Bass Digest/May, 2014
The venue, a favourite amongst carp anglers is relatively unknown for its bass population and due to the smallish size of the dam, is not frequented by many boat anglers. As a result one can quite easily find oneself with the entire river section to oneself as the carp anglers mainly frequent the main dam.
Despite this lack of pressure the fishing is not easy, and one still has to use every bit of skill to temp our favourite greenish to accept your offering. However once hooked, these fish fight hard and are amongst some of the strongest fish I have encountered. The fish are healthy and quite stocky for their size, with the average fish being around 800 grams and the odd lunker making an appearance. The biggest fish caught to date being reported to have been around the 4kg mark.
Baits
The water colour for the most part is stained and dirty in most parts and can be compared to that of fishing the vaal river. As a result the most successful baits we found on the day were dark coloured plastic worms in junebug and black with any sort of tail action, such as zoom dead ringers, Damiki Mr Jumbo grubs, Xcite Baits baby ubershads as well as stickbaits such as senkos and Wave bamboo sticks and flukes, all fished weightless, texas rigged or mojo rigged. The fish were caught mostly around the reed banks and rocky ledges in around 6 to 14ft of water.
The most successful technique when pitching the reeds or fishing the ledges was to fish the baits on the bottom and as slow as possible, almost dead sticking it at times. The bites varied from ferocious strikes to soft pressured bites. Often you would just notice your line starting to move.
All in all the fishing proved to be both challenging and rewarding at the same time and is a perfect venue for anglers with smaller water craft such as inflatable’s, kick boats or small fibreglass boats.
The facilities are excellent, well priced, and definitely worth a visit by any bass loving angler.