Lantz Mattinson: One big fishing story
I have been fishing even before I can remember fishing, my mom was a big fisher woman and my grand father was a fisherman and a pioneer. My grandfather had a house at Makatana for those that don't know it is a place close to charters creek on the shores of Lake St Lucia, I spent many a holiday there catching fish in the lake. The other big trip for me as a child right up to after leaving school was the two week holiday at Kosi Bay, in the early years it was a whole day trip from Eshowe to Kosi bay and the dirt road started in Huluwe and it was a tretrious trip often with the Land Rover breaking down or something falling off the boat trailer. But when you got to Kosi it was all worth it. Some other places are Cape Vidal, Maplane, Mtunzini and Amatkulu. The last place and my introduction to freshwater was the farm with its dams and rivers.
My grandfather tried and was a little bit successful in having a trout farm in Eshowe but the water never got cold enough for the trout to breed, this was before my time and by the time I got there my uncle was fish farming tilapia (kurper) my grand father was now retired so we as kids used to go down to the dam with pap and spend the afternoon catching tilapia. Let me set the seen on how this would work and remember theses where the Colonel days. On the farm the staff would get rations part of this rations would be meelie pap. This was cooked for them in the cook house where there where these huge cast iron pots with a fire under them the place was always so warm and smelled of wood smoke and fresh meelie pap. The next day after the fire had burned out and the people had taken their rations there would be some cold left over pup in the pot, what we would do is collect some of this left over pap and give it to the boy he would then take it and grind it on the same stone that was used to grind the meal. What this would do is make the pap very sticky making it ideal to put around your hook. After that the boy would roll them into balls about the size of a grapefruit and place them in a packet and deliver them to my grandfather's house.
My grandfather in the meantime had made some tea which he would put in a one liter coke bottle rapped with news paper to keep the tea warm. The boy would then carry all the equipment down to the dam, deck chair, tea, pap and fishing rods. The dam was about 2 hundred meters from the house down the hill in a valley. The dam was made by a large sand wall and was fed by a crystal clean spring, but due to there being carp in the dam the water was not crystal clean but it was not dirty either. On the side of the dam was I very well manicured piece of lawn that my grandfather set up all his equipment us being kids would just sit on the floor. The boy would go and get a forked stick which he would place in front of my grandfather so that he could rest his rod on after he had casted out and was now waiting for a bite, this would never take long as the tilapia are full up in the dam and once the pap started to fall off in the area it would act as chum and the fish would be waiting for the pap to land. The surprise now and again would be a carp picking up the pap and then there was a good fight as the carp where big. Only when I was a bit older and in high school did I learn about art lure bass fishing and in standard seven did I learn about fly fishing and fly tying. Before that we used to use the small tilapia or red tails and scalies that we would catch in the river as live bait. The dam was I heaven for the different fish species and it is now how I realize how fortunate I was to have that opportunity but also how little I knew about fishing. My introduction to fly fishing in this dam was to catch bass and a few bluegill. It was such fun as there where a few stumps in the dam and when you went on a boat you would see the submerged stumps and if you where really lucky you would see a bass parking off there. As a fisherman the thrill of sight fishing is enough to make you forget how to cast and often I would have to remind myself to calm down. When the popper lands on the water and the bass either dashes at it or just slowly moves to under it and sucks it in, is time frozen and the detail you remember for a split second is enough to last you a life time and it sticks with you long after you have released the fish. I think that is part of what keeps me coming for back for more and why I enjoy bass fishing so much. In the top dam (that what it was called) I would often see carp swimming in the shallows and as I said before if I knew a bit more I would have tried to fly fish for them but what I did was stalk them with my pap and throw it in and it was guaranteed to catch a good size carp and carp do have great fighting strength.
In high school I took to bass fishing seriously the one down fall was I lived in Eshowe and my school was in Pietermaritzburg I managed to make a mate who was even more crazy about fishing then me and I would spend some weekends with him and we would fish some of the waters in the Maritzburg area. Alexis would then come and visit me on the farm and we would spend the morning and afternoons going round and round the farm dam catching fish, we got so good at predicting the dam that we new where the bass where going to be. But the thrill never left us and sometimes we would be surprised by the bass as they would be in a totally different spots.
