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CROW BASS TACKLE - BASS TACKLE AND FISHING TACKLE SPECIALISTS Shop 29, Waterfall Shopping Centre, Inanda Road, Waterfall, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa Waterfall is just outside Durban in the Outer West near Hillcrest and Inanda Dam A fishing tackle supplier for the fisherman in South Africa TEL: 031-762 2695 - EMAIL: info@crowbasstackle.co.za |
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Website Design & Graphics by NIKAO GRAFIX - Email |
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I probably spend more time at Inanda Dam than any other fisherman. I am fortunate that my job revolves around fishing mainly for bass as I run a bass tackle shop close to Inanda that offers bass fishing workshops. I am usually on the water 3-4 days per week taking a break during the closed periods just prior to competitions |
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Most people think that fishing is easy when you get down to the dam head out somewhere and cast your lure in and you and are bound to catch something somewhere. It’s much more complicated than that .There are a lot of factors to consider before making the decision of where to fish and what to use. I am under a lot of pressure when conducting workshops my guests need to catch fish and also need to know why they don’t catch fish when they come down by themselves, I don’t have the luxury of choosing the day the day is chosen by the client. So each day will have a different challenge. How I improve my chances is by keeping a log of each days fishing and the weather conditions that we fish in, from that we try and work out a pattern for the dam or something as close to a pattern as possible . This is not something that you can do in a month or two it takes years and that is why the same anglers win most of the competitions because they have taken the time to work out the dams. I have only been seriously involved in bass fishing for just over a year now and before that although I fished for bass I have to admit most of my fish where caught on pure luck. |
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Lionel Crow with a 2.6Kg Big Mouth Bass caught on a Strike King Z-Too on a Drop Shot Rig |
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Albert Stander with a 3.2Kg Big Mouth Bass caught on a Strike King Z-Too on a Drop Shot Rig |
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Top fisherman like Carl Gudseit , Gavin Richardson , Julian van zuidem ,Justin Varkevisser and so forth have spent many, many hours on the water learning to pick up patterns in the bass behavior and that is why you will always see them on the podiums at competitions more often than others . some of the factors that influence bass behavior are weather conditions like wind ,sunny or overcast days , water levels , temperatures , barometric pressures , fishing pressures or major activities on the dam and time of the year for example spawning period or just before winter and then seasons themselves influence patterns . Then there are many other factors that influence bass fishing such as boat positioning and lure presentation and knowledge of the bottom structure. The more you know about the place you are fishing in the better your chances are of catching a fish. For example we were on holiday down at Mtunzini one year and arrived at the lagoon to find a holiday maker fishing. We asked how much success he had had and he replied no fish at all. I pointed out his problem to him immediately he was fishing in ankle deep water; he was making an impressive cast all the way to the other side of the lagoon and because he had never fished there before spent the entire week end fishing in the wrong place. |
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I get many a client making casts into an area I know will not get him a fish for example we are fishing a drop off I know that the drop is there but my client thinks the structure under the boat is the same all over so I am fishing 5m of water and he is casting into less than 1m until I show him where to cast he has no clue he is fishing a different depth to me. often he will say but I was watching the finder and I don’t see the drop off , normally that’s because I already know where it’s at and by driving over the area I may frighten away the fish . The only way you will get to know these spots is by spending the time on the water and watching your finder. I was driving the other day and came across a new brush pile well at least one I had not seen before. I drove over it with my boat then dropped down a bait got not one bite but marked the spot any way. About 2 hours later came back again made a cast from a distance onto the pile and pulled a 2.6 kg fish and then another and another. Just shows the importance of knowing the area well, and knowing where to position the boat so as not to scare the fish off a good spot. |
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Lionel Crow with a 2.4Kg Big Mouth Bass caught on a Strike King Z-Too Weightless Rig |
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Inanda has some of the best structure a dam can offer and locating your own personal favorites is crucial and then fishing them in different conditions is a good start to working out patterns. Talking to as many of the local bass fisherman to try and get information is a much quicker way but then you don’t know if they are telling the truth or if they fish different to you. What works for someone else may not necessarily work for you. as I found out the hard way whilst fishing in a three day comp. the first day was practice and we did well, not a winning bag but not bad, second day we struggled a bit finishing in the middle of the field that night we over heard some of the top guys talking about their winning strategies so we tried to fish their way the next day and we blew it weighing in just one dink and dropping us to the bottom of the field. But lesson learned. |
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So your better Bett (pun intended) is to work it out for yourself and use the information passed on by others wisely even if it is articles from magazines which are probably your best source of information and easiest to get your hands on. |
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I started on Inanda by acquiring an Arial photo and marking all my good spots on it, then I came across a contour map of the dam and it was like striking gold all my spots suddenly made sense and from those spots I used the map to find similar spots in the dam and tested them on similar days they seemed to produce same sort of results which became useful when someone was fishing on my spot I at least could move off too one of the others to fish. |
