NEW MEMBER OLD TIES

Its amazing how small the angling world is becoming,i live in South Africa and joined this web site to find out the latest uk information ended up reading Ron Clays story and about his time here in SA Carp fishing,i arrived after he left am now Vice Chairman of his old club the RPA which is 100 years old in 2012 the oldest angling club or society in SA and our Honourary life chairman is his old friend Trevor Babbich,sinceRons days of angling in SA we have caught up with the world and boilie or specimen angling is now becoming very popular in fact we have the World Carp Championships here in October at Bloemhof Dam,this is the 72 hrs in a bivvie comp with 2 anglers per peg,at the SA championships in March the bags were 650 kgs plus per peg at the same venue the World Championships will be fished at so watch out for the reports in the angling press!,this however is not the style i fishwhich is the old SA bank angling style with 2 rods and 2 hooks per trace Ron will be pleased to hear though that we have modernised some of our methods but anglers are not stupid anywhere in the world and you will find that the tactics developed over almost 100 years are generaly still the best as Ron will remember our dams are huge yet shallow with a lot of bottom mud hence the throwing 120 meters plus,the 2 rods and 2 hooks per trace still the fishing is awesome!i am at the moment experimenting with some success with swim feeders fished at long distances,and am reading all the articles to see what else i can try,i hope Ron reads this article and i can re connect hom with the RPA.

Hi Michael,

Yes it's me but I warn you, the moment I start to discuss anything about South Africa, a green jumping frog makes it's appearance.

I left SA in 1994 to take a job in Warwick.

I only fished for carp for about 7 years of my stay in SA. Towards the end of that period I got caught up in fly fishing and bass fishing American style. Over the years I caught a great many species other than trout on the fly, and also a great many species other than bass on lures. In addition to Trevor Babich I also fished extensively with people such as Malcolm Meintjes, Louis vd Westhuizen, Bill Steele, Mark Yelland, Steve Barrow, Ken Jessop, Charles Norman and even Cyril Ramaphosa.

Maybe you know some of those names.

Hi Ron,some of the people you mention i know of but do not know personally except of course Trevor Babbich who i was with last evening as it was an RPA General meeting,let me first sayi did Trevor an injustice yesterday as he is actually our "Honourary Life President " and as i said i am vice chairmanat the RPA he was thrilled to hear newsabout you and your story onthe web site and i am sending him it today so its possible that you could get an e mail from him his e mail address is 4_babich@fishingowl.co.za( there is a _ inbetween 4 and babich )if you want to say howzit.News of the RPA is that we are going from strength to strength at the moment coming up to our centenary year 2012 for which we are planning many events,we have between 400 and 500 members and we have 4 sections,Bank Angling,Light Tackle Boat,Specimen angling,and Fly fishing,we still have our Vaal Dam waters at Slaughter on Vaal and Lasts farm also Leprechaun Bay on the Vaal river and 4 large well stocked fly fishing dams in the Harrismith area together with 14kms of the Wilge river in the same area,Trevors 2 sons Tim and Terry are both Protea fly anglers and both were recently selected to represent South Africa at the commonwealth games in NewZealand,Tim is actually a fly angling guide and works all over the world he is currently at Cohora Bassa,then goes onto Maritius and Seychelles where he guides in the shallws flyfishing for all sorts ofspecies,well thats all for now must start work,i have much more to tell you and much more to ask,Best Regards Mike Kirby

"Slaughter-on-Vaal", "Leprechaun Bay" - how those names bring back memories.

Leprechaun Bay is one place I particularly liked as it was there I first caught a smallmouthyellowfish on the fly. It was also there I took an enormous catch of mudfish, some of them going over 3 kg each. I might have even broken the SA mudfish record at the time. All the fish were taken English float fishing style using a 13 foot match rod and aMitchell 300fixed spool reel. For bait I used small pieces of flour dough on a size 12 hook.

Is Charlie Menhennet still around?

I have sent the odd e-mail to Trevor in the past few years.

