Clarens Bass Angling

I've grown up going to Clarens, but I had never tried fishing here. My cousin used to carp fish everytime, but I never saw him catch anything. This year though I decided to give it a try. Spent the week leading up to the holiday looking at Clarens Tour Guides and Facebook groups to see if any of them gave any information about the dams here. Kloof Dam, the one my cousin never caught carp in, supposedly had largemouth, so I packed all my fishing gear. The first day of fishing I bought a R40 permit, and spent the entire afternoon until evening fishing. With about 6 bites on worms and 1 lost fish on a jig, my dad was convinced I wasn't going to catch anything. When buying the permit, the locals here told him I wouldn't catch anything, it's too over fished. Those few bites made me more determined to catch one. So the second day, also being the last chance to fish, my dad, his friend and myself set off after lunch to go fish. I'd have liked to start earlier, but we were all exhausted and had a lazy morning. There was lots of fish activity in the reeds. But for nearly 3 hours we caught nothing. Eventually after trying worms and spinnerbaits, I swapped to a Gambit, and started casting straight into the reeds where the activity was. After playing the spot a bit, I finally hooked the first little largemouth. I was so excited to prove my dad wrong, I ran with the poor fish across the dam wall to show him. Needless to say, they both tried fishing right into the reeds too. After releasing the fish, I went back across the wall to my spot, and hooked another little, although slightly bigger largemouth only 11 minutes later. After 2 gruelling days of catching nothing, I managed to score 2 in a row. And thank goodness for my braid and fluoro that I'd but on my reel 2 days ago, I had to rip those poor fish out of the reeds both times, and had to try land the second guy after he wrapped himself around a metal pole in the water😅. For the rest of the day it was only bites again. The fish jumping and swimming in the reeds seemed to be mocking us again. The far end of the dam, the side we can't get to, was the side with the most action. Wish we could've had a kayak so we could get to that side. Was still good to get out and throw a line in, and especially good to prove my dad wrong by actually catching not 1 but 2 fish😂. I'll try the trout dams first next time I'm in Clarens though, hopefully I'll get to catch some decent fish.