Known as one of the few Big Carp Venues in SA, Donaldson Dam Bottom lake is the perfect place to break a PB. The iconic tree line on the far side will always give away the location when anglers boast of new personal bests. The dam is situated just past Randfontein in the East Rand and is about the size of 3 or 4 Rugby fields. It has a small dam wall on the right with deeper water, a big bay in the middel and then the inlet section to the left. Anglers always try target the far side reeds and grass patches for the big fish even though some monsters have been caught all over the dam.
The Dam
It was stocked in the 1980’s sometime when the bank side used to be a popular family holiday resort. Today its very run down and the remains of the once glorious days can be seen in the ruins around the dam. The facilities are ok and there is a degree of maintenance but very little. The gate is run by the government and when there are other anglers around it can be relatively safe…but it remains Africa. The carp in there have grown to sizes over 20kg. The grass patches (sometimes almost completely overgrown with water grass) provide great shelter and food for these monsters and the large number of bass in the dam keep the smaller fish at bay.
Swims
We have had some success on the jetty swim – 4 or 5 and then on the other side of the bay fishing towards the pumphouse and surrounding grass and reeds areas. The other area that produces in spawn time is the inlet reeds section. Pre-booking is essential when you planning a trip and the bookinsg are always full (when looking at the booking sheet at the gate)
Bait
Particles have worked in the past – but lately the fish seem to love boilies a bit more
Psycho Original has produced the big ones for us and Psycho Skitzo has also been a winner. But a quality boilie should always do the trick.
When dropping your lines look for the open pockets in the grass and make sure you have a good snag leader to bully the fish out of there. Be ready for a wrestling match once that rod runs because these fish know their safe areas in the grass and the run straight into it. Also be ready to row in certain places because of the thick grass.
