The penultimate round of the 2019 season was concluded at Inyaka Dam this past Saturday. A total of 36 teams pitched up with mixed feelings and expectations for the day as the pre-fishing and scouting trips in prior weeks had been less than optimistic.

Nonetheless, in true Lowveld Bass Trail spirit, teams had an overall positive attitude and the mood was light, even though many teams were ready to solidify their place among the top 20 teams heading to the final round.

Proceedings ran smoothly and once again teams were ready to get things underway, with the exception of one or two teams arriving a bit late.

Also read: Phakisa Pumas back to winning ways
As teams raced off to their starting locations, they were pleasantly surprised to have found an early morning bite, although not many teams pounced on this opportunity. The rest of the day was marked with pleasant weather, but very tough fishing. Teams struggled to find fish, and when they eventually did, they were very small and near impossible to catch. Poor fishing conditions were mainly attributed to the water column that had turned recently, and water temperatures which were still in the region of 16 degrees Celsius.

As ever, it was a guarantee that there would be teams figuring out how to catch quality fish, as was the case with our top two teams on the day.

On the day 104 fish were weighed in, with a total weight of 64,54 kilograms and an average per fish weight of 0,621 kilograms. Of the 36 competing teams, five failed to weigh a fish and only seven teams managed to weigh in a limit of fish. To put things in perspective, in the previous six events more than 30 teams managed a limit in every single event, with only seven teams getting five fish at Inyaka Dam.

Winning Patterns
Team Bass Wizzard of Wade Lottering and Waldo Greeff took top honours, with a brilliant bag of 6,245 kilograms. They targeted main lake points and humps with prominent drop-offs between seven- and 10-metre water. They utilised mojo-rigged leachtails and flukes in both junebug and black/red flake colours.

Jaco Schoeman and Pieter Oosthuizen of Team Nuts for Fishing finished second on the day. They weighed in 6,195 kilograms for their five fish, just 50 grams shy of the victory.