Vagabonds in Africa - Tigerfishing

[Vagabond]

Southern Africa has one big advantage over The Americas and the Indo-Pacific. To get there from the UK you fly straight (or nearly straight) down a line of longitude. It takes ten to twelve hours, and you can do it overnight. Get on plane, eat, sleep, eat again, get off plane, and hey presto, its morning, you are in Africa, and there is no jet lag to mar the first day or so.

So down the longitude from Gatwick to Windhoek – the Namibian capital, for the start of our month-long DIY safari.

We like to do things on our own – so our party will contain no “reps”, no non-anglers, no bloody greenies, and above all no bloody know-all, alternative-therapy, leather-elbow-patched, lettuce-nibbling lefties.

So we rent a Land Rover Discovery 3, toss in the binoculars, a telescope, a load of fishing gear, cameras, hiking boots, a map, a ten gallon container of water, a tool kit and a very few spare clothes. No guide, no tourist bus, no special treatment. We can chose to stop where and when we like, even change our plans if we want to.

We can eat in a posh restaurant or exist on biltong, tomatoes, bread and water al fresco, we can sleep in comfy lodge beds or in a jungle hut – even in the car if desperate (that wasn’t necessary though). The only real constraints are to arrive on the right day at those places where we have booked fishing.

Namibia and West Botswana have long, straight, empty roads, disappearing into nothingness – the heat haze makes the horizon invisible. But beware complacency on the empty roads – game can step out of the bush anywhere, and if you do see another vehicle, be aware that Namibians are the world’s worst drivers – crazier than the Greeks, more reckless than the Portuguese. The insurance disclaimers on the hire agreement reinforced that view. We took minimal insurance and adopted a deeply defensive driving strategy.

Most Namibian gravel roads are good, but we had to negotiate some soft sand, some dry river beds, and some extremely steep and rocky terrain. The Disco 3 multi-purpose off-road systems (six options obtainable at the turn of a switch) took care of all that – it wasn’t even necessary to reduce tyre pressure in deep soft sand. Earlier this year, I had spent a day on Land Rover’s assault course near Ashford in a Disco 3 and that familiarisation proved very useful. A month’s driving in the Disco 3 convinced me – I want one!

From Windhoek we drove north to the boundary between Namibia and Angola

The Okavango River rises in the mountains of Angola, and flows southward until it meets the northern boundary of Namibia. It then turns east, forming the border between these two countries, before crossing the northeast corner of Namibia and turning south-east into Botswana. Instead of flowing into the sea, it flows into the Kalahari Desert, forming a delta, which spreads out to the point where the searing heat of the Kalahari evaporates the water at a faster rate than the fresh supply coming down the river – it just disappears! The actual boundary where the delta disappears varies with the input from the source in Angola. During the Angolan wet season the delta penetrates further southward.

We turned east along the Okavango, and followed the south bank until it entered Botswana. We were to fish the river just before it fans outward into the delta.

The river is inhabited by hippo, crocodiles, several species of catfish, dozens of species of tilapia and other cichlids, lots of small barbs, mastacembelid eels, but above all, by the African Tigerfish.

The “tigers” of the Okavango average about 2 to 5 lb, with anything over 7 lb being considered a good fish. The other major predator is the sharp-toothed catfish, which run to over 20 lb. During October/November the catfish shoal up, and chase the smaller bait species into bays in the very thick papyrus and reed beds that fringe the river. The Tigers lurk behind the catfish, and eat anything less than half their size.

The first objective was to get a supply of small fish as bait, so tiny worms and small hooks were used for that purpose (I will put some pictures of these bait fish on a separate thread)

Having got a supply of livebait, we went tiger fishing!

We were “off the mark” in a very short time – here are shots of two of our “trophy” tigers.





…and a little one on a “Snatcher” fly.




And several sharptoothed catfish each – I got the best one of 20 lb


and Norma's (Certhia's) best one.



To cut a long story short, we caught tigers every one of the six days we fished, and catfish most days.
In addition to the fishing, the bird life was abundant – African Skimmers (like huge terns) were the most spectacular. There are three species of Skimmer in the world. Indian, South American, and African – we have now seen all three.

Tigers can be difficult to hook – many times the hook will simply be wedged between the teeth and the fish shakes it free. Bite-offs occur from time to time – not by the fish you are playing, but by its mates. When you hook a tiger it ejects the bait, up over the wire trace and onto the line. Other tigers see the bait threaded on the main line, and take it, biting through the main line in the process. We saw this actually happen twice at close range.

We finished up with several fish that Lionel Song, our guide, considered of “trophy” size (but we returned every one). The best Tigerfish was this one - it smashed Norma’s rod just before netting (definitely not her fault as she had a full quarter circle bend on and it broke the joint above the butt of a 4-piece rod).

Huge in the net

Huge teeth



Lionel was so excited by this one that he wouldn’t let go of it! At 16 lb the best fish he has seen or heard of from the Okavango (they go to 25 lb in the Zambezi, but that’s another story)




Lionel proved the keenest and most hard-working guide we have ever had – literally trying to get us onto fish or birds from dawn to dusk – none of the nine-to-five attitude that so many guides have. We can thoroughly recommend both Lionel and Tourette, and would certainly go with this outfit again.

After our fishing, we came back into Namibia and explored the Etosha National Park – an area the size of Switzerland. The thick bush gave way to a huge salt pan (80 miles across!!) as we went westward, then gave way to the Namib desert. Our main purpose here was to locate the specialist endemic birds of this region. It meant seeking out waterholes where various species of sand-grouse and other rarities such as blue cranes came in to drink. In the course of looking for the birds, we saw a huge variety of other wildlife – much more, I suspect, than most “safari tours” see.

Whenever we saw such a tourist party, they were gawping at lions – but in addition to lion we saw many of the small cats, mongooses and other small carnivores that most people miss, African Wild Cat (a pair), Genet, Servaline Cat, Cape Grey Mongoose, Striped Mongoose and more. Several close encounters with elephant and rhino, and one with buffalo. There were antelopes galore, springbok, steenbok, gemsbok, kudu, hartebeeste and wildebeeste. Most of the animals and birds were recorded on Norma’s video camera, but I did take a few still shots.

We finished the tour with 15 species of fish caught (14 new for my world species hunt, which has now reached 402 species - that would be 603 points with photos!) 293 species of birds (our world list is now approaching 4000) and we are still working on the identification of all the four-legged creatures we saw.

Then we drove down to Walvis Bay for some beach fishing. (See Sea Forum)

[fishypaul]

another entertaining read,well done on some superb fish both of you,

love them tiger fish teeth !!

[pingu]

thats an awsome set of teeth

and a superb read thanks vagabond


dave

[mithrandir]

another excellent report, and some lovely fish there.

[Norfolkboy]

Awesome stuff

[Lman]

great stuff some nice fish and a cracking report

[Twiddler]

......another fantastic read and some cracking fish.....and there is me worrying about the teeth of a pike.....those teeth look scary

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Wow loved reading that looks fab.

[wellyfish]

yet another great report from a great angler well done to you both again ,great looking fish but i bet unhooking them has its hazzards

[Vagabond]

Originally Posted by wellyfish

great looking fish but i bet unhooking them has its hazzards

No worse than pike really, but reviving them (they fight until they are exhausted, then when they see the boat they fight some more) definitely has its hazards - this is crocodile country and crocs will eat tiger fish!