The caption for this month’s article probably looks quite contradictory, because we all know by now that big baits are preferred when targeting big bass. For sure, that is conventional wisdom, a tried and tested recipe.
 But – we are not talking baits here; rather we are talking about the size of the lake. A lot of our bassing this year has been in small waters, private farm dams and mini lakes in certain towns. The largest lake is perhaps half a hectare in extent, and have enjoyed catching a good quantity of fish. On one of these lakes the third largest pulled our scale to 1,8kg – more on the two largest later on.  There have also been several fish between one and one and a half kilograms, and of course quite a lot of smaller fish.
 Certainly these small man-made lakes are not quite what we would term prime big bass waters, and no competition organiser will ever think of staging a tournament on them, but they nevertheless have provided us with hours of bassing fun, which we think is what it should be all about.     
 It also prompted us to delve into our logbooks, in particular those that we kept when on our trips to the States. Talk bassing in the States and immediately massive lakes come to mind with hair raising trips of fifty and more miles to hammer out on a big bass boat, but those huge lakes are not the beginning and end of bassing in the States. In one of those logbooks, dated - well never mind(!) - we came across an entry that was made after a morning outing on a farm dam, or as the Americans prefer to call it, ranch lake. We were spending a few days at a guest ranch in eastern Texas in between tournaments – not national events but the ones put on every weekend in towns and cities across the country – and not being particularly interested in getting onto a horse and chasing around the cattle, we preferred to amble down to the lake a few hundred yards from the lodge and cast a line.
 Our host confirmed that the lake held a good population of bass, and for a few dollars we could hire the services of the “bassin’ feller”, as he put it. Which we did, and those few dollars proved a very good investment indeed. The guide walked us to various spots around the lake, which was about five hectares, and after getting quite a few nice bass off the bank he put us in a wooden johnboat and targeted the islands that dotted the lake. The tactics and baits he recommended were nothing new and there were no “secret tactics” that he used, and we did get quite a few six pounders and even one that went over seven pounds. 
 The actual point of this is that in our conversations with him it became quite clear that he hardly ever fished in any of the big bass lakes. Neither did his circle of bass buddies. He was quite adamant that “real” bassing, or “troo bassin’” as he called it, was bass fishing in small waters and not “in them great lakes full of boats ‘n things!” But what about really big fish? - we wanted to know.
 What followed as a mini lecture on the ecology of bass – if the lake had a good supply of food all year round, good quality water, sufficient vegetation in the water and on the shore, and the fish stocks were managed properly, then the size of the lake was not that critical at all. Besides, he said, on those great lakes you never saw anyone fishing out in the lake, they all targeted the bays and inlets close to the shore. End of mini lecture! Of course all the basic bass fishing tactics apply, no matter what the size of the lake.
 But back to those two biggest fish mentioned earlier. We had been patrolling the banks, casting parallel to patches of reeds and water grass using the usual array of baits, but there are always certain spots that just cannot be reached off the bank, an even if the catch rate is quite okay we all want to “try that spot out there!” And there was just such a spot, a reed bed about forty metres away that try as we did we could not reach.
 So we off loaded the car topper and electric motor and set off, eventually positioning the little boat so that we had several casting directions on offer, which meant that we could fish that spot from just about any direction. Which we did, and within an hour boated the two biggest fish of the day, one of just on 2,2kg and the other one slightly larger at 2,7kg. Which we are sure you will agree is not bad at all, considering that this was out of a “small” lake!
 Back home after the day we compared the day’s fishing with the logbook entries of that day on the Texas ranch, and apart from the tactics and baits we had used, we saw that our little local lake did indeed have all the attributes as mentioned by the guide.
 We cannot reveal where this particular small water is but it is not more than thirty minutes away from where we live. The water quality appears to be good with good underwater visibility, there is a lot of vegetation such as reeds, water grass and so on, and there is certainly more than sufficient food in it for the fish. The schools of vlei kurper we saw, and the crabs in the shallows were proof of this.
 The point of all this is that you do not need to visit our large, public dams to go bass fishing! There are hundreds of small dams – from now on we prefer to call them lakes, or mini lakes if you will, all over the country – in towns and cities, on farms, indeed if you take the trouble you will probably discover bass waters within walking distance even!
 The point must also be made that when all the natural conditions are in place, the chances are very real that big bass will be there as well, so don’t make the mistake of thinking “small water equals small or light tackle”.
 Big bass are everywhere. Go get ‘em!                            

*’Bassaholic’ is the pseudonym used by two veteran bassers who have traveled many kilometers and spent countless hours in search of bassing action. They have caught bass in the States and in Africa, both in competition and just for recreation, and now offer their insights and experiences to readers in the hopes that it will help them become better bass anglers. Their motto: “Fish better, catch better!”