9 Juy 2016
Author: Evert Laubscher

Loskop dam in Mpumalanga has been described as the lake of a thousand casts in Largemouth bass circles. There is definitely some truth to that, as this can be an extremely daunting venue to fish.

However this piece of water holds some great quality fish, and when you take the time to do some preparation, and lady luck is on your side, you can meet face to face with some of these clear water lunkers. I received some reports that the winter jerk bait fishing was relatively good this year, so I decided to do a day trip to Loskop in early July.

The week leading up to the trip, I had a good look at the contour map of the dam and marked a few spots where the main river channel runs close to the bank. As bass tend to move more vertical in the water column this time of year, I believed these spots could deliver some fish with the deepwater being relatively close to shallower flats. I launched the boat as early as possible and reached my first spot before sunrise.

The setup I decided to use for the Salmo Sting jerk bait was a 6’ Medium action spinning rod, with a 2500 spinning reel which was spooled with 0.18mm monofilament line. This is a very light setup when targeting these big fish, but due to the fact that I was fishing relatively open water, I felt it would do the job. This setup allowed greater casting distance and also helped to impart a very enticing action on the 9cm sting.

I made very long casts right up to the bank and retrieved the sting in a jerk- jerk- jerk-pause retrieve. I varied the pause period as well as the intensity of the jerks. This technique proved very effective, as I soon landed a few good fish. The takes were very aggressive, which definitely got my heart rate up! I will definitely be back there soon, rigged and ready with my Salmo stings.