Freeway Carping

All of us drive in our cars everyday, and for Carp anglers every piece of water that pass by catches your eye and your first thought is….I wonder if there are fish in that dam? I wonder if there are monster carp there?

Those who dare know the answers to those questions and others will never know.

We had those same thoughts about a dam that most Gauteng residents know very well. It sits on the side of the busy R21 and N1 intersection in Pretoria East. It used be known as the quarry dam before the property was sold to developers who bought this land and built a residential estate called Leisure Lakes. For residents living in the estate, the dam is open for any kind of leisure from swimming and cayaking to of course fishing.

The lake not only holds some pretty big Bass, hundreds of Barbel but is also home to a number of large resident Carp and even some colourful Koi. Legend has it that fish over 16kg have been caught before the property development began back in the Quarry days.

So, like most fanatical Carp anglers, the Karpioene found access to fish this mythical waters and sure enough were blessed with some awesome looking fish and also lost some potential monters in the process. It was hard work to get the fish but like all adventures it was worth every minute.

On this specific trip we only took photos but on another ocation we took our video cameras but struggled to get onto the fish. Here is that video link with some great shots of the water and also some other fishing sessions mixed into it.

And Here are some of the fish we caught at the Leisure Lakes or as we call it the R21 Dam.