We kicked off with our brand new operation in Vanderkloof in November 2024. After some detailed planning and long term weather calls, we have decided that Vanderkloof is going to be a focal destination for us.

With an immense wilderness area covering over 14 000ha of water to hunt for the biggest Largemouth Yellowfish in the country, this place is the holy grail if you are looking to pin a true trophy. With this in mind, we began with our first trip to the incredible destination.

Arriving in town, you are greeted by one of the hidden gems of the Northern Cape. The town is a quaint sanctuary with friendly and welcoming residents with clean streets and amazing facilities for such a tiny town. Its old school charm with a bustling little economy.

Our first days were incredible with several 10lb fish brought to the boat by Jaco, Dirk and Werner. Werner got his best fish of 12lb and set up the trip to become a mind blower.

The next morning we split up and targeted completely different areas from the previous day, to explore and find out what structures held fish. Werner and Rob headed into a large bay an parked on a soft sandy beach, flanked by rocky shores on either side. Rob was busy anchoring the boat while Werner took a curious cast only 10m from where we had just moored the boat. He immediately went tight with a stunning 13lb fish. After the moments of disbelief and cheers we got the fish in the net, took some pics and sent her back. Rob went back to the boat laughing in dumbstruck bewilderment when the “Im on!” came from Werner. This fish was by far bigger and touched the 15lb mark. 2 casts and two trophy largemouth from the exact same spot!

The incredible part of this was when we returned here the next day, Rob had picked up his biggest Largemouth only 20m from this exact spot. Rob and Werner split up and went in opposite directions from the boat, within only 30-40 meters, a huge fish came cruising right along the bank towards Rob. A quiet moment of panic, some gear adjustments and a Muishond flicked just ahead of the fish, resulted in a vicious take and wild water thrashing! The fish pushed the scale to 15.3lb!

The same evening we headed back to a bay close to the town and Rob pinned another incredible fish of just on 15lb. The lights had officially been blown out! We were crusing around on the dam like we had just achieved godly status. little did we know what was about to happen…. not long after Robs fish, they got a frantic call from the other boat to get over there quick! Generally these calls are only bad, but in this case we weren’t prepared for what we were about to see.

We got to the other boat and found two bewildered and smiling fishermen. Jaco had landed a fish of 10kg on what could only be described as a featureless bank. In the late afternoon light, the beast calmly finned in the net, a true giant and a fish not many ever get to see, let alone catch! We all admired her in the net, got the pics and sent her off to keep the stocks and genetics going strong.

The totals for the trip were 78 Largies! with 15 fish over the 10lb mark and the biggest of 22lb. This was truly a wild introduction to this dam.

Our success has remained good on Largemouth with regular catches of 10lb plus fish, with the season moving into the cooler months, we expect that the bigger fish will be making a more regular appearance.

We have a selection of fish from the various trips below to get an idea of the variety and numbers of fish we have encountered over the first few months of this amazing season.

The Crazy part is that we haven’t even started on the mind blowing dry fly action…..