Feeling bleak - no fish on our big fishing weekend

[Scooterza]

Hey all

Feeling a bit blue today - just returned from the long weekend where we went up to the Levuvhu river near Punda Maria in Kruger. You can stay at a game park there and fish the river.

This time of year is of course very dry and they have had temps of mid to upper 30's for several days. Furthermore, the torrential floods of January this year scoured out the river and most of the big trees are gone from the banks. I haven't been before but I suspect there were pools that are now just flat shallow sandy banks. So finding deeper pools was tough.

We arrived Saturday afternoon after driving for 8 hours and the wind was howling and only got stronger into the night. The dust was everywhere - in our eyes, mouth, ears, tents, food etc. Horrible. It was that cold front arriving. So the next morning dawned cold and slight drizzle. We drove all the way along the river looking hard for tigers. The roads are rough - low range and it took about 1.5 hours to drive 15km. Not one of us had a touch the whole day and we were feeling low. Next day we headed out again and around 2pm, one of the guys caught a smallish 1.2kg tiger. Then later he caught 3 more, the biggest was around 2kg and smallest probably 750g. I had a few hits but lost the fish after 5 seconds (I had sharpened my hook but my rod wasn't the stiffest so...??? Not sure where I was going wrong) and one of the other guys caught a strange gurnard type fish. Not too sure what it was. I fished conventional spinners and fly but the only thing that seemed to work was spinners.

Fished again early Tuesday and had a few more hits from small tigers (15cm) but no action. Then drove back yesterday.

It sucks when you get all excited for a trip, plan it and get equipment and your blood is up and then you come back with NOTHING!! I can't help feeling frustrated even though I enjoyed the environment and it was great to get away. I would have had way more fun and caught more fish if I had just gone to the Vaal. Okay it might not have been tigers but a good yellow is wonderful to catch. To make matters worse, my fishing mate caught 4 and I caught zero and this is not the first time it has been that way. I feel like I fish the same as him - similar lures, similar retrieve, similar places etc. He is obviously just a better fisherman than me. I am feeling gatvol - like a 5 year old that cannot have a sweet!

[Korrie]

Life is a *****..........