Overview
The windiest weekend of the year
As usual we once again picked the windiest weekend of the year, and arriving at Klerkskraal Dam we realised it might be a waste of time trying to fight the waves in our little rubber duck. So we decided to return later when the wind had calmed down a bit, and headed off to check out another dam we've always wanted to see, Rietspruit Dam, near Ventersdorp.
After our brief excursion it was back to Klerkskraal Dam to see if the wind had died down. It was still gusty, but we figured out that there was a stretch along the southern bank that was shielded from the main dam, and the breeze, by a corridor of reeds. So that's where we launched, and that's where we spent our afternoon.
Fishing
Getting bites straight away
This stretch was quite shallow, which wasn't a good sign. But amazingly we started getting bites straight away in the clear water. The bass seemed to be at home among the reeds, and were very aggressive.
Because of the dense terrain we could only really use texas-rigged plastics. And after trying a few patterns, we figured out that watermelon red was the way to go. Flukes of that colour proved to be very popular and we caught most of our fish on those.
01
02
03Watermelon red flukes, worked tight against the reeds.
In the end it was a surprisingly good afternoon considering the conditions, and we really enjoyed our first outing at Klerkskraal. We will definitely be returning, and hopefully next time we can launch into the main dam to reach some of the bigger fish.
Accommodation
No lodging here — just the dam
Klerkskraal Dam is a public, day-access nature reserve — there's no accommodation on site. We used Twitcher's Eden, a short drive away, as our overnight base for this trip.