So, for anyone who's interested ............heres how it was.
Awesome setting for camping with family. Truly spectacular swimming holes and pools close to campsite and even better ones a bit further up the Ratels river. No fishing is allowed in the Ratels and I don't believe it holds any worthwhile fish anyhow.
The fish are at the Olifants river. It is a moerse big Hike getting there. Really far and the last bit is seriously steep -- like rock climbing steep.. All downhill getting there and all uphill on the way back. I figure I did more than 20 km's hiking to go hook a few. The view up the kloof from the look out point is beyond description --- like the gates to heaven . But access to the river is very limited because of serious overgrowth/ flood debris and HARDCORE bushwacking is required.
Having said that, I did have a blast!!!!!! I caught 9 fish in just over 3 hours on the river. Not exactly caning it , but at least I caught after such a heavy hike. They were consistently big bass, biggest bass I ever caught! Some sections were crystal clear and you could see the fish ....beautiful..... and swimming in the river to retreive wind up's in the trees on the other side was actually a pleasure .I would have liked to be more prepared and spend the whole day.
So, to sum up. You gotta be prepared to get bruised, scratched and beaten up to go fish there, but if you are , you won't be sorry. The fish are there ....and they're big. Be careful if you're on your own.......if you can't make it out ( for whatever reason) I'm afraid you'r f---ed !!