Craig

Thanks Mike. South Africa has got some good bass and our northern neigbours, Botswanasns & Zimbabwe, have some fantastic trophy fish waters that regularly produce fish over 10lb. Our official largie record is 6.45kg/14.2lb. A larger fish of 7.3kg/16.1lb was caught recently but the angler was not a South African Bass Association member it does not count as an official record (bit of a controversial issue at the moment). The Smallie record is 3.526 kg / 7lb 774oz by a junior. I’m from the Cape, in the far south of Africa where the weather is a bit cooler. Our smallies are great but the largies grow a bit slowly. Our largest water in the area is once again starting to produce large fish after a sharp decline. Catfish were introduced about 10 years ago with devastating effects on the bass. Thankfully they have adapted and are back in a big way. Our local Provincial (county/state) record is just on 5kg/11lb, broken this year by a friend of mine on a Big Bite Baits Rojas Fishing Frog. He and his partner had a nice 12kg/26.4lb 5fish bag in a tourney last weekend. Bring some swimbaits and I’ll take fishing while your wife/girlfriend does the touristy thing.

One of my goals this season was to get a new PB during one of Kick Boat league events I fish. There are 7 tournaments and the first 2 are done. I places 2nd and 7th - with 2.7kg/6lb my largest fish. Nice fish but 1lb off the PB Last weekend’s tournament was supposed to be at a big fish venue and I was really looking forward to it. The venue is on a private farm and they unfortunately had to cancel. Luckily the manger and I organise a few charity events together and he invited me and my wife to have a morning session on the same venue. We started quite late but I picked up a few good 4-5lb fish on my home made ‘Hippo’ swimbait. Much to the annoyance of the other 2 on the boat who were still fishless. I switched to a Gantarel and pitched it into a small gap in some vegetation sticking off the bank. The Gantarel was a half stuck and a few tugs pulled it loose. Its freedom was short lived… Booom! Water sprayed everywhere as a largie smashed what she thought was a struggling bluegill. A strong but quick fight ensued and I managed to lip land my new PB, weighing in at 3.45kg/ 7.6lb. One of the trebles unfortunately nicked her gill and she was bleeding a bit but after a few quick photos she swam off strongly. I look forward to catching her again. My 3 fish bag would have been in the region of 8kg while the other 2 in the boat would have been lucky with a 3kg combined bag. If only the tourney wasn’t cancelled…

Great fish and nice report back James. Taking my Gantarel for a swim this weekend and will be very happy if I hook a couple of fish like those.

Awesome fish.

If you aren't going to be covering lots of water ie "..fishing big lakes, ponds nothing major" then my suggestion would be to go for a pontoon kick boat. Traveling big distances is a bit of a pain (unless you add a sneaker/trolling motor) but the control you have while actually fishing is unmatched. I have a beautiful wooden canoe and a kickboat and am sad to say the canoe hasn't got wet in almot 3 years now. The kickboats are in the water weekly.

I use about 4 different adhesives but the most important is actually a "washable" fabric glue that I use on the tissue paper. It doesn't actually glue the paper to anything but soaks into it to waterproof it. I found without that step, if I got even the smallest hole in the epoxy overcoat water eventually seaps in and stains/blures the ink.

Thanks guys. The finishes are not painted – I’m unfortunately not that artistic. I design them in photoshop then print onto tissue paper - so that it can be waterproofed. Then glued onto foil (which has s great effect ‘shining’ through a bit) and then glued onto the bait. I touch it up a bit with paint and put on a coat of epoxy. Took the little hippo for its first outing this evening and managed to get a decent fish. Rather pleased with myself. Had another 2 fish slurp at it in the tule 3 feet from the bank and managed to pick them both up on follow up plastics. Very happy with the way it waded through the tule reeds and weedbeds without getting stuck or picking up weed. I was throwing it into places I don’t even throw plastics

Hi guys, here are a few of my homemade swimbaits. All out of wood with laminated finish. First ones I made were the rats. Smallies love the smaller one. Made the 16cm (just over 6 inches) smallie, carp and largie imitations to fish off the bottom. They are flat sided because I wanted to be able to make them quickly and easily so I’m not too worried about loosing them. They don’t have the smoothest swimming action though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbXV7srrKpk Just finished the one on the bottom right. Modelled it on the Shellcracker G2 because I’m having so much success on it and can’t get hold of another one. It one runs a bit deeper than the G2 and ploughs through weeds like a hippo.

