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It was exactly two years ago that we spent a weekend at Vaal de Sioleh. We had a great time back then, catching a lot of decent fish. So when another opportunity to go there came around we accepted immediately. Here is a brief summary of our latest visit.

Fishing

This time around the fishing was a bit slower during the first half of our visit but it got a lot better as the weekend progressed and the weather improved. We were also hampered by the impossible fishing spot available to the bush cabins. This changed when we moved to the river chalets on the second day.

As usual, our friends totally outfished us initially but we started catching up later on. We were catching small yellowfish and barbel almost at will and the odd muddy also made an appearance.  We eventually managed a few decent carp as well.

We were mostly using banana floats and at night garlic was the flavor of choice. Here are some of our catches…

So all in all not a bad fishing weekend. Not as great as the previous visit but still better than many other Vaal River trips.

Accommodation

As mentioned before the first night we stayed in the bush cabins. The cabins themselves are perfectly fine, you get what you pay for and these were the budget options. But the fishing area for these units is not ideal. It’s basically impossible to fish there. We were forced to share the larger area allocated to the family log hut and this was fairly uncomfortable since there were people staying there already. 

Luckily the next day we moved to the river cabins (where we had stayed before) and these were great. The fishing area is nicely lawned but with the Vaal River being quite low it was quite a challenge to land any fish with the steep embankment. Hopefully, this will change when the water level rises soon…

Summary

Another great stay at Vaal de Sioleh. The bush cabins were not really suited for fishing, especially with the river so low but as soon as we moved to the river cabins our weekend became a lot more enjoyable.