Will & Dre

I’m not a fan of compititions for a variety of reasons but mostly because of the types of people that these events attract, this year however I decided to move away from my comfort zone and join Willem and Karmen early Saturday morning to obtain some valuable input that can be shared with future first timers. I had some work to finish Friday night and decided that the 3 hour drive to Forever Resorts would probably not be the greatest of ideas after the customary three beers after work. So I went home , slept for a few hours and left for Loskop dam 2:00 AM.

Arriving at the resort I quickly handled the necessary admin and went looking for the bank were we were supposed to fish. This was our first trip to Loskop dam and to be honest we were not exactly sure what to expect, non the less the excitement was building! Following the signs, we quickly experienced a familiar feeling when arriving at a closed gate.

Waiting infront of the closed gate

Driving through the gate I was looking for some kind of grass bank, sadly there was none, it was just… a tar road???? Surely this couldn’t be the bank!

The bank at Loskop dam

We walked over to our neighbour and he too had an expression of disbelief on his face. For a few minutes we stood, weighing up our options. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the neighbour walking restlessly up and down the tar road, finally comming towards us with a map of the resort. He introduced himself as Chris and asked if we can keep his fishing spot while he drive around the resort looking for a better bank, so we exchanged numbers and he assured us that he will give us a call as soon as he find a better spot. 10 minutes later the phone rang and we were off to claim a part of the spot Chris found.

The new spot Chris found

I felt much better paying the R200.00 for the competitions as we started preparing our rods and I could see that everyone was in a much better mood.

As we were targeting Kurper, we decided to try something we read about a while back, to mix Boeliebeef and Pronutro into our mielie bomb.

Mielie Bomb mixed with Boeliebeef and Pronutro

The Boeliebeef provides something meaty for the Kurpers while the Pronutro is an excellent binding material.

The mielie bomb

The day started of slowly and Chris caught the first of a number of smaller fish on some earth worms. Willem caught a few smallmouth yellows of his own while I teached some boys the fine art of casting.

The first small mouth yellow caught by Chris

Willem's first fish

Unfortunately as with our previous trip I blanked and had too keep myself busy with other ‘recreational’ activities.

Keeping myself busy with other recreational activities

Chris and his wife kept pulling out fish every 10 to 20 minutes and even though we all used the same bait and fished at the same distance, none of us could keep up with their tempo. I guess it’s true what a wise man once said: ‘location…location…location’.

Chris with descent size Kurper

Overall the competition was a great success with some great prizes.

Some of the prizes

A loskop Dam Blue Kurper

In my personal opinion Loskop dam is not a bank anglers venue and should be fished from a boat as most good fishing spots can not be reached from the bank.