Venom Lures named angling team of the year
Ben and Frank Gottschalk of Team Venom Lures took top honours in the Lowveld Bass Trail (LBT) 2017 season. They have been named angling team of the year.
They have led this season from the first round at Vygeboom Dam in February. They opened their season with three consecutive victories, and scored one more. Venom Lures finished in the top-10 at every event in 2017.
An average of 38 teams competed per competition.
The top-20 teams over eight rounds will now fight for glory on October 14 and 15, also at Vygeboom Dam.
On Saturday the LBT hosted the final round at Inyaka Dam.
Although the winning weight was not near the LBT record set in 2016 at Inyaka, Team Wittus Angling managed a respectable bag of 8,825 kilograms.
Of the 34,88 per cent, the teams managed the limit of five fish, and only two teams blanked out.
A total of 158 fish were caught with a total weight of 146,724 kilograms. The average weight per fish was 0,929 kilograms. This was the largest average per fish of the 2017 season.
Team Wittus Angling’s Phillip and André Whitfield targeted fish in five-metre water, using shad and red-sensation square-bill crank baits. They found the fish close to the trees near spawning areas.
Although they were competing under a new name, Magical Lures, Theo and son CJ Bezuidenhout were not new to LBT.
They found success in catching fish in four to six metres of water with watermelon candy mojo and Texas rigged flukes.
They focused on a 500-metre stretch of shoreline near the first overhead bridge towards The Narrows.
Team Bullet of Nicky Stapelberg and Sarel Venter also caught fish in deeper water. They used weightless flukes in predomin-antly dark colours.
The biggest fish (3,4 kilograms) was caught by Danie Stassen of team Subaru Nelspruit.
In eight rounds, 1 183 fish were caught, with a total weight of 734,713 kilograms.
Average fish weight for the season was 0,62 kilograms. The most fish (199) were caught at the April event at Inyaka Dam and the least at Nooitgedacht Dam in May (113 fish). The biggest bag of the year was weighed in by Hooked Again during August at Driekoppies (10,14 kilograms) which included the biggest fish of the year (3,42 kilograms).
The smallest winning bag (5,115 kilograms) was weighed in at Vygeboom Dam by Team Venom Lures in February.
The second round at Vygeboom was the toughest, with 25 per cent of the teams blanking and only 50 per cent of the teams finding a limit.
Team Double Trouble moved from 22nd to 21st. Team Passion 4 Bass dropped nine places from 11th and are in 20th position.
The disqualification of Team Sikani saw them dropping out of the top 20 and the solid performance delivered by Subaru Nelspruit saw them leaping from 21st on the log to 16th overall, securing their spot in the 2017 final.
In total, 59 teams participated in 2017.
