Venue Review Fancy Free by Terence Babich

This will be the first of hopefully many inserts to come. My wife and I will be reviewing different venues and reporting back on what they are like. Some will just be for fishability and some both accomodation and fishability. Men don't always get to fish alone and besides Fathers and Mothers Day coming once a year, family days are everyday.

So a short while ago I got to visit this venue located between Dullstroom and Belfast. It's a little off the beaten track done a sandy road by nothing my wifes BMW couldn't handle. The venue is situated on a small stream and has nine dams of varing size. Some of them are bigg enough to float tube on and large enought to not feel on top of the nearest flyfisherman. The dams are also all accessible by vehicle.

Accomodation in my opinion is fantastic and more than adequate for fishers and in fact the family. The house we stayed in had a really good fireplace and my wife made sure that she used all 10 bags of wood to keep us warm! A very welcome feeling when it is a bit chilly and with more cold expected as the cold front moved in. Despite the cold front there were some good fish about. I caught most on black wooly buggers while my brother caught on GRHE's. Some of my other friends found success with anything orange.

What I particularly like about this venue is that it has it's own hatchery. This means that they are able to constantly stock their dams as required.

Vaughn Coombes, the host, is very enthusiastic about everything fishing and this certianly added an extra dimension to out stay there. Vaughn took us on a tour of the hatchery which I found very interesting.

The venue is very popular and booking in advance would be a good idea.

Contact Vaughn Coombes on 082 901 8961 i nfo@fancyfree.co.za

If you want your venue reviewed contact me on 083 867 6423 or on email tbflyfish@gmail.com.