So, after three months without an opportunity to have a decent session, being restricted to only four day sessions, the time arrived for me and a fishing buddy to choose a battle ground. My answer will be Rietvlei 99% of the time were Dirk would prefer Harties 99% of the time , but it did not take long for me to convince him that Rietvlei was our only option.

We had little time to prepare for the trip since it was a very difficult time of year with everything that needed to be finalized before shop closes at the end of the year. So there was no time to waste and we decided that we will stay until Tuesday the 16th of December which gave us a good four days of fishing. This might not sound much especially for Rietvlei but we needed to get our approach and tactics spot on and there was good reports coming from the venue with a good head of fish being banked. Our biggest obstacle was that we would only be able to get to the venue on the Saturday due to work responsibilities and getting a good spot might not be possible. Amazingly another buddy of mine, Wijan, got news of my plans via the grapevine and when he heard that I'll only be able to make it Saturday morning he offered to go and keep a spot open on Friday and he would eventually join us for the weekend. This was excellent news and I was boiling over with excitement and the week ahead could not have past quick enough.

Due to logistical problems and a lack of free time on hands it was impossible to do any pre baiting so we had to resolve to other methods on which I will elaborate. Firstly we were going to fish with a total of at least eight rods for four days so enough feed is necessary but with Rietvlei pre-baiting is something that needs to be done with caution. From my previous attempts at the dam I had much better results in mouse traps than I had with mass baiting. So we prepared about 80 kg of maize and chic-chic 2 (the one without the sorghum and other seeds) and about 4 kg of normal and large tigernuts. I twitched the preparation of the maize a bit by taking about 25 kg of whole maize which I soaked for the whole week before our session and only cooked them for 15 min in other words they were still very hard but there was no way they could swell any further and therefore they did not pose any threat to the fish. This however is something I will only do with maize and not with any other particle because most other particles contain enzymes that can only be killed by cooking it. The reason for doing this is basically to create a bigger crunch effect which by know is something we know all carp love. This also being the reason why tigers are such successful carp bait. The chic chic should also not be overcooked (but rather over soaked) 10-15 minutes is enough otherwise it gets sticky and this does not make a nice feed bed, unless you want to use it as a method mix which is also something I will get into later.

So Friday arrived and by now I was wishing the hours past. On my way home I did an emergency stop to fill up on end tackle supplies (one can never have enough) and thought I would pass by the dam to see if I can't arrange for entry later that evening. I just made it paid my dues and was set to pull into the now already "reserved" swim later that evening. I went packing and arrived back at the dam at about 21h00 that evening just in time for a braai and a few cold ones. Wijan went for a doze at about 23h30 and I was far from tired so I started to set up my rods and pods. I also thought I would take my first lines in before first light and just here the first of a few things, over the span of the session, went wrong. I unpacked my bait boat and it would not switch on. I would realize later that the battery was over charged which caused the boat to not function. I was at this stage still not ready for sleep and was determined to get my rods out before the sun came out. So I prepared a spod rod and armed with a bucket full off the prepared feed I started to spod some bait into the chosen swim. Unfortunately this did not go all as planned and after the fourth spod my rocket went flying off into the darkness of the early morning not trailing any line. For some reason the knot on the spod came loose and I was left with a swivel connected to my leader. Still this was not going to stop me from getting my lines in the water. I made up some 20cm PVA bags with a wide funnel with 5 of the hard maize kernels on the hair. I slid the PVA over the hooklink and bobs your uncle at 04h30 four lines was in at about a distance of 50 to 60 meters.

Our first day was one of a lot going wrong and not much going our way. I was up again at around 6h00 and Wijan had left for work so I was on my own with Dirk and some friends to join me at about 11h00. I tried to get the boat going again without a lot of success so I decided that I will just leave it as is for the moment. Dirk and company arrived at around 12h30 and we set out to make a fire to braai some of Dirk's Freestate lamb chops. After eating we were to get Dirk's lines out so we had another go to try and repair the bait boat. It went on all of a sudden and we loaded both bait holders with the maize topped with a rig and again maize was the chosen bait. Then the next mishap….we got the line to about 90 meters and dropped the bait when the boat just went dead. We did not attach a "life line" to the boat which means we could not retrieve it. The mild north easterly wind that was blowing was also picking up and pushing the boat in the direction of the nature reserve. We spent the next few hours trying to find a way of retrieving the boat and after one of our friends almost drowned in an attempt to swim the boat out we got someone at the Yacht club who was willing to retrieve the boat for us he could however only help us after finishing off with private lessons but we got the boat back at about 17h00 and all of a sudden it was in a 100% working condition and we didn't have any problems with it for the rest of the session. At around the same time we got the boat back one of my rods were of at a steady speed and I was on after about 10 minutes a nice mirror rolled into the net.



I estimated the weight at about nine kilos and it definitely had the body of one but the scars of spawning were still very fresh and it weighed in at just under seven kilos. It was a very interesting fish that never developed a left pectoral and anal fin. I was elated and off the mark with my first Rietvlei mirror. We got all my and Dirk's rods in just before dark and were set for what turned out to be a very quiet Rietvlei evening (for us that was). Their was a big group sitting to our right that had a very busy evening , one landing a beautiful but scared linear mirror of 13,8 kg.

