Thread: BETT Gauteng 1 - 2010 (Renosterkop)

BETT Gauteng 1 – 2010 (Renosterkop) 09 -01-2010
"Team Slo'bote" 5th Place – Quite Happy J
Charl & I travelled out to Elands Quad Camp on Friday night – nice place and awesome company with friends not seen for a while. The bad news, 1) the road on the last 9 km to the camp is UBER bad - THOUSANDS OF DEEP POTHOLES 2) the track to the camp is worse 3) what passes for a bridge over the Elands River is totally scary. I had no more than 15mm clearance on each side of my trailer when I crossed.
To top it all, on my way out in the dark, a poorly felled tree (they did not remove the stump) hard up against the track took out my trailer fender, rim, tyre and stub axle – sorry, the camp is nice but not boat friendly (IT WILL COST ME A COUPLE OF THOUSAND RAND TO REPAIR DAMAGE)

Anyway – to the fishing…

Charl & I drew start #41 (out of 60) so we were well back in the field, this did not worry us much as we had already decided to go “contraire” to the crowd (who I had predicted would run to the Elands River mouth). I believed that all the recent rain would have changed it up too much there for 20 or so boats to be able to share what was available !!!!
We had done some map homework using "Garmin’s SA Waterways" (not so good but gives you an idea of the lay of the lake) and SA Topo Series on "Mapsource" (which now also overlays into Google Earth which is really useful) . This process identified several POI's like the channel lips, humps, extended points and roadbeds. These POI’s were entered as waypoints and downloaded to my (ancient) "Garmin 178" and after conversion with "GPSbabel", onto my networked "Lowrance LCX" system upon which I also loaded the "Fishtec Outline Map" .
Last step was a pre – fish expedition on Christmas Eve. If you can remember, it was extremely hot & windless in Gauteng / N Gauteng then, however, we identified that most of the bigger bream & bass had left the shallows already and whilst fish were still present in these areas, the big ones had left & stragglers were not in abundance. We spent the day investigating all the potential spots identified per our mapwork and by process of elimination ended up with four main areas.
a) The Elands River Mouth
b) Trees along the 14’ weedline in one of the bays
c) The obvious island and the hump (full of trees) just to the east of it
d) A less obvious hump on the end of a submerged point out in the “middle” of the dam half way up to the mouth littered with stumps &rocks under a thick under water grass/weed bed inhabited with bass and thousands of small bream & dwarf tigers.

Excessive Rain wiped out Choice a) and our poor start draw discarded b) & c) (Luck plays a BIG PART in these 1 day comps), so we decided to start on the less obvious hump.

When we drew up on the hump, at least 20 boats had run across it at full throttle. Just to turn “insult into assault” another three boats then ran across it just after we had stopped and several boats ran across it again through the the course of the day despite our presence! (guys – despite the obvious "I WILL HURT YOU!" if you pass that close to me again - you could have a really nasty accident if the water drops a just a little – there are stumps, rocks & trees LESS THAN 5’ BELOW YOUR SKEGS! so pay attention to your maps & watch your hi speed flashers!)
The weather was overcast and a fresh NE wind was fetching up a swell of about 2’. (It took a 60% constant setting on my 80lb trolling motor just to hold position and a couple of breakdance moves to keep balance when manouvering - yip, even on my 21’ Ranger which has to be the most stable bass fishing platform ever built).
We moved onto the "windward" side of the hump where Charl started on "5” Super Flukes" and I baited up with a "4” Lake Fork Creature" in the belief that the twin paddles and tail would “help” the fish find the bait between the windswept weedbeds. Unfortunately, Charl had a case of “Snappies & Dropsies” on his first three bites (One good one which may have improved our position) but as time went by and the hump “recovered” from the effects of the boat race which had passed over it, the fishing picked up and the creature accounted for two 1.4 kg class fish in the first hour. At 08h30, we were joined by a BETT cameraman and it took another hour and a half or so to get the rest of the limit fish and to cull out two of the small fellas (all on camera).
By 1 p.m. we had a bag of just over 6 kg by our reckoning & we had to make the choice of leaving or staying. Despite another boat pulling onto our spot, we decided to stay and alternate presentations as they were only catching the smaller ones (hopfuly cleaning them out so we could catch the bigger ones later behind them) and we culled another two fish bringing the bag to about 6.3 kg.
1:30 pm was when we ran out of steam, from then on we caught another 20 or so fish, but all were +/- 1 – 1.1 kg. range and could not cull out our smallest (this being about 1.2 kg.). I had our smallest fish in it’s own livewell compartment - I swear that it became so conditioned to being taken out for comparison with all the freshly caught fish that eventually, it swam up to my fingers and opened it’s mouth when whenever we opened the hatch!
At 15h15, we left our hump and detoured via a stop on the “Bay Trees” on the way back to the weigh station. There we caught another four +/- 1kg. keepers which, of course, did not add to the score.
After tagging and weighing 6.33 kg. (it was eerie because all the fish in our bag were just about same size), I realised we were at least in the top 10 – so not so bad J , but first I had to deal with a flat tyre and bent stub axle, Mark Nurse kindly helped me change the wheel (I left the stub on and just changed the tyre) – will do the stub later today. THANKS MARK…….
At the Prize Giving, we were called up for 5th place and collected a small cheque, Varkenelli & Ian Geldard beat us out into 4th, third went to Justin (Booth) and Rowan, second to Dirk (aka "Splitter" on Bassing.co.za) & "Mrs Splitter" aka Christine and First with 8.33 kg going to Mark Tantum & Doug Kennedy. Rowan caught a “3kg. plus some change” which also gave them the bonus “Big Fish” prize.
All in all – I’m stoked about a good start to ’10 and it was also nice to fish a relaxed one day “cast 4 cash” type event for a change (as opposed to the “hi emotion stakes” 2 day “Divisionals” & 3 day “Nationals”).
Unfortunately Renosterkop has no overnight facilities and there is no security to speak of so my “each way” travelling time of 2 ½ - 3 hours (traffic dependant) makes this a difficult venue for us to fish more often. (Best bet I reckon would be to stay over at Bass Lake – it could be lekker as one could tube fish or bank bash there as well on the evening before or after).
As for the specific detail, hopefully the BETT TV producer will not edit us out too much – I’m looking forward to seeing the show……

