SOCIAL BASSING: In The Grass At Mearns Weir

Where Mo’vember turned into Sno’vember WORDS: Martin Engelke IMAGES: Martin Engelke & Kevin Fisher It all started when Kevin Fisher, my long-time fishing partner and, by the way also ex- junior president at SABAA, took his annual holiday in the KZN Midlands. A friend of his, a regular visitor who fished off his canoe on the Mearns Weir in the Mooi River, had showed him images of some big bass he had caught there and so persuaded Kevin to make a stopover when en route. This left Kevin and his wife Linda, who herself is a photographic contributor to the magazine at big junior events, with no other choice but to book in for a couple of days. And bass they caught in the spawn: Kevin caught seventeen from the bank the first evening and more than 20 the next day including several 2kg specimens. Linda spent less time fishing but also landed a few nice ones. However it was what the spots they saw but could not reach that bugged Kevin for the next two months. This to the point that Linda encouraged him to invite me along for a long weekend so we could hit those spots with a bass boat. This was a 425km trip from my place, and I’m always apprehensive about booking well in advance only for a snowstorm or the like to occur, which is exactly what happened a few days before our departure! The access farm road on the way to Mearns Weir. ABOUT THE WEIR Although it goes by the name ‘Mearns Dam’ it is in fact a weir, which is simply a wall that does not impound the entire river but still allows some flow. It is situated at the confluence of the Mooi and Hlatikulu rivers and, while I expected us to be fishing the Mooi, we actually stayed in the Hlatikulu. This is because when we did attempt the Mooi, we found it to be inaccessible. Trees were mentioned, but I did not expect lanes with probably hundreds of dead standing trees! Some had long branches underwater which of course can make for risky boating. Another surprising discovery was that the water was gin-clear. This probably because of all the grass filtering it, but I expected muddy (not to mention ice cold) water after the snow and rain run-off in the mountains. So there Kevin and I arrived in November last year in dreary conditions only days after the snow had melted around Van Reenen’s Pass. Kevin immediately ambled down to the slipway and caught a bass. After unpacking, we drove down along the river on what was formerly a railroad. Now the only evidence of that is the odd concrete bollard with I-beam stub. Luckily we were in a genuine 4x4 as the dirt road was muddy, rutted and even fell away in places. There we fished several spots and in the drizzle, Kevin caught quite a few, whereas I can’t even remember landing one. THE REAL FISHING Of course our reason for the trip was to get onto the water and the next morning we were out early wearing all our warmest clothes, but before launching Kevin landed another bass well over a kilo from the choked-up slipway. Launching the boat was not that easy because of the heavy grass and I just battled between petrol engine and push pole to get it buoyant enough for Kevin to board. A cold wind was howling, adding to the challenge. (A challenge can be seen as a positive, just like when the Boks won against the AB’s with one point, versus winning against Romania with a cricket score). We headed over to the opposite bank that had rocky cliffs close to standing timber and despite having to regularly remove stubborn grass all the casting heated us up nicely. Had I been aware of the grass problem I would have brought along a pitchfork! As far as tackle goes, two weeks before the trip I was so ready for a topwater bite, from spooks to frogs to wakebait to buzzbait. Then squarebills and other crankbaits and jerkbaits. But the post-spawn, post-frontal and just plain bad weather had me change plan. Now my rigs had a weightless Senko, a spinnerbait and a lipless crankbait. Kevin doggedly fishes only one way, namely a mojo-rigged grub in green pumpkin with the tail dipped in chartreuse. To our dismay those most inviting cliffs were also choked up with grass, even right up against the isolated reed beds. So while Kevin eventually boated two small bass, I stubbornly threw my spinnerbait tight to the trees and to the many spots where grass was submerged. This to try and ‘call’ the bass up through the vegetation, but with no luck, indicating that one needed to land a lure on them. I switched to a very slow, deadsticked Senko and got one short strike from a small fish. We next moved to the standing timber in deeper water. Once again having to navigate through heavy grass to get there with maybe two deep open channels, holding no fish, but easier to cruise in. Because of the chop on the water the channels were only noticed when on them as the finders were also covered in grass. We had to use landmarks for later reference. Kevin Fisher with his first bass caught off the boat. Now we were very confident in finding bass very tight to the timber and it turned out to be a very stable pattern for this day as well as the next morning. It only required some patience. It was split according to the cover, namely isolated trees and those in densely spaced forests. It could have been a Carry-On movie for me for an hour or so, with a spinnerbait and Senko but no bites, while Kevin got a few nice ones with his grubs. He dismissed my pro buzzwords like “pre-fishing’, “patterning” and “elimination.” He was catching, I wasn’t! And none of his were small but around 600gr, so anyway he was on a pattern. The first rocky bank, completely filled with grass up to a few inches beneath the water surface. We were there in just the worst weather so could not take full advantage of that situation. That’s when I took out my mojo rig from the rod hatch. I was honestly going to throw