During late November we explored yet another beautiful part of our stunning country. This time we were in the Western Cape travelling along a section of the famous Route 62 from Oudtshoorn to Barrydale.
Unfortunately, finding fishing venues in this area is not easy. There are dams like Calitzdorp Dam and Stompdrift Dam, but accommodation (with fishing) is few and far between. In the end, and totally by accident, we stumbled across two farms that offered everything we were looking for, The Great Escape and Plaas Wegbreek.
Since we were coming from WIlderness our first stop was The Great Escape…
Accommodation
Not too far from Oudtshoorn, lies The Great Escape (aka Beveras). You travel quite far down a dirt road (Zebra turn-off), but it’s all worth it when you reach the serene location. It’s basically an old farmhouse that has been revamped, sitting right on the banks of a delightful dam, with mountains in the background.
The house is divided into 2 private sections, each with a kitchen, inside braai, and a separate bedroom. The bathroom facilities are outside, just behind the main house. Outside you have a large porch with more braais, nicely sheltered from the Karoo wind. And there is even a hot tub on a small hill overlooking the dam. The lawns are manicured all the way to the water.
The dam itself is of a decent size and has lots of structure all around the edges. Getting to some parts isn’t possible from the side, but luckily there was a canoe that we could use. The owners added a sort of outrigger to it for extra stability, which was a nice touch.
So as soon as we were settled we hopped onto that to go see if there were any fish around. And we were quickly rewarded.
Fishing
Right from the start we started catching small bass almost everywhere. It was as if they had never seen the lures we were using. From craws to flukes to frogs, they were just gobbling up whatever landed in the water. We must have caught at least 60 on our first day which was really impressive for the size of the dam.
We also caught the odd bigger bass in between the chaos of the ravenous smaller ones. There weren’t many but again considering the conditions it was really impressive, and they gave us some proper fights. It was a good thing the canoe had those stabilizers.
The next day, after another successful morning, the owner invited us to go and see the other dam on the property. To our astonishment the second dam was at least twice as big, and as we walked towards the water you could see schools of bass swimming around! We were in heaven.
Here we didn’t have a boat, but it didn’t matter, the whole bank was easily accessible. Using small flukes we each caught a bass with each of our first 5 casts. It was just too easy in the crystal clear water. Again the smaller bass were just insatiable, but we did see a very big bass caught by one of the farm workers, so they are around.
In the end we stayed there the whole day catching tons of fish and having a great time.
Summary
An unexpectedly scenic and lucrative first venue on our Klein Karoo trip. The fishing was great, and the comfortable accommodation catered for everything we need. The second dam was a huge surprise and we’ll need to return to explore it properly.
Finally here is a map of our travels on this trip including our second venue, Plaas Wegbreek.
(2 days)
bass x100 (small)
bass x4 (medium)
