ULTIMATE ANGLING - the Ultimate SA Fishing website
General Angling Topics => Dropshot fishing => Topic started by: fedu on July 04, 2011, 01:54:45 PM
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Like you guys know from previous report where I had met Chris "aquadementia" Caine at the river Kwanza lodge, that is located on the mouth of the Kwanza and +-70Km south of Luanda, I had decided to bring the family (wife and kids) for a weekend there and eventually try to fish a couple hours before breakfast while the family was still asleep.
Last week report link http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php/topic,5652.0.html (http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php/topic,5652.0.html)
We arrived there Friday by the end of the afternoon with a couple friends that also took their children along, dinned and after dinner stayed chatting with Chris and a couple of other people.
I do not know how it goes with you guys but here in Luanda and after a long working week when we meet for dinner Friday night it is not that difficult to loose a bit of control and let wine, after dinner drinks and conversation flow freely.
To cut a long story short Friday night after the kids went to sleep we had a bit of a wild nigh and I personally went to bed around 3 o'clock in the morning.
We had agreed that we would breakfast at 8AM and then would pick up a small boat and try target Giant African Threadfin until 11AM where we would come back to the lodge and take my friends and family for a river sightseeing trip.
Woke up at 7:45 with a terrible hangover and slowly slowly went to meet up with Chris have breakfast and then prepare our tackle for the short fishing session.
Had to take things slowly and, after breakfast, and after some hangover pills finally managed to "straighten" myself and focus on tackle preparation and talk a bit about African Threadfin tactics ideas with Chris.
One problem arise (on top of the hangover) we had never targeted Giant African Threadfin before, Chris had caught one very small one in the surf when targeting Corvina/Kob and had seen another one being caught as by-catch when targeting tarpon on live bait.
The weekend before while going for the bird watching trip we had talked a bit about some sand banks not far from the river mouth and that go up near the Kwanza river bridge and in our minds the drop offs from those sand banks to the navigation channels seemed like a good area to target fish.
So armed with willingness, zero knowledge and some tackle around 9AM we went up the river decided to land some of those famous Giant African Threadfins that usually, every year, visit the Kwanza River near June and July.
To make it even more a challenge we had decided to do it with light tackle and artificials mainly bucktails with soft plastic tail and jig heads with soft-plastics.
Water as usual on the Kwanza is really murky be even like that I rigged a clear colour plastic on an green jig head, the idea was letting it fall and then slowly retrieving touching the bottom from time to time to pick up some sand and try get target fish attention
(http://i55.tinypic.com/2enn411.jpg)
Chris decided to go with a Williamson 1/oz Bucktail jig
(http://i55.tinypic.com/158wsw.jpg)
I was using my 8'6" St.Croix freshwater salmon rod paired with a Sustain 4000 filled with 14lb braid and Chris was using a Shimano Vengeance rod paired with a Sustain 5000 loaded with 25lb Mustad Ultra braid.
When we arrived on our target spot we found my friends and Kwanza fishing legends, the Nicolson brothers, already on the water and that gave us a bit of confidence on our designated target area
(http://i56.tinypic.com/210y2xy.jpg)
Planned our first drift and started casting around
(http://i56.tinypic.com/2cxxag0.jpg)
Suddenly I'm on and at that moment I realized that I had forgotten to check my reel drag and because I had just spooled it with the 14lb braid it was way to loose, afraid of setting the drag on that light setup while fighting the fish I had to thumb my way around all the fight.
See my thumb on the reel?
(http://i52.tinypic.com/5lau6f.jpg)
The fish made some incredible long runs always shaking its head, after all the long runs when I finally managed to bring him close to the boat he would run again, and again, and again.
What a fight!!! After what seemed like an eternity and always very afraid of loosing what could be my first Giant African Threadfin we managed to put the fish inside the boat for a couple of pics
(http://i53.tinypic.com/10p7j1i.jpg)
(http://i56.tinypic.com/1j0ktf.jpg)
Then the release, actually the fish was quite tired and it took quite a while to revive him but eventually it managed to swim away.
