by
Johan van der Westhuizen |
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It was on a Wednesday afternoon that I got the
phone call from my friend Guy who was doing a study at a local
dam on water sediments and African clawed frogs or
Platannas/Platties as we
know them from University. He was very excited and I soon found out why.
Guy was telling me of a gigantic
common carp that he had found dead along the shores of the dam
he was visiting. At
first I thought he was joking about the size of the fish but from the tone
of his voice I soon realized that
he was dead serious. I had to see it for myself.
He asked me to bring a big plastic container with for transporting
the fish. According to him the cooler box we normally use for 'camping'
purposes would be too
small, so I made a few phone calls and got the biggest plastic container
I could from a friend
of mine at the university. I headed off to the dam very anxious to
see the carp.
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The author with the carp that was found
dead at a local dam |
Upon my arrival I saw a big 'thing' lying on the shore but thought
that it
was some of Guy's nets or equipment. Upon closer inspection and
to my surprise I saw that it actually was the carp. For a while I just stood
there admiring the immense size of the fish. Guy told me it was massive but
I just could not picture it to be this big. I have seen and
caught a couple of big carp in this dam before but at that stage I never
really expected the dam to have carp bigger than the 7 kilogram ones I got
used to.
Guy was on his rubber duck when he noticed something
near the bank that looked like a big fish. This dam produced barbel in the 25-30
kilogram category before so initially he thought that it was a
big barbel. Upon closer inspection he found it to be a carp and a very big
one.
Based on the pictures I saw in magazines from overseas and the
photos I saw of carp caught at Klaserie dam, I estimated it's weight to be
more than 20 kilograms.
After lots of speculation we tried to weigh
the fish by putting it in a big 50 kg bag (streepsak) as we had no
other means to attach it to the scale. I brought my fishing
scale with but to
our surprise the 22 kg's or 50 lbs scale's needle went right past
the magical mark of 50 lbs. We then decided to take the fish to a
local veterinarian in Cape Town who we knew had an electronic scale
for weighing dogs and other animals.
On arrival we weighed the carp and the
digits settled on 29.8 kg or 65.56 lbs, a real monster which
measured 1.32 m in length and had a girth of 1.10 m.
After the weighing process
I then took the fish to the university for
analysis as to determine the cause of death. I wanted to know if
it died of old age or maybe a disease. Soon enough I was told that it died of a
fairly common disease
that can occur in all our waters.
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The carp measured 1.32 m in length with a
girth of 1.10 m |
As you can see from the picture the
fish was in a very bad state but I can assure you that it is still an amazing feeling to see such
a big carp.
In all my carp fishing years and experience I've never come
across something like this or even expected to see such a big
carp. I thought carp of this size only existed in magazines and
'blown up' pictures.
Seeing the carp got me hooked! I decided there and then
that I only want to catch these monster carp and I therefore started
fishing for carp European style. I read each and every magazine on
this topic and soon afterwards I got the results I was looking for.
When fishing any dam you always speculate about its potential.
Having seen proof of the monsters inhabiting our dams in
the Western Cape it added a new sense of believe to all my
fishing trips. I believe we have monsters in our dams; I believe
I am going to catch one soon...
A few months later we found another dead, even bigger one, but that's
a story for another time.
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