Spring Day Morning Session - Testing the new Mad Catch 3 Inch Soft Pastic Jerk Minnow / Shad

It was Monday the 1st September and officially..."Spring Day"! Mondays being my day off from Trophy Tackle Den, I had full intentions of spending the morning on the water! Having looked at the weather forecast the night before, I knew that there was a stiff Easternly wind predicted to kick off around 10 am. Setting off at sunrise, I quickly got the boat and tackle sorted and headed off to our local slipway. Conditions were perfect with the water flat like a plain of glass!

I had some new Mad Catch 3 inch Jerk Minnows / Shad to test and could not wait to get started. The first stop was at the "Kraansies," where I was eager to see if a little Dusky Kob would pounce on this little gem of a soft plastic. The tide was on the last of an outgoing Neap Tide, and I slowly drifted down from the Kraansis, all along the "Blue Drums" and on past the "Old Mouth." This drift took well over an hour, and I covered as much ground as I could, but did not raise a single bump. Never mind the Dusky Kob....the Garrick were also clearly MIA!!

I decided to push on and motored down to the river mouth where I decided to drift through "Flathead Corner" in search of a Bartail Flathead. Surely, these fellas would be around, especially on Spring Day! It was my daughters birthday, and while on a call to her, I managed to snag a nice Flathead on a SureStrike Shiver Stick. After much confusion and having to end our call, I forgot to record the catch, but I did manage to get a quick photo before a safe release!

Switching back to the Mad Catch Jerk Shad, I quickly got another Bartail, quite a good size one, but as with all fisherman's stories, I managed to drop the fish right at the boat. On my second drift, I picked up another flathead on the Mad Catch plastic. The tide had turned and I was expecting the catch rate to really increase when the first puffs of wind stated pushing me off my perfect drift lines and making it harder and harder to maintain those perfect casts and retrieves along the 'honeyholes'!

On my third drift, I noticed a large shoal of Spotted Grunter. I opted to continue with the plastic as I have been trying to perfect the art of catching Grunter this way. After about 30 minutes of trying, without any success, I was concerned that the shoal could spook and move away. In defeat, I turned to my favorite top water lure and clipped on my Bone White SureStrike. First cast over the shoal, I got a fish to rise and have three stabs at the lure. I could tell it was a small Grunter and decided to retrieve the lure and make another cast up tide from the shoal. This tactic played off well, and a much larger Grunter came off the bottom and smashed the lure, immediately setting the hooks! Then, took off in true Grunter style!

With all the turmoil of landing the Grunter, the rest of the shoal had spooked and moved off. The wind had now picked up so much that I could no longer drift a good line and would have to resort to anchoring the boat. Knowing that the wind was only going to get stronger, I called it quits and headed home. Although the catches were far and few between and by no means large, it was a great morning on the water doing some great fishing...def getting back into some basics for the coming summer!

Trophy Tails 1/4oz Leadhead
Mad Catch 3" Jerk Minnow
SureStrike 20g Shiver Stick
SureStrike 100F 3D Bone White Top Water
Okuma Ceymar HD 3000
Okuma RAW 7ft 1oz Rod
15lb HMP Braid
Awas 0.45mm Leader
Fishing Buddy Quick CLip

There is no doubt whatsoever our once abundant fish stocks are under threat from overfishing and negative environmental impacts. As you improve in your success and your catch rate improves...give a little back as credit for the next BIG ONE! Limit your catch, don't catch your limit...catch n release! :-)

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Tight Lines
Brett Harris
[email protected]
+27(0)834125316