(http://i53.tinypic.com/wunua9.jpg)
We were jumping around like madmen inside that little boat with joy for having accomplished our target and on top of that safely releasing such a beautiful fish.
To make it perfect we would now need one to bite Chris bucktail, and after a couple of drifts and loads of casting around it finally happened
(http://i53.tinypic.com/2vjq0lv.jpg)
Chris was on and boy this fish was fighting even harder than the one before.
(http://i51.tinypic.com/mrrep3.jpg)
Again very afraid of loosing Chris fish I managed to put it inside the boat but loosing my sunglasses in the process
Bigger than the one before
(http://i51.tinypic.com/t540tk.jpg)
Releasing the fish
(http://i51.tinypic.com/xlms10.jpg)
And this time making sure from the first moment the fish was properly revived, actually it took so long that Chris had to go in the water with the fish and drive it into deeper waters.
(http://i51.tinypic.com/2vrtulc.jpg)
For us the day could have ended there, we had goten what we came for, with a bit of beginners luck on our side transformed dreams and willingness onto tales of successfully landed and released fish
What a morning session, around us my friends Nicolson were also fighting Giant African Threadfin on that beautiful Kwanza river scenery
(http://i51.tinypic.com/2s9ulbk.jpg)
But it's only over when it's over we still had some time before my family would awake and call me back for breakfast with them before the bird watching trip.
By then my hangover was also killing me and I would need another pill to handle it, but even like that, we decided to extend the short session a bit more and were rewarded with another fish.
Again on the 14lb braid and the freshwater rod that, by now, Chris was telling me I should definitely upgrade it's rating to saltwater and with some degree of high sticking involved
(http://i54.tinypic.com/2romavn.jpg)
My personal best Giant African Threadfin (well any fish would have been my PB it was my first time targeting them)
(http://i56.tinypic.com/aypzcm.jpg)
What a beautiful fish!!!
(http://i55.tinypic.com/w6yuev.jpg)
Released the fish and had to call it a day.
SECOND DAY
Next morning before I leave and again while my family was still asleep we went for another quick session this time after a proper night sleep.
When we arrived on the spot our friend and Kwanza River legend Carlos Moran was also there
(http://i51.tinypic.com/66c8c5.jpg)
While Chris was helping me out with my rod rigging I was holding his rod for him (actually not only holding but also retrieving the bucktail) BAM a small Jack Crevalle
(http://i51.tinypic.com/k00wuc.jpg)
Later on Chris got another fish
(http://i53.tinypic.com/2v2fdsn.jpg)
Another beautiful baby Giant African Threadfin
(http://i53.tinypic.com/2hyuddg.jpg)
Had to pack things up and leave early, I had to go back to the city for my mother-in-law 40th wedding anniversary lunch.
Thanks Chris it was great finally meeting and fishing with you, next time we will go fishing in South Africa and you will have to teach me proper casting from the beach.
(http://i53.tinypic.com/5aruap.jpg)
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Thats what I love about fish, its a great rewarding feeling to get the fish you go out of your way to target.....
Awesome guys, great report....... :shre:
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Great stuff Fedu :shre: I am so :envy and well done Chris :resp:
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Luck ? I don't know so much you 2 gents have some serious angling skills, well done on some awesome catches on the desired target species.
:shre:
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:cgrts:guys.... Awesome catches... :appr:
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Fabulous report as usual Fedu, combined with great pics, makes for rivettingb reading!! Congrats on your and Chris' catches... awesome! +cred
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(clap) (clap) (clap)
Brilliant !
Well done guys !
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nice 1 fedu and aqua.. (clap)
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Fedu... tell us a bit more about the braid line, leader and knots you used please. Always find the technical setups interesting....
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(clap) Super report n great catches ... :win: ........ :shre:
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Fantastic fish well done to both of you, Fedu what size are those fish ???
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Fedu... tell us a bit more about the braid line, leader and knots you used please. Always find the technical setups interesting....
I've talked quite a bit with Chris about our setups and mainly the knots and leader previously, I think Chris is still "looking" for his favourite braid mono connection on light casting sticks and I'll let him talk abou that.
