So Friday afternoon came around I knocked off work a bit early to leave for the Vaal Dam, my first time there. In the car with me was Assalient, my mate Chris and we were meeting Gavin and his lady and Sean who arrived at 10am earlier
that day. I was amped and excited, it was the longest 151kms of my life, but we eventually arrived at 19h20 and quickly set up and threw the carp rods in to see what we could get. Sean and Gavin had already got about 20 fish when we
rocked up, Smallmouth Yellows, Muddies, Common Carp, Mirror Carp and 1 strange looking fish, think its a form of a Ghost Carp. They also had a 5kg and an 8kg Barbel which they got on muddie heads.
Friday night was a blank for me and I eventually went to bed at around midnight. Was woken up early to the beautiful noise of a penn 500. Sean quickly set the hook and proceeded to reel in another barbel, 6.5kgs. I then quickly rebaited
my rods and threw them in. I decided to use the baits that they were using as my Almond Mealies and Honey Floats hadnt done much. I casted them in and 10 minutes later I landed my first ever Mudfish, tiny but it was awesome, kept it and
rowed out half the muddie into a deep spot about 300 meters out on my Elbe Estuary Pro and Daiwa Opus 6000. That rod was in the water until we left on Sunday afternoon with the bait untouched.
The fish started to feed really nicely and we caught lots of carp and a few big Mudfish and then the wind got up and it was freezing and it was quiet for a long time until the penn went screaming off once more, it was a big barbel we had
to row out to get it and then the highlight of the trip, Barbel of exactly 10kgs caught by Gavin... What a fish!!!!!!
That was it for the night and we woke up Sunday and caught a few nice fish including a 2.5kg Grass Carp, and a nice size Smallmouth Yellowfish.
I ended up with 6 fish and Assalient got 3... Better than nothing even though we were outfished! Was great fun and great fishing! The stuff that worked was plain dough, and sweet dough with banana and vanilla essence with a mixture of
plain and vaaldam supercast feed.
Definitely going back there in the new year!
Seans Barbel
Gavin with a Mirror Carp
My first Carp of the trip
Assalients first fish of the trip
My biggest Carp, 2.1 kgs
Nice Muddie caught by Chris
Ghost Carp
10kg Barbel
Great fishing
