The time had finally come for our yearly pre-spawning trip to Lake St bernard.
Thursday 06-06-13 all the lads (bar me and one mate - rob) headed for the swartberg mountains. They arrived in underberg at 8am to find the temp at 2degree's and after a brief stop proceeded with the last 85km to the dam.
The guys were quick to set up and were on the water for a midday session, which produced a few stockies. over the last few years we have been to LSB we havnt caught to many stockies, so its nice to see that the dam has been recently stocked! But we were there for the 10 pounders!
Back on the water for an afternoon session at 3pm and after fishing the fly that normally does the damage for us (hamils with yellow and orange tail) flat out, and not getting any decent fish, the guys realised that things were different and needed to go back to the drawing board!
Roark was first on the board with a decent fish taken on a small black wooly bugger with purple tail.
this gave us an incling that this maybe the fly to use. After landing this fish of about 1.8kg, roark cast out again and the very next cast he was into another fish of aboout 2kg's.
so now we knew the wooly buggers were the fly the bigger fish were interested in!
The guys got a couple more fish this session and then headed back to the cottage for a couple drinks and the warm fire!
Myself and Rob left Durbs at 5:30 pm and were heading straight for LSB, with the excitement of the guys getting decent fish, the drive took forever. Rob had never fished LSB before and the whole trip him and i were chatting about the fish i had previously got, and where in the dam i had got them and how big they were etc etc.. We arrived at LSB at 9pm to find the boys were cold, and had got stuck into a few drinks, stories were flying and a competition brewed! It was decided that we were going to have a youngsters versus ballies comp, with Rob and i being the youngsters and the other 6 being the ballies and we would work it on the avg number of fish.. (total number of fish devided by number of anglers)
After getting to bed late Rob and i were up early eager to put the ballies in their place and we were on the water at 5:30. It was still pitch black and we were looking for brown trout! The sun came up at 6:30 and still no sight of the old boys!
The beautiful sunrise first morning 7-06-13
The saying goes, red sky in the morning, take warning.... (carry on with that a bit later)
Rob and i were fishing away with no luck, trying all sort of wolly buggers and depths and we couldnt get it right. The ballies arrived at 7am and were on the water and into fish! not good fish, but fish none the less. Rob got one or two stockies and i blanked the 5hour morning session i was on the water!
The afternoon session i decided to change tactics and headed to the opposite side of the dam, after kicking about 1km in my tube, i managed 3 small stockies with the biggest being 32cm, nothing to right home about, but atleast it wasnt a blank session. I head back to were all the ballies are fishing to find out they have got stuck into some good fish around the 2kg mark and they are putting rob and i to shame!
brad with a nice fish of 1.8kg
ranger bob with a 2.5kg hen
Mike with a decent fish about 2kg
rob and i were now in serious trouble and the ballies were putting us to shame! Rob blanking the session so far and myself with 3 small fish we were worried!! We managed to get some info out the ballies and they were getting all the fish on black wooly buggers with orange and yellow tail... Rob dug in his box and found one, i dug in my box and found none!! We started to head back to the cottage and rob got stuck into a nice fish of 2.9kg and landed her..
That was the end of day 2 for the ballies and day one for the youngsters! not a good day for me at all, with my 3 fish weighing about 1.2kgs! haha! luckily rob saved us a bit of our pride!
The wind started howling through the night and we woke up to gusts of about 15knots, i hit the water early as i wanted a decent fish! Rob was first into a fish and got a nice hen of 2.2kg's on the shale bed..
I was fishing a black wooly bugger with the oragnge and yellow tail that i had tied the previous night and finally hooked into a decent fish of 1.8kg's.. it was good to feel a decent trout again!
we thought with these two good fish we were back in the money, but little did we know the ballies were smoking us. With two of them getting their personal bests...
Mike with a 3.5kg cock...
the wind then started howling and was blowing around 40knots, it blew like this for the rest of saturday afternoon. We took the afternoon to tie flies and put down a couple drinks as we knew there would be no more fishing for the day!! The saying of red sky in the morning, take warning was now upon us!
rob trying his luck in the gale!!
Tying flies while the wind howled!
we watched the rugby at the St Bernards peak hotel and then headed to bed after a long day of drinking!
Next morning we got up to a biterly cold wind and being our last morning we wanted to get the 10 pounders we were here for! again, another red sky in the morning...
and with this the dark clouds started to roll over the mountains beind us! It started to hail and then snow!
There are 4 really super friendly Eland at LSB and they often pay you a vist..
we lost a good couple fish this morning session, i lost 4 in total and the others lost some big fish! roark lost what would have been his personal best after seeing it jump 3 times!
wehad a great trip despite the conditions! The weather really was against us this year and we still managed some good fish despite the howling winds, snow and dramatic pressure changes! Lake St bernard is the place and home of big fish!! We will be back next year for those 10 pounders!!!
oh, and the ballies beat the youngsters by and average of 7 fish to 5 fish!
our total number of fish for the 4 days was 52 between 8 anglers ranging from 300g - 3.5kg
majority caught on a black wooly bugger with orange and yellow tail with no bead head!
