2015 - The Year of the Fat Vlei Kurper

I've been catching loads of fat, round and healthy Vlei Kurpers/Banded Tilapias this year on lure.

A healthy specimen from a not-so-healthy small Joburg dam.

Still haven't hooked into the really big one of bigger than 20 centimeters, but the year is still young.

The Erratic Jerk

DIY Catfish Lead Head Lure

As a competitive artlure angler I saw the benefit and advantage in creating my own custom lead heads/loodkoppe … whatever you want to call them for catching catfish/barbel and carp in South African waters.

My Inspiration  

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I did a lot of online research and pulled in a lot of ideas from various facets of angling, and finally I started to make the first prototypes.

I didn’t want to be limited to a mould, as I wanted the freedom to be able to make lead heads with different hook sizes and weights. So I decided to use items that one could easily buy from almost any tackle shop, and tools and items from around the home.

I’m going to show how I make a large catfish lead head, but hooks, weights and materials can easily be scaled up and down as required to make smaller ones for carp.

The Shopping List

Size 4/0 strong, long-shank, wide gap hooks (e.g. Mustad 34007 or Mustad 4826A)

18 gram (+/- 5/8 oz) round ball sinker weights (various sizes available in the rock & surf or papgooi sections in tackle shops)

That’s about all the terminal tackle you’ll need …