Woodstock Dam was the last stop on the BETT calendar for the 2011 season. The top 10 teams going into the event were not safe as the anglers just out of the top 10 were hungry to make the cut and the pressure was on.  The standings were set to change, and with reports of awesome pre-fishing, there would be no room for error.

With plenty of water to explore, an epic race to the hotspots ensued from the start with most teams running to the dam wall section, no less than 15kms from the launch. Garth and I made it to our starting spot  first thanks to the scintillating power of the Evinrude E-tec, only to discover that the water level had dropped by 2 feet. We had found a shallow gulley in practice that was loaded with giant spawners. Unfortunately the dropping water had pulled the majority of the fish out and although we boated 3 keepers off the spot, we needed to make a change. We started to run and gun, looking for active fish on isolated weed beds.

Before long we had a solid limit and knew we were only a few bites away from securing our spot in the qualifying 10 to fish the penultimate final event.  We stuck to our guns and culled fished throughout the day until we had a commanding limit touching 10kg’s. We made a final stop on an area where I had pulled off a big fish earlier in the day to see if we could better an already epic sack of fish. Fortune was on our side, the bite came and I reared back feeling the weight of a solid fish. I was using light spinning tackle so let the fish run clear of the cover before I got to work on putting her in the net. She was a beautiful egg-laden spawner and tipped the scales just shy of 3kg’s, pushing our bag weight to 11kg’s and putting us on the podium in 3rd place.

Much to our delight, this finish catapulted us to 3rd place in the league standings from an uncomfortable 8th place with the final event at Craigie Burn this month being the venue for the “no holds barred” climax of the season. The total purse for the final event will be in the region of R80 000 so watch this space!!

Grant Hewitt out!!