Every year in February we go to Sterkfontein Dam to enjoy a bit of yellow fish fishing. The water is warm at that time of year, and the yellows are in spawning mode, congregating in large numbers in the shallows. Over the last three or four years I have been experimenting with a spinning rod, trying to see what action I can get with the plentiful smallmouth yellows in the dam.The best success that I have achieved so far with this is to get fish to regularly eat small surface poppers.
I like to choose an area where there is long grass in the banks growing quite close to the water. I believe that these areas are where grasshoppers would occasionally get blown onto the water surface. I walk quietly along the bank and make long casts out over the droppoffs at an angle away from myself, so that I will retrieve the popper in from deep as well as along the bank. I use a gentle twitching action, so that the popper is not splashing, but rather gurgling softly, perhaps two or three twitches and then pause the lure and allow it to float for a few seconds. The yellows seem to really like this retrieve and eat the popper regularly. I find that I get much more action when the sun is low on the water in the early mornings and evenings. During the middle of the day the fish seldom rise to the popper.
Some fish sip the popper gently from the surface, while others smash it aggressively, often coming right out of the water on the hit. They put up a great fight on the light tackle and I have a lot of fun with this technique. I find that often the bigger fish like to hit the popper, and I get far fewer small fish than I would on fly.
I have just got back from one such trip, where I had a lot of fun with the yellows at Sterkies. I used light tackle, and with the thin diameter of braided line, these fish are able to really rip off line, without tiring quickly fighting the drag of thicker line through the water. I thought that I would just share this info, as many guys fish Sterkfontein and those inclined to try something different could have a lot of fun with it.
The tackle set up that I use is: A Shimano Crucial 6’8″MH spinning rod, with a Shimano Stradic 2500 reel, loaded with 6lb Sufix 832 braid and topped off with a leader of 12lb fluorocarbon. I have been having excellent success with the Rapala Skitter Pop 5cm lures. This little set up is so light and easy to use, and can easily be taken along as a second rod, along with a fly rod.
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