go. There is a speed limit at all Junior National events, so they have to comply with that rule too – 60km/hour.
They are not allowed to talk about baits or anything regarding the venue you are fishing, however they are allowed to talk about any other dams around the country. It’s their call on the minimum length of the fish. They are allowed to net your fish for you.
Bass Digest : What line, lures, etc. worked for you?
Gareth Potgieter : I used Texas rigged plastics most of the time, with a 1/4Oz tungsten weight, with 16lb fluoro. Most of the other guys were dropping line diameter because of the tough fishing, but I’m not so sure that was an issue. Well, it wasn’t for me.
Lures that worked the best for me were the Varkenelli Customs “Armegeddon” creature bait, and their “Kreos” prototype craw. Because I used to fish with Mono only, I used to use a very stiff rod. Now that I was fishing with Fluoro, I needed a softer rod to compensate for the lack of line stretch, so I borrowed 2 Shimano Crucial rods from my Dad and Uncle Zander, which were perfect.
Bass Digest : What areas did you fish that contributed to your success? Or is that a well kept secret?
Gareth Potgieter : The best producing spot was, without a doubt, the Suikerbos. We found the majority of the fish there on both days, but we also caught in other areas.
Bass Digest : Tell us a bit about the event itself - the guys that were there with you, the experience in general for you.
Gareth Potgieter : For me, the event was the best organised event I have ever been to.
There was a pitching competition on the first day - I came 3rd, JM Gravenor was 2nd, and Marcio Silva won it. That was really nice as it got the guys talking – we started chatting and socialising so that, to me, was a really nice icebreaker.
We were given a Berkley Lightning rod each, bait packs from various companies like Trima, Varkenelli, Rapala, Storm, Gary Yamamoto baits, to name a few.
There was also a big stage set up for us. One of the highlights was that the skipper would pull the boat near the stage and hand you your fish out the weigh- bag and you were able to show it off to the crowd just like they do at the Bass Masters.
Bass Digest/June, 2014