On lighter braids like this 14lb Berkley Fireline Crystal I was using stiching is not an option.
What has been working for me is bimini to double the braid, I do 70 turns bimini and showed Chris the difference on how I tie it to try make it perfect, mainly under tension and make shure the turns have no "space" between them going back if I need to redo any part also in the end, after tying it, I try to take the twisting out of my line.
Then I just use my regular rigging even if you guys might think it's a absurd I love twisted leaders and the way you teached them makes it so easy to do, so if I want a 30lb leader I'll do a 15lb twisted (2x15lb) and then finish it with a 30lb bite trace at the end, the castability is excellent.
On the lure, in this case, I just use a rapala knot just because it's the one I know how to do.
This fish have soft mouth and we could not increase drag too much, so knots, were not really tested on this trip, but for 14lb braid on +15Kg fish like the two biggest we caught I am quite pleased with the rigging.
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Fantastic fish well done to both of you, Fedu what size are those fish ???
Well I am not usually worried about weights but on other species I am not too far on weight estimates.
With that sayd this was the first time I target this kind of species and the excitment was influencing both of us so I would not like to write a weight estimate probably Chris can do it, on the first day we measured the fish and the lenght was 78,103 and 107cm respectivly.
The last fish on the second day was not measured.
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you lucky bastard thats another species to catch when i visit !!!!!!
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you lucky bastard thats another species to catch when i visit !!!!!!
You will have to come two times then one on summer and the other on cold Season :-)
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no just camp and fish from one season to another ....cheaper in flights that way :hehe: :hehe:
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You will have to come two times then one on summer and the other on cold Season :-)
You better get some rest Fedu, Bennie and I also plan to come some time!
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You better get some rest Fedu, Bennie and I also plan to come some time!
We can make a UA social then :-)
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Fedu... tell us a bit more about the braid line, leader and knots you used please. Always find the technical setups interesting....
On this next picture you can see most of the twisted leader rigging
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man thats a pretty fish , you like the twisty's now ?makes life so much easier , did you have a bite trace on as well ?
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man thats a pretty fish , you like the twisty's now ?makes life so much easier , did you have a bite trace on as well ?
I like the castability of the twisty's it's so simple to make braid to mono connections now and yes I use bite trace, that way I have best of both worlds, castability of inside the guides mono (the twisty) and the single line leader that does not spook fish, what ,in theory could happen with twisties due to bubbles created by water going through the doubled mono line.
I do not need any kind of shock absorsion on this light setups but like practice makes perfection I rig all my casting sticks like this now, heavier and lighter.
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fEDU, how are you joining your twisty to the bite trace? What connection are you using there?
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thanks Fedu, great report as usual! I am now sitting in an overcast and cold Pretoria, the thoughts of this weekend still fresh in my mind.
My fish I would put around 13kg's, Fedu's around 15kg's.
Manny, the lady manager at the lodge is doing research on the threadfin, the first done anywhere for this species. She tells me that all are born male and at around the size of the two bigger ones we caught, they change to female.
Fedu threadfin fun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx5pJjwsZRU#)
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CHRIS hunt them outside the mouth as well around the sand banks in AUST guys fish lots of halco cranks for them , have a good dvd about catching barra and threadfin some where need to hunt it down . will send you a few lead heads to try .
Pm me your details ..
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fEDU, how are you joining your twisty to the bite trace? What connection are you using there?
Probably not the best knot out there but it's the one I know how to tie in a hurry and I usually have to replace the bite leader after a couple fish.
Double Uni - in theory a 80% to 90% knot
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CHRIS hunt them outside the mouth as well around the sand banks in AUST guys fish lots of halco cranks for them , have a good dvd about catching barra and threadfin some where need to hunt it down . will send you a few lead heads to try .
Pm me your details ..
At the Kwanza, usually, June is the month for fishing the outside and July inside.
@Chris - I really like that video thanks :-)
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Awesome report guys, dammit that looks like fun, you lucky buggers. :fshn: :happ: