We’ve been really spoilt recently with the comfortable places we’ve stayed at along the Vaal River. Erkhamka was just as great, and in certain aspects it’ll be very difficult to beat. Here’s a quick summary of the fabulous 4 days we spent there.
Fishing
This is big fish country. The river is fairly wide and the deeper spots seem to be nearer to Erkhamka’s side (we we’re told that it drops to 5m right by the bank and then gets deeper). So we casted fairly shallow (40m) which is very beneficial when fishing in the river, especially when it’s flowing strongly.
Straightaway we knew we were not going to get consistent bites. It was going to be a bit slower but when we do get a run it was most likely going to be above average. This turned out to be very true, almost every fish we caught was a decent 4kgs or more. Here’s a few of the many.
The days were a bit slow but the runs came thick and fast at night though. It became very dangerous to leave the rods for more than 20mins to go braai quickly. Every now and then someone had to run down when his/her alarm started screaming, we almost lost a rod or two.
There are huge barbel as well which we regularly saw surfacing near us. We did try to catch them with chicken livers without much success but we got a few of them on floaties of all things. We caught a few mudfish too but zero yellowfish.
Accommodation
Erkhamka is situated directly opposite Vivere La Vita on the southern bank of Vaal River, about 30kms from Parys on a dirt road. It’s a large house with 6 comfortable rooms, and 4 bathrooms! The house is v-shaped with 3 rooms on either side and in middle there is a large open lounge/dining/kitchen area with everything you might need. What more could you ask for.
The fishing area is reached via a paved walkway down to the water where there are terraced lawns and lots of shady trees. A recent addition is a concrete platform out on the water which is very handy to land fish, launch a boat or just sit and enjoy the view.
We were treated to some spectacularly colourful sunsets, with the mountains really adding to the spectacle. It’s yet another beautiful Vaal River location…
Summary
Perfect accommodation and big fish. Not much else needs to be said, we will definitely be returning to this place.
We think it’s deeper on Erkhamka’s side so don’t cast too far. Floaties worked much better than mielies on this occasion, but that could just be because of some silt around. And almost any flavour worked but especially garlic and banana (or banlic :-)).
(4 days)
carp x12 (medium)
carp x10 (large)
mirror carp x1 (large)
barbel x4 (medium)
mudfish X2 (large)
Flamingo’s River Lodge – Vaal River
Nandini – Vaal River
Oppiwalle – Vaal River
The Dell – Vaal River
The Riverhouse – Vaal River
Vaal de Sioleh – Vaal River
Saw your blog about Da Gama dam. The canoe was ours that we lent to Loli.
We also live on the same property and have a self catering unit that we rent out on a daily basis.
We offer the canoes free to guests to use.
Hi Lorna,
What is your place called? We can list it on the site if you’d like.
Thanks for lending us the canoe, we wouldn’t have enjoyed ourselves as much without it.