Totseins

Hi Ron will reply in more detail tommorow morning i work for a French company called SENSTRONIC and from 7 until 9 to 9.30 each morning am in the office then am out on the road the rest of the day so most of my replies will be in the morning,i will find out today about Charlie Menhennet for you as i can call around whilst i am on the road,we have a club comp at Slaughter on Vaal this Sunday so i can send you the results,i will also try to take some photos and try topost them on the web site some of the other guys might be interested to see how we fish and what we catch,we also have a social weekend planned for 18th,19th and 20th at Leprechaun bay so i will try to do the same,there is much for me to tell you,just a taster is some people are pole angling at Slaughter! and the Specimen guys had a 19 kg mirror carp on boilies out of Lasts farm in the river section round the corner where the trees and rocks are!in the vaal dam we have had masses of grass carp in the past 2 years they are breeding like mad!!!,in the past 2 comps we have had 2 of our biggest to date i had one at Lasts weighing 3.3kgs and Mark Brierley had one at Piet Erasmus farm of 4.1 kg and they only appeared 3 years ago,more tommorow have to go

Best Regards

Mike Kirby

Whilst we are at it, I believe that the pole in the right hands would be absolutely devastating for catching mudfish.

A 19 kg carp from Vaal Dam is an absolute monster. The general run of carp in my day wasn't much bigger than 5 kg - if that.

Virtually all my big SA carp were taken from dams and impoundments in the Eastern Transvaal - I think you call it Mpumalanga now. I also fished a private lake near Kyalami which contained big bass and carp. The carp went to 15 kg and I used to catch them on the surface with bread crust and dog biscuits. Damn good fun it was too.

Do you use PVA bags and stringers? This is one way of putting freebies down right next to your hookbait.

You might not be aware but SA methods of angling wereprobably responsible for two UK styles of fishing which are very popular today.

1: Bolt rigs

2: The Method

"You might not be aware but SA methods of angling wereprobably responsible for two UK styles of fishing which are very popular today.

1: Bolt rigs

2: The Method. "

Where the hell did that awsome statement come from ??

Ssshhh Bill...................................... this is the SA private chat channel /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

unfortunately bill, he's pretty much right.......

Old Bill here needs to study a bit of angling history. Might I suggest Kevin Clifford's "A History of Carp Fishing" as a starter.

In 1967 I arrived in South Africa fresh from the UK specimen hunting scene and determined to show these "colonials" how to fish.

The English carp scene at that time was all about freeline fishing with things such as balanced bread crust and paste. In other words - the Walker way! Now I have nothing against old ****, yet his ideas did not work in huge artificial lakes and reservoirs with silty bottoms and gently shelving banks with the necessity of casting over 100 yards on occasions. When I first saw the way the SA locals fished it quite honestly astonished me. All I had learned from Walker was the antithesis of what I saw.

The locals fished with strong lines, heavy leads and a simple two hook paternoster. In many cases cooked crushedmaize was moulded around the lead and held in place with a spiral of wire!!

This rig was cast out with a longish glass fibre rod and a side cast centre pin reel. In some cases where extreme distance was required, a small boat or canoe was used to row the rigs out.

Hook baits were maize grains or even canned sweetcorn. A "bent hook" was used to facilitate self hooking.

After the rig was in place, everythingis wound tight, the reel is put on check, a fairly heavy bobbin of dough or paste was put on the line as a preliminary bite indicator but generally the set up was left to fish for itself!

Bites of course were indicated by the reel screaming as the fish hooked itself.

What these anglers were using and in fact many of them had been using for many many years was a method feeder system using a two hook paternoster which used the "bow string effect". Such rigs are often in use in the UK and are quite wrongly held up as examples of the ingenuity of the British carp angler when they had been developednearly 100 years ago by the early white settlers of South Africa who in actual fact were fishing for food.

Andwhen a certain Pommie immigrant to SA of the 60s examined this style of fishing and then wrote about itin acertain Sheffield Angling publication in 1974, the article was read by many who also tried out the ideas on British waters.

And the ideas worked!

