can the info regarding a yellow fish venue help you yellow guys?

[emjaysmit]

hey guys I have never really been a big yellow fish guy. Many years a go we used to have a client close to Morgestond dam. We always took the oppertunities to go try and fish for bass. The one morning I tied on a Heddon Meddow mouse, cast it next to a point with reeds...let it sit and it just dissapeared....the line started moving sideways slowly but with authority...gently it sped up the fish made a U turn and then all hell broke lose...it was running so fast to the one side that the water literally made n bow where the line entered the water...I KNEW THIS WAS NO BASS

...after what felt like eternity I managed to land the fish...never heard of the fish and my brother laughed at me and said boetie this is a largemouth yelloy. Weighed it and and tipped the scales at 7.2kg....the rest of the year or so I had the oppertunity to fish the venue about 2 times a month. We regularly caught fish upto about 8kg's with my brother largest tipping the scales at 8.3kg's. So there are very large yellows indeed. We caught them on large topwaters, the occasional Rapala and then crab and craw immitations. Heddon crazy crawlers also did the trick. No idea what flies would work though but next time you want to try a different venue please give it a bash...if you say you have ever fished there with no success on fly...your fly obviously wasnt big enough

[yella]

Emjay, I think those rivers should have smallscale and largescale yellows - do you have a pic of one of those fish. If it is one of those then it is monster sized. Well its monster sized for any type of yellowfish.

[emjaysmit]

hey bud, I wish I did, this was before cellphones had cameras and before there were things like facebook etc....back then the nokia 3110, 7110 and 8250 were the boss phones looooool, from what i can remember they had big scales, very big mouths and gigantic crushers in the back of the throat....before it came out the water I actually thought it was a carp....like i said...havent got a lot of experience with any yellow as the bass was my main target species...

Its a use it dont use it sort of scenario, I just always hear about the yellows in the flyfishing circles and like i said before, I don't care for yellows all that much, I just accidentally came accross these fish that were way back then very foreign to me....this was around 97,98. If I recall correctly we latched into a few on Jericho dam as well. I can't really say how the dams are fishing now....it just baffled me how everyone rants and raves about any yellow larger that 4kg's and that these fish of basically twice the size were a regular occurance....

The fishing should still be really good as those dams aren't fished hard at all from what I gather....a pitty really because all the species in that dam grow to large preportions...we have also taken our fair share of bass in the 3.5-4.2kg region. These two predators just love large bulky baits....even though yellows don't really do it for me the fights are epic though....if it felt that way on a bass rod I don't even want to know what it would feel like on fly....

[yella]

Lets organise a trip emjay and go and look if your confused the lb scale for the kg scale.

[tombosis]

I can confirm that we also caught largemouth yellows at Jerico around that size, I personally never got one at Morgenstond dam. That was back in the 90's, haven't been there for many years.

[yella]

I wonder if those waters are in some way connected to the vaal - anyway worth an exploratory trip for sure.

[Scythe]

Just we aware, there are issues surrounding security you have to contend with when fishing Morgenstond.

Don't be caught unaware.

EDIT : Jericho dam is even worse.

[Korrie]

try to get access via one of the farmers.
Much safer.
Use to go and ski there in the late 90's via a farmers land.
Camped the whole weekend etc.

[emjaysmit]

lol yella, just attach something big enough at the end of your line....instead of tying on a fly just attach a duckling to the hook looool, once took one on a 13cm original floating rapala that was so large it crushed the back side of my rapala to the point where you saw the wire prodruding and balsa wood spares everywhere....can you imagine the force those crushers in the back of the mouth must have....

[emjaysmit]

ok so I dont know what the crime is like and what the fishing would be like although I think it will be pretty unscarred as the venues dont get a lot of fishing pressure....SO for those who brave it and manage to catch a few whoppers I will expect that for every 6+kg yellow caught that you will point me in the direction of a 4+kg trout....I think thats only fair looooool....Will check my inbox thanks.....hahahahahahaha