Annual Bivane Trip

[Baarsmeister]

I'm off to Bivane again, and its becoming a yearly thing where I take my leave to escape after the December madness.

Ninja has been there and his report can be found here: <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.bassfishing.co.za/bassingnews/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6789&highlight=bivane">modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6789&highlight=bivane</a><!-- l -->

The dam is pretty full after massive amounts of rain we had. Currently it is 101.07% full and finally i have a way of getting on the water.(mini pontoon kickboat)

Im not sure which date would be best to book, looking at the weather it seems very rainy:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.yr.no/place/South_Africa/KwaZulu-Natal/Bivane~1019268/long.html">http://www.yr.no/place/South_Africa/Kwa ... /long.html</a><!-- m -->

The lunar calenders don't seem to be too promising: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.fishingnet.co.za/calendar/">http://www.fishingnet.co.za/calendar/</a><!-- m -->

What date would you guys advise between the 21st and 27th?

Because the dam is pretty damn deep and is very rocky with odd spots with submerged timber, what sort of setups would you recommend with the coming cloudy weather?

Ive recently upgraded my arsenal with several jigs in different weights and colours, 1oz spinnerbait (deeper water), addional casting rod with 20lb flouro for taking on the heavier wood cover.

I want to try a bit of offshore bassing later during the day when the bass moves to deeper structures. I dont have a fish finder but hopefully I can estimate some structure looking at google earth and studying way the hills roll out into the dam. Any body got some tips / information about fishing deeper structure?

[Baarsmeister]

Ive gone to Google earth..

And when you switch the view from satellite view to map view and you enable the topographic view...it gives you more or less the depth of the underwater structure. It's almost like the aerial relief map was taken before the dam was built and the normal image overlay when its full of water was taken later.

Don't know how accurate it is...but something interesting.

[Q]

Can't help you with the dam, but if you got Google Earth (the downloaded version) and not Google Map (the online version), you can go back in history of satellite photos. Sometimes you lucky and will see the dam at low level, showing structure.

[Ninja]

Good news about the dam level!

Good luck with the trip, looking forward to the feedback.Ii must go there when the dam is full like that, the accommodation is stunning! :blue-cool:

[Southpaw]

<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.streetmaps.co.za">www.streetmaps.co.za</a><!-- w --> has good aerial photography of the dam.

Enjoy the trip, looking forward to the report.

[Baarsmeister]

Don't you just hate sitting at work a few days before your leave officially starts and all the important things are sorted and you just got to wait....

Hopefully I will make this trip more successful than the previous where we had to "abseil" those massive boulders around the dam to get our lines in the water.

Sometimes being armgat can be adventurous :blue-lol:

I have found some info on other forums where the drop offs more or less are and where I will be heading to sneak up on the Umlomo Makulu