First of all to Ron Bad news and Good news about some of your old SA angling pals,first the bad Charlie Mehenet and Charles Norman both passed away last year and i did know Charlie Mehennet but only as Charlie he was one of the nicest people i ever met and a sad loss he was 72 now the good Malcolm Meintjies runs Tiger Fishing tours up to the Zambezi and other places louis vd westhuizen is currently with Malcolm on one of the tours and is still an RPA member Bill Steele and Mark Yelland are still around but not with theRPA,next to the angling stuff i knew Ron would be the right place to start these discussions due to his long standing knowledge of angling on both continents and of course as a former important member of the club i am in here in SA the RPA,however where i wanted to get to is that i really believe there are things wedo and use here which could work in the UK and definately things you guys do that will work here in SA,there is a book written by 2 english anglers in the early 70s about coming to SA carp fishing and finding the locals using the bolt rig the Method story also makes sense as it is really the way we fish here and i have been using the method here since i arrived in 1980,although the method feeders from the UK are made slightly different to some of ours in their outside construction as with all competitive angleres and indeed social anglers i am always looking for an edge and i am absolutely convinced we can find something from each other,so i am glad Bill,Grumpy git andFrothy have sort of joined the debate,in my next e mail i will state some of my thinking,thanks guys Mike

Ok,i am sending this having just run out of space on the last one,first best to describe our most common conditions here,Big BIG shallow dams,ie walk in 20 mtrs and you are knee depth best conditions 8 meters knee depth,therefore 6 to 8 feet of water is anything from 60mtrs at best to 150mtrs at worst bottom of dams can be sand or more commonly 3 to 6 inches mud or silt ( Ron will confirm ) these are the general COMPETITION waters we do have other waters such as rivers and deeper dam sections but i fish the above conditions 90% of the time and thisis therefore where i am concentrating,equipment 2 rods ie SHIMANO 12ft 2 piece to 15 ft solid graphite for distance,reels SHIMANO10,000s and big pit baitrunners ( told you we had changed Ron not a magnum or night hawk in sight these days ) traces always bottom traces with2 hooks at first when i got here it was strange but i now understandwhy the MUD,sometimes you will sit all day and never get a bite on the bottom hook! we do have a trace called a Vaal Dam also which overcomes this problem,hooks are mostly DAIICHI no1 or no 0.8 and sometimes we use 14s for delicate windless conditions with braid as hook linesin place of normally 71b,main line on the reels is 5lbwith a rod length of 20lballowed on theend for the distance casting this is the leader and the connecting knot becomes a serious issue for the 60 to 80 meter stuff we normally fish with8 or 10 lbstraight through,it is notuncommon to clip in your line at 100 mtrs to stay on your spot,main species we catch are carp, and fish very similar to barbel and chub .Mike

Mike,

I heard from my friend Bill Steele that Charles Norman had died. That man did lots for the cause of angling in SA.

It is sad to hear of the death of Charlie. As you said he was one of the most genuine people you could ever meet and a very fine all round angler. He was one of the pioneers of catching yellowfish on the fly rod.

Malcom Meintjes I have known since ca 1972. These are the early days of the RPA Trout Section. The guys that started that off in addition to Trevor was Ralph Goodyer, Bill Ritson, Peter Arderne, myself, Laurie Corte and Malcolm of course.There are some names from the past for you.

I certainly remember Ralph Goodyer casting a fly in the Hall of the MOTH centre in Joburg.

How well I remember wading out in the soft silty bottom of Vaal Dam. putting in the rod rests and then casting as far as we could. In those days I used Mitchell 410 reels because they were the biggest fixed spool reel you could get. I also used Jim Gibbinson Clooper Carp Rods, 11 feet fast taper glass fibre.

I often thought that the big pit reels of today had been designed with the SA carp angler in mind.

Do you use pelletsas bait? For the general run of the mill carp,more of them are taken on pellets in the UK than much else, especially match carp. I would think that hair rigged trout pellets anda pellet method mixture around a heavy feeder would be deadly over there.

Ron, Trevor told me Charlie started angling on a vespa scooter with all his gear on his shoulders and using two old sacks as sleeping bags,will look up all other guys but can only reply after seeing guys at club comp on weekend,as for the first ideas i have where we might be able to assist each other and then this is my last e mail until tommorow.Last year i organised to bring in some Carp baits via BCUK which were all flavours such as Aniseed,earthworm,bloodworm,shrimp etc,these are not flavours normally used in SA ( except Aniseed ) the specimen guys started using them and are now having exceptional success on them except it is quite strange our flavours here particularly in summer are all the fruits ie peach,strawberry,bannana,etc,where things are working is fishing a local boilie ie boilies for africa peach boilie over a bed of the BCUK pellets it seems as if the fish are attracted by the smells of the UK stuff but still want to take their usual preference but according to the guys this is working better than using all localSA feed etc,from a bank angling point of view i am going to start trying imported ground feed with our usual baits,i will let you know the results,going the other way Ron will confirm that here in SA we have the most unbelievable ranges of Dips and concentrates you have ever seen i would say at least 10 times more than you see in the UK and i am sure some of these concentrates would work in the UK particularly on well fished waters where the fishwould be getting something new and no one elsehas them,i will wait for comments and post more about the flavours tommorow Mike

