Hauling Carp With “Hier Gaan Ons Alweer” @ Roodekoppies Dam

From Tuesday 10 September to Saturday 14th at Roodekoppies Dam The Carp Angler reporting team witnessed the biggest haul of 10kg-plus Carp ever captured on camera and video, and there were many guests who were also privileged to witness this amazing effort. How big was this haul of fish, you might ask? No fewer than 119 fish were caught between HGOA presenters Gilbert Foxcroft and Petri de Wet over a 72-hour period; 42 of these fish were passed on to various guests who attended the 5-day birthday celebration of the HGOA television series, the camera crew and even Afrikaans artist Appel (who landed no fewer than 14 fish). No fewer than 23 personal bests were broken on the Open day alone. How did they do it? The Carp Angler journos were amazed at the simplicity and feeding approach that got the Carp into such a feeding frenzy. THE BUSINESS END At the business end, Gilbert and Petri opted for Korda’s Ready Made Leadcore Leaders in two types. Petri chose the Korda Ready Made Leadcore Leaders with Hybrid Quick Change Lead Clips, while Gilbert selected the Heli Leaders. He modified the leader by removing the lead clip and replaced it with the Korda Heli-Safe as well as choosing not to discharge the lead, as he intended to show anglers that they need not drop the lead in areas free of snags. THE RIG Gilbert and Petri both selected the 7.5inch Korda Booms paired with the Korda Loop rigs with size 4 Krank hooks. The amazing part was that they only had 18 Loop rigs with which they landed the amazing 119 fish - talk about rig efficiency! The trick however was that they added a small piece of Korda Dark Matter Putty to the looped section, which aids the turning of the hook, targeting the centre of the bottom lip. CHOICE OF HOOK BAIT Gilbert selected a large Tiger nut hook bait and cut the top end off, creating a flat top. He then drilled out a 5mm section from the tiger nut using a 6mm Bait drill. The next step was very interesting: Gilbert inserted an 8mm orange coloured, high-density foam stick soaked in a very sweet solution and trimmed it to leave just a 3mm piece protruding from the nut. He explained that the protruding orange foam piece had two functions: 1) It acted as a visual attractor, and 2) it made the Tiger Nut hook act like a wafter, making it fool more wary carp. FEED The feed was supplied by Super Cast and consisted of 90% Cooked Maize and 10% Tiger Nuts prepared Monster Mix style. The area they selected was approximately 100m wide and started at a depth of 6m on the left hand side to 8m on the right hand side. 2 x 20lt Buckets of this mix was spread wide over this area once every day. The effect was a light scattering of feed over a wide area, which Gilbert believes pre-occupies the fish and makes them stay in the area for much longer. He did not add anything to his mix other than 1kg of coarse salt for every 10kg of feed. DROPPING THE LINES ACCURATELY Gilbert dropped the lines in such a way that they covered all the contour lines to reveal where the fish were going to show up. They worked like machines with Petri managing the rods and Gilbert dropping the lines. With one rod on the boat and Petri holding one rod with open bail arm they used hand signals to indicate that Gilbert was on the drop spot. Petri would close the bail arm of the reel and tightened up the line until the whole line was out of the water. Another hand signal and Petri again opened the bail arm of the reel and relaxed the line so Gilbert could lower the line until it hit bottom. Carefully he would lift up the weight from the bottom and gently lower it again to the bottom. While holding the line in one hand he played his next card. Citrus half-cut boilies were his latest bait-weapon. He scattered one hand full of these boilies over a small area around the hook bait and fed one scoop of the same mix on top. That was it. He then moved off to the next spot and took the rod on the boat, dropping the line overboard and repeating the same as he had done by hand on the previous drop. He feathered the line until the lead hit the bottom, then lifted up the lead from the bottom and gently lowered it down again. By opening the bail arm of the reel he then did his boilie trick and put in one scoop of feed. He then returned back to the bank in a straight line with the open bail arm feathering the line. This process was repeated until all 8 lines were dropped. HECTIC ACTIVITY The action started almost immediately on the lines dropped between 7m and 8m deep and it just never stopped. Gilbert’s Lowrance Echo Sounder went crazy as fish after fish appeared on the screen and drop after drop the action increased. Gilbert would drop 8 lines and within an hour all 8 lines were out of the water again.They gradually moved all 8 lines into the 7m to 8m deep water and this was when the action hit a peak. It was an incredible eye-opener to witness their passion, accuracy and speed at which baited rigs were checked and re-dropped. RESULT The result was spectacular. In total they used 18 Loop rigs to land 119 fish. 102 Carp made it over 10kg to a biggest fish of 15kg. Only 17 fish came in under 10kg and weighed between 6,5kg and 9,9kg. It was The Biggest Haul of this nature captured on video in SA’s Living Memory. Simply Amazing! Eldoné Muller is a young passionate angler that battled this big common to the net.

Hauling Carp With “Hier Gaan Ons Alweer” @ Roodekoppies Dam

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KEEP FISHING ALIVE: If you like our work support For Anglers’ journalism with a digital membership!

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