borntofish

One way is take an old wine cork, drill a small hole in it and put a hair grip in, the other side drill a hole put a 6mm bolt in with nuts on so that you can adjust the weight, tie it to your buzzar bar with a piece of line. Works ok. Roger

The best boilie flavours for me is scopex and peach, my fishing pal only believes in one bait flavour pineapple. Roger

I know what you are saying, did not think of using google, I do have a map of the dam. My self and a friend have spent a lot of time there with the fish finder and a plumb line, that was the fun part. The water is not controlled like those in the UK, gee I wish we had controlled waters. It was pre baited by some of our top specimin anglers and a few nice 50 lbers were landed, unfortunatly here if that kinf of news gets out, then its a free for all, people that should never be allowed near a fishing rod then go there. I landed a 13kg common carp there, I had to sack it for the pics as my buddy had gone to the shops, it left me a nice load of tiges in the sack, that is where i got the idea to use mini tigers on the hair. Ja I will carry on, see what the summer brings. Thanks Roger

Well its about 3km long and at the moment it is 750 mtrs wide, it has all the feature an angler could ask for, gravel beds, muddy areas, tree stumps, reeds, steep rocky banks, depth is anywhere from 16 mtrs deep to a few feet, has rocky islands. The way we all fish the water at the moment is to takea small rubber duck, electric motor, fish finder on, look for a feature, plumbit to find out how hard the bottom is. Now for the last few seasons the angles have fished it with what we call a mouse trap, the hook link dropped with say a 1/2 litre bucket of freebies. The hook baits being big tigers and the frebies being mini tigers. I changed my frebees to a party mix of maples, mini tigers, hemp seed and a samll amount of maize. The hook bait mini tigers, up to four on the hair, with a d7 esp hook on esp striptease hook link and a 4oz lead. Two rods inline and two rods bolt rig. We know there are a good amount of twenty pound fish and some thirties but yes there are just a few 50lbers. The water does not see that much angling action, most anglers are not equiped with braided lines to fish at the distance, the side where you sit has a lot of bank noise due to building operations, so we take our lines to the other side. The water is clear up to six ft. Roger

Hi All, I know I have not posted in a long time been out fishing a lot. I think I am bluffing myself, I have been targeting two waters. The first one is a lake called Donaldson, now this water for South Afica is pressured. I use two flavours there Nash peach boilies and Nash scopex boilies. This water just keeps on producing fish, it is also a small water. It is clased as an easy water. I also fish another water Bufelspoort, now this water is bigger the donaldson, I only use Nash mini tigers in this water. This water is not nearly under as much pressure as donaldson. But the water has only produced a 37lb fish in the last eight months, one or two smaller carp in the 16lb range. This water is one of our premier big fish waters. Yes it is known to be a hard water. Does the forum think because the fish are normally much bigger in Buffelspoort that the carp have wised up, or I am chasing ghosts. Roger

Big Jo, mielie pap used to work here not any more mate. But what you can do make miele pap roll it and then harden it in the micro wave, there after you can flavour then, they actually take on flavour well. from this side of the ocean get onto tiger nuts, here in SA the best bait out even beats maize!! Roger

Any time you want to mate. Newt, have given up with the water and gone back to my old one. Roger

Go to your mountaineering shop, they must have tents there, we use one this side called a force 10, nothing to do with wind, but it is a tent with buit in ground sheet, solid aluminium poles. they can take anything mother nature throws at them, quick and easy to put up, the pegs are also of a special design, thicker than normal and have riges on to grip in the ground. Roger

Scott, I have been doing a lot of marker float work myself. I can tell you the more you do it the better it becomes. I started by pulling a weight acroos a kids sand pit, across the lawn and things just to get the feel. I have found the fox horizon marker float kit to be very good, the weights are incuded. I take one weight and paint is black, a paint its called crakle black, potters use it for crack effects, this paint is very thin so scratches off easlily, this helps with sand and gravel. As Budgie said record your hard word for the future. Roger

Newt, We are not allowed anywhere near, its outh fricas major water supply. So security is very tight. Newt, you do not have to target the things they turn up all by themselves. Budgie, you know what that is what i have been trying to do, i have never done so much marker floating and plumbing in my life. The major stumbling block is to see fish, the water is never ever clear, so prebaiting and trying to see whts come to the party is hard, unless you are right there in the canoe when a fish decides to surface. I might get a real biggie before i am eighty. But yes your advice is the best that I have heard. Newt, I know you guys get big carp in big waters, so yes help!! I for some reason cannot break the 11kg mark loads of fish, 9.6 to 10.7 but thats it, i must have a mental block or something. Roger

That is a good question. I would arrive in the daytime to see the lay of the land, lay your camp out well, so that you know where everything is. Plan where you are going to land the fish and so on. i would use a head lamp, you get some nice ones these days with a red led, this you can use when landing the fish and switch over to the white light if nessary. use a good set of alarms, make sure your bait runners are set poperly, you could wake up to find your rods gone. The other posts have said a lot. There nothing like a cuppa at 3am, so yes something to make hot water. Roger

Hi gang, I am hoping to start a debate here, so I am going to sketch the scene. An abosuluty massive water, the water is not clear, greyish in colour. Sandy silty bottom for the most. No weeds, water level drops in summer and in drought years. Is used for boating and any kind of water sport you can think of. big fish seem to be hard to come by, so to 20lb no problem. But small carp are also in abundance, and a few other nuicence fish like massive cat fish. Now the million dollar question, how would you approach this dam, what bait would you use, and what if any prebait stratagy would you use. my one idea is to use a 50mm boilie, after pre baiting for a few weeks. but that size boilie creates its own problems. The water in question is the vaal dam in South africa. cannot wait to see what the forum comes up with. Roger

Polly, I know the reply is a litle late but here goes. I fish an inline, i put a ruber ball about a foot from the swivel to stop the lead. I will then balance the bait with rig putty, just before I cast out I cut a piece of high riser in half, squeese the two pieces together over the hook point, this way I know the hook is not in the silt(heavy), the pieces of high riser come to the surface after a while, so i know my hook is open. I also use this method in weed. Roger

I do not think I could fish unless my marker float is in the water, it helps to feature find before you fish. To be able to find where you put the feed in it is the only way to keep the feed and your hooks in the same place. it gives you a target if shooting your pre bait out with a catty and something to cast for if using a spod. I always clip my marker float rod up and will remove it at night, nothing worse than a tangle with your float at night. I know some people will back lead the float line, but a carp is very curios and can run your float line. Take some time off and give the lake a work out with your marker float, it pays off in the end, put all your results in a note book so that you can always refer to the "book". It helps a lot when spodding your prebait out, its fun to see how many times you can hit the float, puts some excitement into an otherwise boring job. Feature finding is an adventure all on its own, sand, silt, snags can all be found and then mapped out before you loose precious tackle, you also know what depth you are fishing at. Feature finding is an art, I will often just go out with a float rod and feature find even if I know the water, just to keep in practice I will also watch the swims for signs of fish, put all the info together its can only increase your chances. Roger

Hi Big Jo, man you get a potjie adaptor for the old cadac nowadays, helps with the potjie you can control the heat. You can still do breakfast??? All jokes aside enjoy. Roger