Thank you for the kind words Wally, really appreciated.

The opening competition of our local Kick Boat Series was on a water called Clanwilliam, the premier Smallmouth venue here in South Africa. Day one was super tough. Grotty weather and awful fishing. Not much reaction bite going on and most fish succumbing deadsticked plastics. I only managed 5 dinks all day (that’s 1 fish every 2 hours). My 3 fish bag was 1.72kg (3.7lb) leaving me in a dismal 20th position. Only 2 anglers managed decent bags, with the best being 4.8kg/10.5lb. Day two was even worse and I hooked my first fish with less than 2 hours left. Poor deep hooked little 26cm Smallie. I struggled to get the hook out and was rather pissed off. Decided it was a time for BIG change. As there were a few dinks being caught I hoped there may be monster or two lurking around feeding on them. I tied on my bluegill Jackall Gantarel and moved up to a bay rumoured to have some largies. I set myself 20 minutes before having to kick the 3km back. First cast and a Smallie of about 1.2kg smashed the Gantarel – all smiles as I netted my first keeper. At the time I was simply relieved to be able to have something to show at weigh-in. A few casts later I lost another good Smallie after some acrobatics. Now I was starting to get excited. It went quite for a while and I switched to a Black Dog G2. BOOM – a huge 2.7kg (6lb) largie stopped me dead and was eventually in the keepnet. I was now super pumped realising I needed 1 more fish to get bag and move up from the bottom half into contention. Three casts later, and just on the 20 minutes, another 1.2kg Smallie smashed my bait. If only I had more time there but I had to head back. I weighed in at 5.17kg/11.4lb which was enough to push me into 2nd spot. More importantly though, it has given me a much needed confidence boost in fishing swimbaits.

Thanks for all the positve comments guys. Hoping to have a new PB to post about soon...don't we all Yip, she was very skinny and I do imagine catching her in her full spawngin glory quite often. Hey Wally, I'm in Cape Town South Africa, a few countries away from Kenya - about the same distance as California and NY. I have no idea if that bass winked at me because my eyes were shut the whole time... No, small dam the Elgin Valley. I'm at Clan this and next weekend though (to pre-fish then comp).

I use .8mm stainless steel wire used in mig welding. They sell it in massive roles so just get some from a local welder.

Hi guys, Craig here from South Africa. Swimbaits aren’t very popular here but I've just started swimbait fishing and loving it. Though I’d share a report back on one of my first swimbait fish and current PB: I was casting a Evergreen ES Flat along the edge of a weedbed when a bit of movement right against the bank caught my eye. To move towards it, I reeled in the swimbait from the right and, without taking it out the water, moved it over to the left side of the kickboat. It would have been close to the surface and then drifting slowly down to about 1.5m / 5feet. I felt a very slight weight on the line and lifted the rod. Things had been peaceful up until. Beautiful scenery with mist lifting off the water…then all hell broke loose. The crazy mad bass launched herself out the water turning the still waters into a maelstrom of churning frothy rage. It was only 30 seconds from hookset to lipping but 29.9 of those seconds the bass was thrashing and jumping on the surface. If the water was a turbulent mess my emotions where even worse. Adrenalin mixing emotions like Surprise, Fear, Elation, Panic and, above all, Joy into something we call Fish-on. 3.15 kg / 7lb! My new PB. What a feeling! Photos don’t do justice to how awesome it is to hold a fish that big. I still haven’t stopped smiling. Here are a few pics and video. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e2WlmExxa8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e2WlmExxa8 Needless to say, I am now hooked on swimbaits and can't wait for spawn (in about 2 months)

That is wild. Who says fishing without hooks cant be fun?!!

Sweet! Thanks for sharing. Winter here in South Africa, spawn coming in about 2 months, cant wait

Nice Video, looks like an awesome lake to fish. Hope you get on that on a kickboat.

Nice funky looking rat Donald.