Hartebeespoort Dam South Africa..

This is an old one but one i would like to share

My mother moved out to africa about 8 years ago and has since re married so luckily for me i have loads of holidays out there doing safaris and all kinds of crazy fishing My mums place was on the very scenic and very exclusive hartebeespoort dam nicknamed harties by the yuppies who all come on a weekend !! Its a very deep man made dam that has many little developements scattered around it and a few golf courses too if you like that kind of thing

I got speaking to an old man down at the boat house who turned out to be one of the most interesting people i have ever met in my life and he is still my friend to this day. I had an idea that the dam had catfish in it and some bass but upon talking to old cassie i discovered it also held a good head of carps as they call them out there. cassie agreed to take me down fishing the next day and show me the ropes on one condition....... that we go to his house that night for a few beers and a fish braai (barbecue) to say we had a pleasant time was understatement i found a lot out about this fascinating old fella and we sat into the early hours of the night talking about fishing around the world and he was showing me album after album of fish pictures he had taken and caught.

Next morning i met cassie bright and early on the dam right outside his house, we set up for carp in the same manner as we would in this country with rod pod etc and two rods on running rigs, at this time i hadnt really fished for carp before so i was learning a bit as i went along.They use bread and corn mushed up and mould it around the lead similar to how we fish with the method over here.We sat for hours talking about all sorts of things and i was amazed that for all the things this man had done in his life and the places he had been that he had never actually seen or touched snow !!!! he was asking me is it cold and is it really just white a bit like a kid with a new toy!!

Back to the fishing and with the carp fishing slow nothing new there, we decided to set up some heavier rods and lines for catfish or barbels as they call them out there?? we fished a simple ledger rig using walkie talkie for bait they use the head and feet from a chicken as hook bait i kid you not!!! its called walkie talkie anyway in it went and just when i was thinking the old boy had really lost it with the chicken heads for bait my rod jumped about three feet out of its pod,man catfish can really go!!!! i was fighting this baby for ages it was just dull thud after dull thud but what a fight. I had four more that day all up to about 25lbs they dont grow really big for some reason??

As the sun started to get low cassie produced a fly rod and reel for me after me telling him a few tales the previous night about my fly fishing adventures, we hoped in his rubber dinghy and went motoring off down the dam to a spot just before a road bridge where we settled down and started off on a slow drift, cassie had set my rod up and tied on the biggest purple thing i have ever seen we were going to fly fish for bass. It was something really different fishing from a rubber boat in the middle of a dam but man it was enjoyable i had six bass in an hour not really big ones but they can really fight and are great sport on light tackle.

I have fished that dam many times since my first time and i was actually fly fishing it one night when my wife told me we were going to have a baby so its a place that has many memories for me.My mum has now moved to the southern point of africa now and we are a flight away from the dam, but the new place is right on the sundays river and has a stretch called the mullet highway were the mullet are the flying type and are always pounding into your boat and hitting you on the back i havent seen it for myself yet as last time i was there they werent in season but im hoping to get out soon and give it a go.

But thats the thing about fishing i travelled all those miles and met a new friend and tried some new fishing so its not always about who catches the most fish or the biggest fish for me fishing is just fishing and there are no strangers in fishing just friends we havent met yet.

I think i might have some pictures of the walkie talkie bait i will see if i can dig em out.



WALKIE


TALKIE


MY OLD MATE LAUNCHES THE DINGHY


THE DAM AT NIGHT


DONT KNOW WHAT THIS WAS


OR THIS




MY MATES TIGER RECORD


AND HIS CARP

Cracking read Gaz. The two you don't know look like some kind of Tilapia to me. Cichlids anyway! There are a lot of them in Africa. Tilapia is the Tswana name for "fish" and the genus name was first introduced by a countryman of yours by the name of Andrew Smith in 1840. Rift valley Cichlids are one of my favourite fish!

Bizzarrely the 5th and 6th pictures look very much like the wrasse we get over here,but they're sea fish,whereas I assume that the body of water you fished was fresh water,so Its doubtful Im anywhere near.

I used to keep tiger fish the speed of them was phenomenal the idiot I sold them to killed them
thats one place i need to go fishing

Stotty wrote:I used to keep tiger fish the speed of them was phenomenal the idiot I sold them to killed them
thats one place i need to go fishing

Where? The idiots house?

Badger wrote:

Stotty wrote:I used to keep tiger fish the speed of them was phenomenal the idiot I sold them to killed them
thats one place i need to go fishing

Where? The idiots house?

That all sounds like pretty good fun to me Gaz. Excellent write up.

I reckon they call Catfish 'Barbels' because fish whiskers are called 'barbules'. The Catfish family, The Cod family (Cod, Whiting, Burbot, Ling etc.) and some of the Carp family (Carp, Barbel, Koi) have them. You'll probably find that most, if not all, whiskered species will be called 'Barbel' somewhere in the world. It just so happens that we call Barbus Barbus 'Barbel'....phew!
Walkie-Talkie is pretty self-explanitory. 'Walkie' is the feet and 'Talkie' is the head.

Gaz they have a catfhish out there called The Vundu Catfish they get a good size this one is 50lb