The next day broke with a screamer on one of my rods at about 4h30. It was a short fight with a 4,5kg regaining its freedom, this was followed up by another one of 5,2kg as the sun lifted its head. At 10h00 I bagged my fourth just over six kilos on a new experimental bait. After a chat the day before with one of our neighbors he suggested we tried tigerberrys as hook bait. We prepared them by adding some flavor/essence (in this case strawberry) and topping it up with water. This meant that the baits were fully swelled out when placed on the hair. I now had three rods on the bank and while preparing to get them back Dirk's rod was off and he landed his first one weighing in at just over 5 kg and that was enough to be his new PB (previously 4,5 kg also at Rietvlei) he broke this four times in the next what seemed to be less than an hour with his new PB on 7,2 kg. We now had seven rods out on the bank and one in the water. This turned out to be a very busy day for us with both ending the day on 10 fish my biggest being 7,5 and Dirk pushing up his pb to 8 kg (actually 7,9989 kg). Just after the sun set the third mishap was all over me.



Dirk were fishing a rod close to mine and a sharpy of less than a kilo picked up his bait and was heading straight to my lines and when we realized there was a devilfish on his line it was taking line from my reels. Now this still needs to be explained to me but that pest rolled up my braid so badly that it took me until 2h00 that morning to untangle eventually giving up and cutting off the tangled mess pulling out all the rigs by hand (happily only fishing 80 meters) and redoing them. At 4h00 all three lines were back but with a new kind of hook bait…….

I decided to go with bigger baits. I carefully selected three of the large tigernuts. They had to be more or less almost exactly the same size. Now the but…I didn't just string them up, but very meticulously fused them and critically balanced them with cork. What I do is take the three tigers and then cut them with a small Stanley knife the top one will lose its bottom the middle one will lose its top and bottom and the bottom one will lose its top…..I hope this makes sense. You then take a bait drill (the one you get with the cylinders of cork) and drill a small hole about 2 mm into the sides you have just cut off with the Stanley. You have to try and line the tigers up when drilling them the idea is to form what will look like a big long tiger. This was done on two of my rods one soaked in strawberry for about half a hour .On the third rod I used a double tigerberry. All three these rods were placed on a bed of the maize together with ten whole tigers and ten chopped tigers at a distance of 90 meters (measured with a line meter).

The weather conditions was changing from sunny and very hot to EXCELLENT big carp weather…..windy, overcast with rain. I made a remark that morning that it was in exactly the same weather some almost five years back that I landed my PB at the same dam and was I in for a surprise. Wijan was joining us for the day and it wasn't long before he got his first on a tigernut and he followed that up with a nice fish around the 8 kg mark . At about 11h00 I got a little pull on one of my rods lifting my swinger by about two centimeters and holding it there I immediately knew something was feeding on the 4kg maize and tiger bed over which my hookbait laid. Another hour passed and the same thing happened this time lifting my swinger another 4cm. I left it and a half an hour later the swinger slowly lifted until it was level and the line just steadily kept on stripping from my reel and I again knew this was a good fish. I picked up the rod loosened my front drag a bit more than it was and disengaged the baitrunner with a swing of the reel handle. Needless to say but I was flattened and happy to play the fish in the open water where I know there weren't any snags for the only snags were lining the bank…Reeds…. I steadily won ground but the carp knew about the reeds and it wasn't long before he was heading straight at it swimming towards the bank. I moved to a point not to deep (waist height) but further out than the reeds. The fish headed into the reed bush and I just made sure that there was enough pressure on the line and that no reeds came between the line and the hook, basically standing behind the fish and just keeping pressure on the line, not trying to pull the fish out of the reeds but stopping it from going deeper into the reeds. The fish realized that the reeds was not going to be his savior that day and turned to make for open water again but I manage to keep him at bay since he was also starting to tire a bit. Dirk had the honor to slide a net under her belly after great effort from the fish trying to avoid this happening. Then it came from Dirk and Wijan…."dis 'n $%%^%@##@ (and I can probably go on ) VIS #@#$%$^&^.....". I went closer to go and see what the result was and had nothing else but to scream at the top of my lungs from joy and relief… five years of session after session at this monster water and at last it gave one of his jewels. A jewel is probably the best description because not just a big healthy pristine big belly but its front half dipped in a pot of gold. A perfect two tone common alas its now new name bronze & gold. The photos were taken and then the moment of truth it pulled the new Berkley electronic scale to between 17.25 kg and 17.16 kg and it was at the latter that it came to a halt.



My trip was made and I still had two rods out. Later that afternoon my other tiger rod ran off and shortly after a fish that can only be described as a small soccer ball with a head and tail was in the net probably weighing round four or five kg. Then the weather turned really nasty wind , rain thunder and a bit of hail and furthermore the boat needed recharging and my wife called to say that she needed my urgent help so I left my things with the remaining rod for the night to return the following morning. The weather didn't look much better and we decided to cal it a trip. I started packing up and just as I bent down to pick up my last rod it basically started to run in my hands…unbelievable…. It was the tigerberrys and again after a short midwater scramble the fish headed straight for the reeds. My strategy was a bit different in trying to stop the fish by moving in between him and the reeds. It was unfortunately to deep and to late to move to the shallower point so I just used the full length of the rod to keep pressure and the mainline away from the reeds. The fish sat in the reeds a moment before moving away towards the open water. Me and my drag were ready for the final burst and not long after that the fish slide over the net. It was a 11.2 kg very long common . My trip was completed and full of memories until the last minute…some bad, but as some clever Indian once said good always beat bad.

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