The wife and I went on an anniversary trip to Africa in August. Fishing was not really much in the plans and was an after thought but we booked the day of our anniversary to do some. Originally I thought there were Tiger fish in the area but we found out that they were further North...like a long ways from where we were. We made out just fine though
Besides, catching a Tiger fish gives me a great excuse to go back.
The fishing stuff is in this post. For anyone interested in the trip highlights you can find that here:
http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=298269
The common fish then were catfish, bream and pike fish.
Catfish and bream under the deck of the lodge
I brought my six piece, 5 wt Reddington – which is why I bought it – fits easily into a suitcase
Heading out in the boat for fishing I was getting setup. I brought a few flies...mostly big streamers for Tigers but was improvising now for the other specieis. Our two guides, Robert and TH (TH for short because I couldn’t spell his long real name), were watching and chatting. I’m guessing they were thinking “yeah, like he knows what he is doing...”
Video of traveling to the fishing grounds
https://youtu.be/PmBPuKhQs3c
We arrive at a large lagoon. There is a group of hippos, fish surfacing, eagles, cormorants, herons...talk about sight and senses overload!
We started off fishing and the two guides setup with spinning gear. I was already good to go on fly gear. Just added one of their huge bobbers as a strike indicator.
Wasn’t too long before it was fish on! My fish catfish
https://youtu.be/7HcqiI4jx0M
A couple fish later I hooked something bigger...
https://youtu.be/Dif1EkGG3ns
What a fish on a 5 wt! Weighed in at 10 lbs.
After a couple of hours we moved onto another lagoon that was very shallow for bream and pike fish. They were jumping when we stopped. I put on some of my smaller streamers...it was a fish every cast. The fly rod setup was proving to the “da bomb”
Fish on!
A toothy pike fish
Good size bream
Myself and TH with bream...who’s is bigger...
After about an hour and half we had quite a lot of fish. The other guide Robert giggled like a school girl every time I landed another fish. We kept all 3 species including the biggest catfish and pike fish as well as 10 bream. Robert was poking fun at TH about his catching ability and a foreigner getting the best of him...and on my first visit. These two were a complete blast to be around and really made the day. In the end the count was 6 cats, 12 bream and 3 pike fish for me. I think their combined total was 1 cat, 1 bream and 1 pike fish.
We stopped at a nice spot to drink, celebrate and they cleaned the fish.
A mess o bream
A pike fish
That evening all the guests and staff had a great feed of fish. Bream are so amazing tasting and easy to cook up whole. Everyone got to eat fish that night and our 2 guides and staff shared the big cat.
Fishing the Okavango Delta
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