A few years later there was a flood and it change a part of the dam as it silted up but this was no problem as it added a new element to the dam as bull rushes started to grow and a new territory was added for the bass to hide in, but worse was the drought which dried up the dam totally at it has never been the same since as my uncle graded the bottom of the dam and removed all the stumps plus he never restocked the dam with bass or carp. It has got tilapia in and he has also put two small tigerfish in the dam, not sure how long that will last. The best part is the memories will remain long after the dam has changed plus it has taught me a lot of what I know about bass fishing that I will never forget. Not is all lost as the dam at the bottom of the farm has got lots of bass in it.
My grandfather tried and was a little bit successful in having a trout farm in Eshowe but the water never got cold enough for the trout to breed, this was before my time and by the time I got there my uncle was fish farming tilapia (kurper) my grand father was now retired so we as kids used to go down to the dam with pap and spend the afternoon catching tilapia. Let me set the seen on how this would work and remember theses where the Colonel days. On the farm the staff would get rations part of this rations would be meelie pap. This was cooked for them in the cook house where there where these huge cast iron pots with a fire under them the place was always so warm and smelled of wood smoke and fresh meelie pap. The next day after the fire had burned out and the people had taken their rations there would be some cold left over pup in the pot, what we would do is collect some of this left over pap and give it to the boy he would then take it and grind it on the same stone that was used to grind the meal. What this would do is make the pap very sticky making it ideal to put around your hook. After that the boy would roll them into balls about the size of a grapefruit and place them in a packet and deliver them to my grandfather's house.
My grandfather in the meantime had made some tea which he would put in a one liter coke bottle rapped with news paper to keep the tea warm. The boy would then carry all the equipment down to the dam, deck chair, tea, pap and fishing rods. The dam was about 2 hundred meters from the house down the hill in a valley. The dam was made by a large sand wall and was fed by a crystal clean spring, but due to there being carp in the dam the water was not crystal clean but it was not dirty either. On the side of the dam was I very well manicured piece of lawn that my grandfather set up all his equipment us being kids would just sit on the floor. The boy would go and get a forked stick which he would place in front of my grandfather so that he could rest his rod on after he had casted out and was now waiting for a bite, this would never take long as the tilapia are full up in the dam and once the pap started to fall off in the area it would act as chum and the fish would be waiting for the pap to land. The surprise now and again would be a carp picking up the pap and then there was a good fight as the carp where big. Only when I was a bit older and in high school did I learn about art lure bass fishing and in standard seven did I learn about fly fishing and fly tying. Before that we used to use the small tilapia or red tails and scalies that we would catch in the river as live bait. The dam was I heaven for the different fish species and it is now how I realize how fortunate I was to have that opportunity but also how little I knew about fishing. My introduction to fly fishing in this dam was to catch bass and a few bluegill. It was such fun as there where a few stumps in the dam and when you went on a boat you would see the submerged stumps and if you where really lucky you would see a bass parking off there. As a fisherman the thrill of sight fishing is enough to make you forget how to cast and often I would have to remind myself to calm down. When the popper lands on the water and the bass either dashes at it or just slowly moves to under it and sucks it in, is time frozen and the detail you remember for a split second is enough to last you a life time and it sticks with you long after you have released the fish. I think that is part of what keeps me coming for back for more and why I enjoy bass fishing so much. In the top dam (that what it was called) I would often see carp swimming in the shallows and as I said before if I knew a bit more I would have tried to fly fish for them but what I did was stalk them with my pap and throw it in and it was guaranteed to catch a good size carp and carp do have great fighting strength.
In high school I took to bass fishing seriously the one down fall was I lived in Eshowe and my school was in Pietermaritzburg I managed to make a mate who was even more crazy about fishing then me and I would spend some weekends with him and we would fish some of the waters in the Maritzburg area. Alexis would then come and visit me on the farm and we would spend the morning and afternoons going round and round the farm dam catching fish, we got so good at predicting the dam that we new where the bass where going to be. But the thrill never left us and sometimes we would be surprised by the bass as they would be in a totally different spots.
A few years later there was a flood and it change a part of the dam as it silted up but this was no problem as it added a new element to the dam as bull rushes started to grow and a new territory was added for the bass to hide in, but worse was the drought which dried up the dam totally at it has never been the same since as my uncle graded the bottom of the dam and removed all the stumps plus he never restocked the dam with bass or carp. It has got tilapia in and he has also put two small tigerfish in the dam, not sure how long that will last. The best part is the memories will remain long after the dam has changed plus it has taught me a lot of what I know about bass fishing that I will never forget. Not is all lost as the dam at the bottom of the farm has got lots of bass in it.
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