By: The Managing Director of SACS
Contact: md@sacarp.co.za
Subscriber applications: www.sacarp.co.za/register
I wish to sincerely thank “Rock Solid Industries (RSI)”, who manufactures the RSI Outdoor Canopy, for supplying SACS with their newest model. I have used the canopy for a few months now and I must say that it is neatly manufactured and one of the sturdiest models on the market. The best is that it can be equipped with various accessories provided by RSI like a kitchen with accessories as well as tables slide stacked out of the way into the rooftop area. It is also compliant with vehicle manufacture fitment specifications. Kindly visit their website at www.smartcanopy.co.za to choose an option build to your camping needs. Kindly support them!
Spring has almost past and many Monster Carp Anglers have decided to pack their rods away for summer as big Carp are apparently only caught in winter. Many competitions also took place in the colder months and some anglers have risen as winners while some blanked and are wondering what they had done wrong to deserve such poor winter results. Summer will be spend looking at YouTube videos of the Gurus overseas, working on new traces Gurus are suggesting, doing more reading in the Carp Angler magazine (and other overseas publications) while submersing these newly made traces and baits in a fish tanks to see if it could work… does this sound familiar to you?
I have always wondered why so many dedicated Carp anglers would follow suit with some local and overseas so called “gurus” to halt their Carp fishing completely during the South African summer months. When consulting some anglers on this issue they used the phrases: “Big Carp are only caught in winter”, “The money spend catching smaller fish in summer could have been better used in winter”, “longer sessions can be done in winter if leave are rather taken then”, “We do not like to waste expensive baits on Catfish in summer”, etc. These are all valid reasons in a sense but when I ask them how they keep “current” with their practical fishing techniques and application of new found knowledge they looked at me with a frown and then a light suddenly lit their faces. Indeed an angler must also practice during summer his / her bait preparation and fishing techniques, reading a fish finder to identify proper big carp areas in a lake, properly setting down new discovered rigs with bait and feed on the lake bed, etc. Indeed many Monster Carp has also been landed in summer when least expected as these anglers kept current and fishing fit throughout the year.
I unfortunately have to report that the owners of the Ratsegaai Dam (known by SACS subscribers as Misty Lakes) have decided not to renew the 5 year contract with SACS after it expired. The reason provided by the Ratsegaai Trust is that they want to open the lake to more anglers to fish as SACS did not provide enough Specimen Anglers to fish the dam to make it feasible for them. As the dam is situated near Ventersdorp, it was indeed too far for our subscribers to regularly drive from Gauteng and they rather opted to fish our dedicated venue (Kwaggahoek Dam) with its Monster Carp. As the alias” Misty lakes” belongs to SACS as per contract it may not be used by the Ratsegaai Trust anymore to refer to their dam. SACS subscribers can still fish the lake if they want to. We will now rather avail more funds into the development of facilities at Kwaggahoek Dam.
Neville Barnard with a 17.2kg common landed at Kwaggahoek dam during Spring.