Welldone steve and charl....keep it up

Thanks Mums

Well done Steve and Charl.

Mark Nurse was sweating like a pig when I saw him after he helped you. He was looking for an ice cold beer.

My wife and I (Team Keepers) managed a bag of 6.09 but nowhere near the quantity of fish you caught. We maybe caught 15 fish for the day. You guys obviously had a blast !!

Steve, I think it's through ignorance that some of the guys were running full throttle over the area you speak of. If I didn't have my map on my fishfinder I would probably have done the same. I think the organisers maybe need to be made aware of these hazards and tell us about them at the captains meeting. That being said, I'm sure some of the guilty ones just do it because they can.

There were 2 guys in blue on a Skeeter who slowly poached spots from other anglers. I was observing them from a distance. There were 3 boats on a point fishing between the shore and the deeper weeds, and these guys (the Skeeter boys) had no problem moving between them and the shore. They even caught a fish under their noses. Bad sportsmanship. I don't know them, but it disappointed me. Once again, the organisers need to make the rules very clear. A 40m approach limit is quite a distance.

Overall it was a lekker event, and I'm glad someone from the site was in the prizes. Well done again. I'm sure we'll see plenty of you on TV.

Ben

Ben 6 kg plus was good going for the conditions

Well done, you must have been just off the money and well set up for the season TOY prizes.

Well done guys and Steve thanks for an awesome report back.

wel done that is a great start to the season...

Thanks guys, and Ben, the other boat in our area was a friend and gentleman angler, we had no problems with the cast distance rule

Quote: "At the Prize Giving, we were called up for 5th place and collected a small cheque, Varkenelli & Ian Geldard beat us out into 4th.. Third went to a dapper middle aged couple recently arrived from Zimbabwe, 2nd to Justin (Booth) and Rowan and 1st (8.3 kg.) going to Mark Tantum & Doug Kennedy. Rowan caught a “3kg. plus some change” which also gave them the bonus “Big Fish” prize."


Steve the middle age couple you are referring to is not from Zim, are based in Pretoria and finished the comp in 2nd place not 3rd as stated. In fact Dirk aka “Splitter” is a member of Bassing.co.za. It was their first ever Bett comp which makes their results extraordinary (even more so considering their 56th starting position).

Congratulations to you and Dirk on some great results. Two Bassing.co.za members in the top five!!

We started the day in 8th position and managed to limit around 9 am. We concentrated our efforts on the deeper weedlines around the island, but was unable to hook a much needed kicker. We ended up with a bag of 5,3 kg’s for the day, which I suspect was a rather average bag on the day.

We had a very enjoyable day and Renosterkop is a great venue in terms of fish population.

Originally Posted by Steve

Thanks guys, and Ben, the other boat in our area was a friend and gentleman angler, we had no problems with the cast distance rule

I'm glad to hear that Steve, and thanks for clarifying it, because I was quite peeved for a minute or two (until I caught a fish ) when I saw it. I only saw Team Culprit (they were the closest to me) but it's good that you were there as well.

What was also very nice was seeing a bunch of new faces in the comp, yours included.