Hi Guys,
This report is overdue and infact happen a while before i joined ultimate. I thought i would sare with you the place where alot of our fishing crews personal bests have been caught!
Banchory is situated in the swartberg area, and there are only big fish in this dam. I have only fished there once and the smallest fish caught was 3.5kg's.
This trip took place in Sept 2011 and here are some pics from the trip.
I arrived at banchory late on a friday afternoon, the other 3 guys (brad, spence and ryan) had taken thurs and friday off and had had some time on the water.
Ryan lost a good fish on the thursday evening session on a Mrs simpson which broke his heart.
Spence got a good fish of around 3.8kg's on the thursday evening session.
Spence's fish
friday morning saw no fish come out and i had my first taste of banchory for the late afternoon session.
We were up early on saturday morning and i was first in the water with expectations of my 10lb trout i had been after.
I was fishing a size 12 hamils with black tail (that had been hammered previously on other fishing trips) it looked worse for wear.
I headed down toward the dam wall when all of a suden my line went tight, i though maybe i was stuck in the weed as Banchory is shallow, then all of a sudden all hell broke lose! the fish took off, and jumped straight out the water and i could see it was a big fish.
I fought the fish for about 15mins and eventually had him close to my tube, that is when i realised my net might be to small. I shouted to Brad to bring me a net, and when he arrived his was smaller than mine! i managed to squeez the fish into my net. I tried everything to revive the fish but it would not go back.
eventually after 20mins of trying to get him to swim i realised he wasnt going to go.
Here is a shot of my PB (9.7lb) on the bank on banchory
This fish got the boys excited as it was the biggest fish they had seen caught there after fishing there 3 times previously.
The afternoon session we hit the water hard, we fished an area that they hadnt fishied in the dam before and brad got stuck into his PB of 3.8kg's. He got it on a Mrs simpson.
after a few snaps of brads fish i was lucky enough to get another fish. this fish had the biggest girth i have seen on a trout, and a monster hook jaw, but it wasnt very long..
i caught this beauty on my trusty size 12 hamils and this was the second biggest trout i had caught. My 2 biggest fish in 2 days!
Banchory is a beautiful dam, and we have been back twice since this trip, the first time we went back the fishing was very dissapointing with only 1 fish being caught the entire weekend, and the last time we went back they seemed to have stoked the dam. I think they didnt stock for a while which was clear due to the number of big fish and lack of stockies, but with the recent stocking hopefully there will be some more big fish around soon!
the swartberg is a beautiful fishing area, and one of my favourite in KZN!
