Will & Dre

We had allot of queries on the various fishing resorts around the Vaaldam and we eventually managed to free up a weekend in July to drive down to Rooiwalle, one of the many Vaaldam resorts in the Free State province of South Africa. I arrived late on a very cold winter morning and scouted the bank and surrounding areas for any sign of fish swimming around in the shallows. Except for a few birds and a stray dog, I had the bank to myself, Willem would only arrive later that evening and I took the time to walk around, paying close attention to the natural structures and activity in the water. I started preparing our target areas with a mixture of kidney beans and sweet corn., but with a temperature of 5 degrees Celsius I wasn’t expecting to much excitement in the hours to follow and started setting up the camp site. It was 13:30pm and the long wait started. Sitting back in my blue camping chair with a warm cup of coffee in one hand , I waited… and I waited … I finished my coffee… drank another cup of coffee … and waited. Without realising 3 hours passed. By now it was 16:00pm , Willem haven’t left Pretoria and my only hope was that I could at least interest a few carp with the plain white dough and banjo floats used as hook baits.

Willem arrived at 21:00pm and it was good to have someone to talk to. With a beer in hand and the fire warming up the camp site we discussed the strategy we would follow in the next few days. I was just about to share my failed attempts of the day when the reel on my left rod started running. 2 minutes later I posed with a small carp, feeling the relieve of not blanking in the middle of winter.

In the days that followed we targeted our prepared areas and caught a total of 6 fish in temperatures ranging between -4 and 6 degrees Celsius at a distance of 50 to70 meters , all at night.