Bass Snorkeling at Inanda Dam

The water in Inanda dam was particularly clean last year around April, especially in the bays near the dam wall. Connor and I had had a great morning session of fishing then decided to snorkel around the shoreline a bit, and what we saw was quite amazing.

We started along the shoreline looking in the grass where we would typically be throwing our plastics, but we did not see a single fish.

Then all of a sudden out of the blue a single little bass came shooting at us with a lot of attitude, as if to say "what the hell are you guys doing here?

Then as we looked out to the deeper water we saw the others hanging around a single little tree that I had just assumed was a twig in the water (from above), little did I know what an amazing piece of structure it was. So what I can conclude from this is that while we were casting at the grass earlier, thinking that that's where the bass were, in actual fact these fish were coming from this isolated structure and going to the grass to attack the 'prey'.

At last we spotted some baitfish, but the weird thing was that the baitfish and the bass were all living together like one big happy family

As we moved along the shore Connor pointed out a little sunfish of sorts cruising all on his own, I thought to myself "if I were this little in this big dam, I would certainly not be cruising around on my own". I looked over my right shoulder into the deeper to see if there were any bass around that could have spotted this little guy. At first I saw nothing, but as my eyes adjusted to the darker water, there he was, watching. By the time I looked back to see if the little fish was still there, he had shot right past me and grabbed the little guy.

Unfortunately I didn't get the whole attack on 'film', but the best part was that the little guy somehow got out of Mr. Bucketmouth's grip! Slightly scarred but got to live another day.

Then we moved closer to the rocky point, around these rocks were a lot of bass. Bass really like rocks, they were everywhere, it was like an aquarium of bass around this rocky point.

That was a great experience, and look forward to the water cleaning up again. All bassers should give it a try one day.

Fishton
Bassing.co.za Honorary Member