I often used to think that it was only in England that you would meet angling fanatics who were touched with eccentricity.

Here we had Ray Webb, there you had Charlie Menhennet!

What I think you should do Mike iswrite an in depth article on where SA carp fishing is at the moment and send it to Graham Marsden our editor, completewith diagrams and photos.

My comment on some of your dips and flavours is that some of the chemicals used might be banned here, especially that stuff called Fluoresciene!

you might find also that those additives/flavours have been tried. maybe.

seen a few articles about fishing over there, would be good to give it a try, bit far for an overnighter though /forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

Yes i know about the Flourescene but many of our dips are made from standard food concentrate flavours which ibuy today and make my own dipsthe concentrates when you mix the various recipies need to be diluted with raw honey or corn flour or glycerine but they would not be illegal in the UK either the standard ratios are for instance one dip we make which is working wellwe call BASS it is as follows 25ml almond concentrate,tip of a knife dipped into John West crushed Garlic and washed offintothe Almond concentrate 10 ml TCP ( yes TCP) and fill up a 500ml bottle with corn flour it is a winter dip here and is deadly at the moment,i suppose TCP might bebanned ( i doubt if any body ever thought of using it ) but many others are from the food concentrates only which are approved for human consumption here is another MUTI 25ml strawberry,25mlAlmond 450 ml corn syrup last year this was excellent you can either use it on the bomb on top of the feed or make your dough or bread out of it,i will forward on this site some recipies for you guys that i think could work,you can if you look around buy the concentrates in litre bottles direct from the local manufacturers in your area quitecheaplyi pay here about 5 pounds for a litre of whatever flavouri want which can last up to 2 years as i only use between 10 and 25 ml per recipie,try this bread deadly for big carp here one loaf brown bread take off crusts,mix in food mixer very fine,in a bowl 4 egg yellows,2 bottles moirs or robertsons caramel essesnce 4 tablespoons pure honey 2 tablespoons egg yellow powder mix bread into bowl ingredients makes 30 bank bags which you can freeze until you use,you will find you can put it straight onto the hook by moulding it around,it has a really good consistency to it you can roll it into a boilie at the dam in any size you want and it is the right consistency for the hair rig,its colour due to the egg yellow powder is a bright orange the egg yellows are pure protein and somehow the big carp seem to love the caramel honey flavour,my son was fishing the national championships a few years ago the standard size of Carp was about 1 kilo he put this stuff on and was straight into the 3 to 5 kgsCarp he won his zone easily and the next day and came 3rd overall,until tommorow ( i mean it now ) mike

Mike, in all honesty I am probably the wrong person to talk to when comparing tactics and baits for carp. I haven't carp fished seriously since the late 70s and the only carp fishingI have done since returning to the UK is a bit of floater fishing to pass the time when the tench or barbel haven't been biting.

People like Dave Rothery (Frothey) would be better as he is a lot younger than me and carp fishes on a regular basis.

But I do like to keep up with what happens, as for about 7 years of my life I fished for little else other than carp.

A lot of the flavour/honey/etc combinations were big in the 70's - and not to say they wouldn't work today. Guys like Rod Hutchinson and Geoff Kemp went far and wide in their search for flavours, additives,etc but there's always a combination that hasn't been tried - for example, almond, garlic and honey are all known carp attractors in their own right, so a blend MAY be better than one on their own. One strawberry flavour can be infinately better than another......

Wasn't it Isaac Walton that kicked off the bait scene /forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

With regards to TCP itwouldn't suprise me, one of the attractors used a few years back was an active ingredient in oven cleaners and had skull and cross bones all over the bottle......