My dad and I recently decided to go test the waters once again at the old RAU university campus, which had been abandoned many years back. I'm guessing the upkeep of the facility became costly judging by all the abandoned and wrecked structures amongst the innlands on the dam. We go there every year, and to our surprise this year there was almost no space along the bank to fish. Many anglers were there, but few had keep nets in the water. However, we went out and set out a nice feeding ground. Within 2 hours of being there, my dad landed a nice 7-8kg common carp. And the bites never stopped there. We ended up pulling out various sizes, ranging from 2kg to 7-8kg being the biggest over a one night stay. We must have caught near 20 fish over the time we stayed. I wasn't very impressed with myself as I lost 2 very nice size fish, of which both were carp. My dad on the other hand, pulled out the rest of them. Sadly the weather turned sour during our stay, and it stormed quite badly the night we camped over. During all this, we caught 2 very fine specimen of cats! We weren't fishing specifically for cats, as my dad prefers catfish. The one cat (the bigger cat weighing in at 9.9kg) took both hooks baited with pap and millies. I do have photo's on my s4, and if requested I'll gladly post them. We were surprised at the cats taking the bait as we weren't exactly fishing for them. The second cat, weighing in at about 7kg, was caught on live bait. We had no idea it was on the line until my brother decided to reel in the rod as it had been left overnight during the storm. The only problem with this part of the dam is all the grass at the bottom from the banks rising. We lost a good few nice sized fish because we kept getting stuck and losing them. So we eventually changed our rigs and from there, had little issues. We left the next day, and my brother claims he caught a 12kg carp after we left. However, he has no photo's to prove it! So.. No photo's, no fish in my opinion! It's a nice area to fish in, and the landing is promising considering you know the tactics of the specific area of the vaal you're fishing. For anyone who wouldn't mind roughing it up in the bush, go give it a bash! It's worth trying.
Old RAU vaal dam
- Thread starter Sinobiah
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