Australian native eaten in Africa
Following uncle's post today about the whopper Murray cod found in Canning vale, here's one I came across myself in October. The story goes:
Every year I visit Lake Phobane in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province of South Africa (expat), to catch largemouth black bass (the type of fish in my avatar).
Now a couple of years ago, a private citizen who had some redclaw yabbies in a tank, started introducing them into the lake. They have flourished to the extent that I frequently catch Bass which have the yabby tentacles still sticking out of their gullets.
The first three picture show a rat of around 1.5kg, which has first regurgitated a "brush hog" (plastic creature bait) before being brought on board the boat. Sticking out of the gullet are the claws of a redclaw yabby, as well as some other angler's line, which the silly little bugger must have busted off fairly recently. He must have had a big appetite for a fish of his size!
The second to last picture is of a slightly better fish of around 2.5kg, just to illustrate what a largemouth black bass looks like. They are caught on soft plastics, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, swimbaits, jigs, surface lures etc. These fish are native to the USA, and were introduced to South African waters as sport fish around the 1920'S. Almost all dams and rivers in S.A. nowadays have bass in them. My P.B is a modest 4.22kg, but would still be considered a trophy fish in South Africa. In their native USA, they can reach 24lb, and bass fishing over there is a BIG $$$$ competitive sport.
The last picture is from 2011: Another rat which had regurgitated a half digested bird.
So, just like the Murray cod, they eat everything!
uncle
Posts: 9353
Date Joined: 10/02/07
pretty similar arn't they
have had to adapt, everything is food
all aggressive fish love bigjohnsjigs
Hutch
Posts: 2221
Date Joined: 21/04/13
Some nice LM bass there, I
Some nice LM bass there, I caught quite a few around that 1.5-2kg mark when we went back over christmas (Uncle's farm in Mooi River, KZN). They put up a nice fight on light gear and are definitely one of my favourite fish to target due to their ferocious appetite as you mentioned.
crasny1
Posts: 6986
Date Joined: 16/10/08
Pretty fish
And heard they go hard for size. Garbage guts though by the sound of it.
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bushbeaver
Posts: 159
Date Joined: 08/07/13
They will eat birds, snakes
They will eat birds, snakes rats, lizards, crabs, fish, frogs- anything that moves and gets within reach, especially in spring before the spawning season starts.
My favourite way of catching them is Z Man Streakz fished topwater on an unweighted 3/0 or 4/0 EWG worm hook (works on Tailor too), swimbaits as in the pic above, or deep diving crankbaits/bibbed minnows. Their fighting style is much like Barramundi, i.e will pull hard, try to put you in the snags or jump and try to shake the hook, but because they are much smaller, they don't go as hard. Pretty good fun on fairly light tackle though!