it later on. It was armed with a Junebug grub, which I tried to keep tight to the main trunks of trees (all of them grassed-up) and deadsticking it. Eventually I had a few fish but the catch rate was much slower than that of my mate. It was strange as it remained dark during the overcast day (I wore yellow lenses until the next afternoon) so I thought it was maybe the chartreuse tails and so I also dipped the tail of my grub. The result? Next cast a 1kg bass and from then on our catch rates matched for the rest of the day! The next morning the wind was coming from the opposite direction, very lightly, but the mist was dense and it was still cold, but not as bad as before. We kicked off running the same pattern as the day before, except I was now using a wakebait and flipping a 3/8 oz Texas-rigged craw, of course blanking while my buddy caught a dozen. Instead of becoming more technical with the flipping (namely using a heavier weight and smaller bait) and spending downtime on my backside, I opted for the mojo grub again with immediate results. It warmed up midmorning and with it the bite died down. This in a way forced us to change the trip downriver, probably a kilometer, to the higher cliffs and some other features we could see, but were not in the mood for the anticipated hard work in getting there. But we did it all and got probably ten much more aggressive bass in small pockets where wood converged with rock, right against the side. More than 90% of that bank though was also choked up. There were trees in very deep water that delivered a few catches, all by dead sticking a grub. This type of bite eventually dried up which was our (misguided as it turned out) cue to check out the weir. That was just a battle as far as we went, grass-wise. It was even tight against the banks that we did try to fish. Battling our way out again we started to move up the Mooi, but same story, it was choked-up. This was enough and we battled back from whence we came. We hit those previous spots with more catches in a couple of hours and then it was back to base. This was on a Saturday and during the day there were three other boats on the water. We noticed on which stretches they were motoring fast, so we could do the same. After a shore lunch it was back to fishing. We went to a long line of trees where we had noticed a defined weedline and had a deep channel of fourteen foot on average. I elected to alternate between a Deep Little N and a Nedrig because now in the better conditions it was about not how many bass I could catch, but how to figure out another option. Kevin was still doing what he does and catching, but at a lesser rate, while I could not get a single bite in the open channels. The bass were still hunkered up. Significantly, one of the other boats, two gents and two youngsters came up fast in the channel I was fishing. Unlike in Gauteng, though, the skipper hove to and idled past us, with some friendly chatter. They looked like farmers and spoke English, which is what we were told farmers in KZN do. Significantly they just kept on going through a maze of trees and grass, something which we had given up on the previous day. After a few hours with only the odd bite, in the late afternoon and not to mention Kevin nagging me to go there, I relented and we set off in that direction. An excuse yes, but I was carrying a pre-existing injury that should have been operated on already. All the kneeling and stretching to clean props was painful, not to mention exhausting. During their first visit to Mearns Weir avid outdoor photographer Linda Fisher also caught her share. Many inaccessible routes were taken in attempts to get to the reedbanks. Eventually, while actually stuck, I noticed an open channel at the inside grassline but barely 2ft deep. I was by then aching to throw a junior swimbait and caught a 1kg! The other boat was in an area with lots of reeds and timber, and with all their local knowledge were actually catching, so we also went there. Here we also started catching many bass, although they were smaller. As it got later, the other crew moved on and we had the chance to pepper the shallow, grassed up bank. There was a variety of other emergent vegetation too and where two or more types converged, we absolutely hammered them! Most were undersized but not terribly so, but some close to a kilo. While Kevin was still on his mojo grub, I had a blast with a junior swimbait. To be specific, I expected baitfish to be tiny so used a 3.5” Cane Thumper, which is the smallest profile I had, with a 1/8 oz weight. With heavy rains predicted , we packed up, Kevin reluctantly, but we did do a bank trip with the vehicle afterwards, with more catches and no rain at all. To this end Kevin used a high-powered torch throughout the evening to show me the cloudless skies! Writer Martin Engelke with some of the bass he did manage to catch using a variety of lures and tactics. SUMMARY If it wasn’t for the grass I would have been more keen for a revisit, but would still do it anyway. It seems to be more suitable for small craft, especially one which can be paddled easily as the trolling motor makes hard work in cleaning off grass. Float tubes are also an option, as we found most of the grass to be sub-surface which enables kicking with flippers. The bigger the bassboat, the deeper the draught. We used a 16ft and both the fishfinder transducers were broken off. The really big boats will find many areas inaccessible, while other spots can still be reached with long casts, although this is slightly more difficult with all the overhanging branches in the way. As for the actual line in the water part, that was awesome, and the natural setting was something to behold. It’s worth a visit!

SOCIAL BASSING: In The Grass At Mearns Weir

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