Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Gillo
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Location: Main Ridge, Victoria (on the Mornington penninsula)

Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by Gillo » Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:18 am

In September last year a good friend and I went on a fishing trip of a lifetime. I had sold my business earlier in the year and wanted to mark the occasion with a really special and unique overseas trip, we had weighed up Peacock Bass in the Amazon, Dorado in Argentina but the mighty Tiger Fish of Africa won out. After months of research, I booked a six night stay in a bush camp on the lower Zambezi where would have 5 days of fishing. My friend who was coming from Canberra met me at Sydney Airport where we boarded a flight to Johannesberg it's fair to say we were pretty pumped.


Our flight to us over some ice flows near Antarctica, and I snapped a few shots from the plane.
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We arrived in Johannesberg and after a bite and a few beers hit the sack, excited about seeing the Zambezi the next day. We took and early morning flight to Zambia and then boarded a very small Cessna to take us into the lower Zambezi. A shot of the terrain view from the plane.




Our first sighting of the Zambezi.

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Upon landing, we hopped into a four wheel drive with an open canopy and headed off through the bush, you couldn't keep the smile off our faces as we encountered our first elephant smashing through the brush. Our trip finished off with a 30 minute cruise down the river to camp. The river itself is massive, for those that have seen the Mississippi or even the Mekong Delta it has that kind of scale. The river forms the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, at that time of year your heading into the real hot months and she looked pretty dry already, interspersed with acacia trees. You could easily be somewhere in the malee country. That night after a few G&Ts at the bar we spoke fishing with a number of other guests and of course Tiger tactics, the excitment was intense I was absolutley busting to get on the water and swim some of the many lutes id brought over.

First day up at 5.30 and after a quick breakfast Mark and I were on the boat and off down the river with our guide, Issaacc. In terms of gear we both were using a 5pc Nitro 6kg (we were both too scared of being separated from our rods so we bought the 5pc for the trip and packed it in our suitcases). We both had two spools one with 20ib braid and the other 30ibs and we had a range of different sized leaders from 15-40 ibs. We were advised the average Tiger was around the 5 pound mark with an very good fish at 10ib and an absolute trophy at 15ibs. Our guid pulled up to our first fishing spot and pointed to a bank on our right, we would drift down stream casting our lures into the structure - logs, overhangs, eddies, etc... Well this was fishing we both understood having done a lot of native fishing in our lives.

My first lure chosen was a rapala x-rap, white with a rooster head. First cast was a beauty just half a meter off the bank and right into a nice eddy, two cranks of the reel and BANG. oh your joking, I'm on... And "on" is a pretty special experience when your talking about a Tiger Fish, he absolutley smashed the lure and within 2 seconds was cartwheeling across the top of the water, the power was incredible. He spat the lure and my heart dropped. Well thats not a bad start, I asked Issaacc how big he thought the fish was "about 5ibs" he replied. We spent the next few hours drifting the banks and casting at structure with our guide always keeping us off the bank at our most precise casting distance. We got a number of hits but just couldn't hook up. I had done a lot of research on this, apparently Tigers especially the smaller ones b/w 1-5ibs have a catch to hit rate of 10-1. They have incredibly tough mouths and will spit the hook more likely than not.

We continued to get hits and I lost another beauty, about 10ibs says Issaacc and by the time we were getting into afternoon territory I started to have that horrible feeling "could we come all this way and doughnut?". We tried lots of different lures and finally I got one on the boat, now he wasn't going to win any records but it was a tiger fish none the less, there were high fives and the monkey was off our backs.
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It was tough going to then, we had spent a lot of time working the grass islands that you find throughout the system and the drop offs. However when your flicking lures whilst watching pods of hippoes, elephants playing in the water and cheeky baboons shaking in the overhanging trees it never really get "tough".



In the afternoon we went back to focusing on the heavily structured banks and our luck change. I'd swapped lures to a lighter and shallower diving Yo-Zuri rooster head and the fish responded. It would prove to be the lure of the trip and one that had to be shared by both of us. Over the next few hours we pulled some lovely fish.
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I had dominated the day and ended up with our biggest fish at 7.5ibs. However after lending Mark the famouse Yo-Zuri the next day he "put on a concert " and landed fish at 6, 7, and 9 pounds. We were landing more and more fish once we found the big ones, they tend to go deep and not jump as much and spit the lure.
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Over the next few days of fishing we caught about 25 fish with the biggest going 11.5 Ibs (we both got one the same size so no could claim victory).

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And a few Vundu, the biggest going 25 ibs
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The Tiger is pound for pound the most exciting and best sport fish I've had the privilege to catch. We took hours and hours of footage on the go pros and captured some amazing moments. In between fishing trip we cruised around the park and saw plenty of amazing game including lions, elephants and leopards. To put it simply it was the experience of a lifetime.

drew 2
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by drew 2 » Sat Jan 03, 2015 7:24 am

What a great read & pic's,thanks for sharing :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Nasty set of choppers by the look of them :-o :lol:

Joker91
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by Joker91 » Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:24 am

That was an excellent read and glad to hear it all worked out mate.

You planning the next trip yet lol

kenenjee
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by kenenjee » Sat Jan 03, 2015 10:05 am

What an excitement filled experience. Sounds like the way you put it - experience of a lifetime. cheers.

David white
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by David white » Sat Jan 03, 2015 10:46 am

Thanks for the read mate- trip of a lifetime

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wokka1
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by wokka1 » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:10 pm

Great report, thanks for posting. Did the Vundu take lures ?

Gillo
Rank: Baitfish
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Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:18 am
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by Gillo » Sat Jan 03, 2015 1:18 pm

wokka1 wrote:Great report, thanks for posting. Did the Vundu take lures ?
No, they didn't. Occasionally they do, but these were a mid afternoon, few beers, save the shoulders and put on a running sinker fish. They actually took soap.

tuna tube
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by tuna tube » Sat Jan 03, 2015 8:02 pm

Trip of a lifetime! A great post! Good on you! And some nice fish
Cheers
The Tube

spudtrans
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by spudtrans » Sun Jan 04, 2015 8:53 am

wow wow wow, what else can you say.
what a fishing trip
thankyou

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davek
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Re: Tiger Fish - Zambezi River

Post by davek » Sun Jan 04, 2015 9:51 am

A very good read and good fish, well done, :good: cheers davo
It's an exhilarating feeling catching a fish
But it's an even better feeling releasing them

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