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Lionel Crow with a 2.2Kg Big Mouth Bass caught on a Strike King Z-Too Weightless Rig |
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The pattern working for me at the moment at Inanda is fishing the flooded vegetation on shallow flat banks using Rage tail frog’s ztoos and zulus in light colors such as Arkansas shiners, pearl and blue glimmer, the frogs the color does not seem to make a difference but my favorite is the green pumpkin pearl belly. I fish them on a grinder the Stella 2500 with 20lb jig man braid and a Quantum tour edition 6.6 mh spinning rod which allows me to skip the baits easier than a with a bait caster . I find that the skipping action seems to trigger a bite a lot better than bait that splashes into the water. The trick is to get the bait right up against the bank then work it back through the grass or weeds, another method is to cast onto the shore and slide the bait in slowly or the frog get it to hop off the bank and into the grass as if it were a grass frog. I’m sure you have all walked along a river bank and as you walk you see the frogs dive into the water to avoid getting trodden on .that’s what you are trying to mimic. The ztoo is mimicking a bait fish lying in the shallows to hide from predators and by moving it slowly or twitching it as we call this action the bass sneaks up and attacks. The areas I fish is, just about anywhere where there is weed in the water but had most success around cabbage patch and svens trees. |
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Other areas I target in this way is rocky out crops and cliff faces here it is essential that the bait hits the bank but often the fish will strike right near the boat so don’t take the bait out the water until it’s at the boat. Areas that I recommend are the cliffs in Durban bay and the rock around Libby bay and up to cabbage patch. Z-toos work particularly well when skipping under overhangs and inside thick grass and reeds. |
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STRIKE KING Z-TOO in Arkansas Shiner |
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This pattern I normally fish until things become a bit quiet then I will change and fish deeper I would normally start by throwing a crank bait at different depths my favorite color at Inanda is Tennessee shad referred to down here as Isipingo shad however Inanda can be strange and one day you will slaughter bass on cranks the next they won’t even look at it. So if I have had few fish on cranks I will turn too either a drop shot rig or a Carolina rig again I start with ztoos on the drop shot rig mainly in the Arkansas shiner as it closely resembles the bait fish at this time of the year. if the fishing is still tough I will normally replace the ztoo with a finesse worm either in 4”or in 7” colors are important as one day all the bass want is the light colors other days dark and sometimes the bass will be particularly difficult and different areas they will take different colors. The weather doesn’t seem to make that much of a difference to the selection of colors you read some books they tell you a dark day use a dark lure etc but I catch just as well on bright lures on dull days. What I normally do is take out four or five colors put them in close reach and fish each for a couple of casts until I figure out which is performing better. The two colors that work for me the best at Inanda are bama craw and green pumpkin green fleck. Inanda dam has been producing quality fish of late being December through to February with an equal amount of good fish coming out on top water as well as on deep structure however most of my fish of over 3kgs in the last 3 months have all come out of deep structure and all on very light line 6lb or 8lb max fishing in the same spots with heavier line has not been that productive. The only problem with this is that you can lose a lot of fish if you don’t have an excellent quality line such as Toray. This line is expensive but I would not have had the same results without it. |
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Other baits I have had great success with recently are jigs. I have been using a pro model jig by strike king in black blue with a water melon 4.5”craw as a trailer or a watermelon jig with an electric blue chunk. Best places for these are cliffs in Durban bay, the quarry, kens cliffs as well as any other rocky ledges. I use 30lb braid with a 25lb fluorocarbon leader or 20lb bush runner line by toray. Recently I have had good results around the mad house in the thick reed. Just get the boat as close to reeds as possible then pitch into the holes you find, watch out for monster barble who also love these jigs. A heavy rod is recommended for this as it’s a battle to get the fish out the reeds. And for heaven’s sake don’t put the rod down if you need to retrieve the fish by hand. I had a fish which I thought was hung up in the reeds put my rod down to grab the fish and it took off at such a speed deeper into the bush along with my rod needed a knife to get it out luckily rod was un damaged but it took about an hour to retrieve. Shaky head rig is also effective in these areas I use a shaky head jig with a 7”finesse worm or a 4.5”craw and have had just as much success. |
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Black Blue Jig |
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Bitsy Craw |
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Space Monkey |
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Anaconda |
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Inanda dam is a busy dam with structure and good fishing all over. You just need to take the time to work it out on those tough days. As far as safety goes I spend many hours on the dam and have had no problems that are worth cancelling a visit for. The local youth are a bit of a problem they will start of by wanting worms and if you don’t give them anything they will start swearing and sometimes throw rocks at you. My advice is to ignore them or move away if possible recently I spoke to a community liaison officer and he asked for photos of the offenders of possible. I have since discovered if you take out a camera and point it at the offenders they run away quickly. The other problem is the gill netters this is being tackled by authorities but still continues to be a problem. My advice is if you see something going on don’t approach the netters as they are armed just leave them alone. |
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You can contact the authorities buy SMSing 0824229657 or emailing inanda.netting@gmail.com .they may not respond immediately but at least they will be aware of it and get out when they can. The more the public responds the better chance we will have of sorting out the problem. Any one with questions about Inanda are welcome to give me a call Lionel 0825733435 |