It was with much anticipation that 47 teams gathered on the shores of Driekoppies Dam on Saturday for the fourth leg of this year’s Lowveld Bass Trail.

This after steadily rising waters had ensured that vegetation growth was in full bloom in the warmer Lowveld weather on this amazing fishery. After three rounds of small fish being weighed in, teams were eager to get going and get some of those renowned Driekoppies bucketmouths.

The weather played along in the week leading up to the event, with hot sunny weather every day and clear skies on the day of the competition with little to no wind.

After a brief skippers’ meeting, blast off was on schedule and teams raced to start their efforts in putting fish in the boat.

Driekoppies, as expected, did not disappoint. Eight bags were weighed in over the five-kilogram mark and a new biggest bag for the season took top honours.

As good quality fish were to be found in abundance, slight adjustments were needed from teams’ pre-fishing, due to weather conditions preceding the tournament.

On the day 216 fish were weighed in, with a total weight of 152,87 kilograms and an average per fish weight of 708 grams. All but five of the 47 teams managed to weigh in a limit and unfortunately, due to disqualification, three teams blanked on the day.

Zandri Strydom shines at Mankele

Winning patterns
Log leaders coming into the event, team Thermocline; Herman Geldenhuys and William Myers; delivered the goods as they weighed in a solid 9,6-kilogram bag, which included the heaviest fish of the day at
2,21 kilograms.

They focused on a broad depth range from 5,5- to 12-metre-deep water with mojo flukes and other bait fish imitation plastic baits and targeted fish in 3 to 4,5 metres of water.

Although bites were few and far between, they were of the correct quality to claim first on a day where many could only find one or two kicker fish to their bag weights.

Second-placed team Legends; Hermanus and Kobus Snyman; targeted deep grass in various parts of the dam and got early results with a white spinner-bait through the grass and later culled up their bag weight with a Carolina-rigged dead ringer and a whopper plopper top water. They finished second with a bag weight of 8,575 kilgrams.

Third-placed for the day was team Salmo and Nichols; Morne Strauss and Shaun Fredriksson; that also found success between grass in 1,5 to 2,5 feet of water throwing spinner-baits and mixing in Salmo rattling hornet crank-baits to finish the day with a bag weight of 6,85 kilograms.

Also read: Swimmers come home with a haul of medals