[caption id="attachment_1171" align="alignnone" width="640"]
Rob Hellig with a good barbel.[/caption]If I were to describe these fantastic catfish to someone, I would call it a cross between your flathead catfish and the European Wels catfish. A long fish, almost snake like but with a sizable heavy head that will eat anything living or dead put in front of it. Like most catfish it is a super predator, highly sensitive lateral lines to detect vibration, big whiskers to taste the water and the skin is made of taste receptors second to none. Basically a barbel is a swimming a tongue, adept at finding food in all of its domain. It can be found in almost all patches of water in our country and can see out cold winters and scorching African summers. Being an African fish it has evolved a very unique adaptation in the catfish world to survive the harsh conditions it lives in, imagine you are a catfish swimming around in a shallow pond in the middle of an African summer, rain hasn’t fallen for months and your pond is getting smaller and smaller the oxygen levels are dropping and the water covering your back is almost gone. Disaster right? Wrong, these amazing fish have evolved to beat the African weather, they have a lung, that’s right they can breathe air!!! These fish breath in oxygen much the same way we do, this is due to the fact the Barbel’s swim bladder is basically about as useful as our spleen, the fish use their lung to regulate where they sit in the water column and can be seen coming up to take a big gulp of air before returning to the depths. This allows the fish to either wait till night fall and wriggle to a new deeper pond or to bury itself in mud until the rains come and continue to breath. Amazing adaptation to what can be harsh living conditions.
[caption id="attachment_1173" align="alignnone" width="588"]
Peter From Highveld Charters with a beautiful Vaal Dam sharptooth catfish[/caption]Actually fishing for these fish can be as easy as scratching your nose or as difficult as answering that dreaded question from your wife, Do I look fat in these jeans? As with all catfish the smaller ones are not that challenging to fish for and rather dumb when it comes down to it, but as these fish grow so does their intelligence. These fish have to contend with hungry locals, fish eagles, crocodiles and other barbel to reach a good size. Seeing as these fish can reach past 170lbs getting that big with everything trying to eat you, you learn a thing or 2 about staying alive. Although skulls of fish over 170lbs have been found and I’m sure we will eventually find or catch a 200 pounder, a really good size for this fish is around 40 to 60 lbs with the IGFA all tackle record being a mere 100lbs. One of the reasons we have battled to get our big fish out has been fishing techniques and tackle, cant bring a 150lb fish out on tackle meant for a 20lb carp, and also the popularity of the species among anglers, often considered a trash fish and not as valuable as a bass or carp there was little or no info on how to catch them for many years. Guys still laugh at me from time to time when I tell them I’m fishing for catfish, but that just leaves more catfish for me. This is slowly starting to change with more and more anglers going out to get stuck into one of these majestic fish. I’m sure in the not so distant future we will see our bigger specimens coming out more regularly.
Fishing techniques for these fish does not differ too much from what you guys will be accustomed to. We bank fish for them, fly fish for them and have developed our own method of lure fishing called klopping (That is a science in itself) and of course targeting them off the boat. The majority of the fishing is bait fishing, bait here ranges from everything to anything with us literally using whatever we can find. Personal favourites of mine are carp, bass( I know this may seem strange to folks, but we have thousands of them here) tilapia, platties (Ill explain these in a minute) Day old chickens (Dead of course) and doves. These baits can look graphic and a bit blood thirsty, but they drive Mr Whiskers wild and will get you the fish you seek. Our fish baits like carp and tilapia are prepared much in the same manner as what you guys will use. One difference I have noticed is that we seem to use bigger ground baits when bank fishing, it is not uncommon for guys to use a 3kg or 6/7lb fish as bait whole or cut in half and I know guys who use even bigger baits than these the adage being big baits equal big fish and it does work really well. We do use birds as bait ( I will stress that all birds are long dead before they are used). Birds may seem really strange to use as bait, but we look at it like this, what is the fish eating naturally? I can tell you now if I take you to an overhanging tree in spring and cast a weightless day old chicken under the tree I’m going to go tight. The fish sit under the trees waiting for hatchlings to fall into the water, so why not use this to your advantage? One of our best baits and many guys go to bait is a platanner, or the African clawed frog. These frogs are found everywhere, although there is a rare sub species which we do not use, and readily available if you know how to trap them or know a guy who will sell them to you. These frogs are catfish candy and the fish just can’t leave them alone, fished alive or dead you are almost guaranteed a fish with them.
[caption id="attachment_1172" align="alignleft" width="449"]
Barbel caught while drifting.[/caption]Targeting these fish is where it really becomes interesting with guys having varied opinions on where and how to locate them. I’ve been fishing for these fishing as my main target for 8 years and I’m still no closer to giving a definitive answer to guys questions when it comes to that. But some simple rules apply, this is a predator, so what do predators eat? Find a food source and you will find fish, an area I know will always hold fish is a reed bank, and usually the reed bank is in shallow water with a small or steep drop off into some deeper water. This will always be a good spot as smaller prey, whether it be fish, snail, frogs, insects etc. will be hiding in these reeds and the fish wait below until they move into eat. It is a good place to start fishing. A big advantage to knowing if you are in the right spot is the fish using that lung it has, you can see and hear it come up for air blatantly giving away its position. So at least you know the fish are in the area, getting them to bite is another story. Although when fishing open water from the bank with little to no structure I fish baits at different depths to try locate the feeding fish. Ill fish one very shallow, one really deep and one in the middle. I do move them around based on my thoughts of where they are but this gives me a better idea of where the fish are moving around an I can position baits accordingly after a couple of runs. Drifting off boats is really becoming popular; although not a new technique it was just rarely used. We drift in water from 4ft deep to 30ft. These fish will often hold together in shallow water warming themselves in the sun, it’s an awesome sight to behold when a 30 pounder smashes a bait in 3 ft of water.
I hope this has shed at least a little light on the majesty that is the African Sharptooth Catfish and that you enjoyed reading a little about this fish. I hope to share more with you in the future.
Tight lines.
Rob Hellig (CatFish Africa).
No comments:
Post a Comment