A quick decision was made on 5 November 2008 to get a session in at Roodeplaat fsihing grounds, the old N.Tvl angling grounds. Upon arrival I could not believe my eyes, not a single piece of hyacinth floating around. For a dam that was basically covered with this invasive plant not to long ago this was truly a sight for sore eyes. Just after 19H00 camp was erected and the fishing could start.
The bait of choice was Almond supreme Tigernuts, and tigernuts I flavor myself with banana and pineapple. I aslo decided on particles and on some boilies, although I have never had great success at this venue on boilies. Around 21H40 the first carp was landed, and although it was not the size I have hoped for hopes were high as within 10minutes another alarm screamed happily away. Another small carp just under the 6Kg mark.
I decided to change a bit on bait presentation and size. The hair was made a bit longer, leaving a gap of around 5cm between the hook and the bait. I baited up with three jumbo tigers on the one line, and 3 14mm scopex boilies from cotswold on the other. Both these rigs produced carp in excess of 7 and 8 Kg, but these were also to be the biggest for the 4 night session.
Thursday morning around 4am I decided I have had enough as I did not get any sleep, the carp were busy most of the night, and with only one rod left in the water I went to sleep. Just before 6 I was awoke by an alarm screaming like a air raid alarm during world war 2. Lost this one on a snag about 100m in.
Thursday nigh from 00H00 carping was out, as a wind picked, and with all the rain the rivers starting coming down and with it came those dreaded little green floating water plants. So for the morning I caught up on some sleep. Friday produced a few carp between 5 and 7Kg's at intervals of about 2hrs, and at 16H00 the hyacinth onse again came to visit. These dreaded things just did not want to let up and from 17H00 Friday afternoon till 6H00 Saturday morning no fishing could be done, after all I have never seen a carp landed with lines hanging on the pod.
Saturday morning the weather cleared up a bit and the hyacinth moved of to pester anglers around the corner. A friend joined me on Saturday afternoon, and he just proved to me once again that I have been correct in saying all along that he has fish fingers. Still being old school, he is not bothered with pods, bait runners and so forth, but prefer these little 6ft rods on the olden days bank sticks with center pins and saltwater reels. But as usual het did not disappoint and landed one carp after the other. It is a pleasure angling with Hannes, as he, just like most of us, are not scared to work for his fish. If you look for him you will either find him on the cano taking lines in, or on the cano landing his fish. I cant remember once that I have seen him actually landing a carp on the side.
Just before sunset he had a pick up, typical of these 1Kg carps that have started pestering us. These things even started picking up our double 22mm baits. He picked up the rod, and to both of us it seemed stuck. When he got to the middle of the dam all hell broke loose. This fish just took of to the right and we realized it sure as hell was not a little 1Kg fish. Now the problem, the landing net was still on the side as he would have unhooked this, as he calls them, "Poepol en grate" in the dam. To worsen matters I would stand on the side yelling at him, "Stop playing with the guppies and land the dam thing" as I to realized that this was a fair sized carp and not this small little thing we initially thought it to be. After a good fight and about 30min later he eventually got to the side and landed a nice 9.8Kg common. This just once again goes to show, never judge the size of a carp by the initial take.
Sunday evening my neighbor joined up with me, and him being a conventional angler of mote, knowing nothing of specimen carping it was a great lot of fun helping him to improve his PB twice in a single night session.
In all it was a brilliant session, although nothing huge was landed it was great fun to have been busy for a change again.
One thing is certain however, and that is that Roodeplaat is starting to get huge populations of smaller fish. 10 years back you would not easily have seen carp under the 2Kg mark, but during this session hundreds of 800g to 1Kg carp were caught by conventional anglers. The bigger fish are all still in very good condition, but if something is not done about these huge amounts of small fish food will inevitably become less and the condition of the bigger carp and the water will deteriorate.
5.8 - 6 votes
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5.8 - 6 votes