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Created on Friday, 30 December 2011 14:57

A Mozambican fishing story: trials and tribulations

I always get suckered by my adrenaline junkie brother, canoeing the Orange river, rafting the Zambezi, camping in Botswana, all successfully negotiated in the past years with relatively little damage to ourselves. That fact though does not apply to the equipment, on the Orange River we did manage to destroy two boats in two trips and on the Zambezi our raft had to undergo repairs after we had finished with it. All of this ignored, I agreed to a fishing trip in Mozambique, on a boat, I guess we never learn.

Growing up in Johannesburg, a long way from any substantial body of water, meant my brother, Stef, and I have no practical experience regarding the great oceans and boats. As a matter of fact, the closest I ever got to a rubber duck was in the bath, even that experience is limited, as we are a showering type of family. Nevertheless, Stef decides that a boat is exactly what he needs to fulfill his adrenaline fix. Having bought a semi-rigid duck, he completes his ticket and enjoys various family outings on the placid waters that are found in Gauteng. Then the imagination kicks in, fishing on the boat, good idea, but where? Never being a person of limited imagination, all the “easy options” are discarded and Mozambique with its promise of game fish galore is his destination of choice.

I am not suggesting that Mozambique is a difficult place to get to, but one would think that never having fished from a boat, a little practice closer to home would be a good idea. Nah, if we are to go fishing then only the best place will do and as usual he places the phone call to my number with an invite. Now, being a keen fisherman with little luck and/or ability, the idea of  klapping fish after fish in a warm tropical climate appeals to my sense of adventure, anyway what could possibly go wrong? Stef has passed his sea going exam, the boat is in good shape and all I have to do is get from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Great, I am in, when? Perfect, back just in time for my wife’s birthday, the Gods are smiling on our little quest for fish. In retrospect, I think the Gods where laughing at our ignorant exuberance rather than smiling, big belly laughs.

The day of departure nearing we begin to align our ducks. Fishing tackle is inspected, the boat goes for a service, visas are obtained, all in all everything is going swimmingly. Having recruited two more suckers, Robbie, who is a respected bass fisherman with little sea fishing experience and Marco a respected party animal with no fishing experience at all, who are we to judge, everything is in place. In retrospect, our companions did nothing to improve our catch rate, but they did make the entire trip a laugh a minute affair. The drive to Barra Lodge, near Inhambane, was long and arduous, 4 hours to the border, a little nap waiting for it to open, 3 hours to get through and then what seemed and endless drive on Mozambique’s finest roads. The tar strips are barely wide enough to accommodate the boat trailer, overtaking is hair raising to say  the least and the vehicles utilizing these roads are a sight to behold. Arriving in the early evening we are pumped and eager for our first foray into the great unknown, we unpack the tons of equipment, rods, reels and enough lures to endanger an entire species. Morning is around the corner and we can’t wait so we have a couple of drinks to sooth the nerves, a couple more and tomorrow arrives far too quickly. At sunrise with a slight hangover we are on the beach and ready to launch. The sequence of events that follow teach us an invaluable lesson about boating experience, how valuable it is and how little we know, in truth these events make us look like morons.

Having studied the technique and place for our first beach launch by watching others, we decide we are ready, anyway it doesn’t seem too hard. We also decide that we have a better idea, by keeping the trailer on the horizontal we can reverse, brake sharply, and the boat should slide off and into the water. Good in theory but disastrous in reality, reverse, brake, bang. Having unhitched the trailer the previous evening we forgot to secure it, the result was a wet trailer and a destroyed electric cable. At the time we regarded this as a minor mishap, we should have seen the signs, anyway we have a week to fix the cable so we leave it, park the car and wrestle the boat into the water. Considering that the tide is outgoing, it takes longer than anticipated, by the time we are underway the sun is in mid sky. Expectant, we begin tying lures on to our rods, why we did not do this the night before is beyond us. Tying a knot on the end of a line in a lurching boat is not easy, especially if one suffers from motion sickness. Fearing to be considered a party pooper, I keep my nausea to myself, lo and behold, we all suffer from motion sickness. Within half an hour I believe I am going to die and cannot wait for it to happen, we decide to stay within sight of land patrolling the back line, we have no idea where the fish are anyway. Fortunately we all feel slightly green so after a little while we decide to go back in, thank God. After scouting for a way back to the beach, we pick a line and accelerate, straight into a sandbank 200 metres from the shore. Someone screams that we are going to flip so we abandon Stef on the boat and jump overboard into 20 centimetres of water. Realising that the only injury is to our pride, we push the boat off the bank and walk to shore finding a suitable channel on the way. The next re-entry is spot-on and Stef lands the boat without further problem. Once on the beach we assume our tribulations are over, but this is not to be. Get the car, tie the rope to the boat and pull it out, sounds simple but the only thing we hear is the twang of a snapped rope which fortunately does not injure anyone. Damn, try again, double rope and pull. Twang, the steel clip shatters this time. New rope and finally we get the boat out. All in all it took us four hours of labour for less than an hour on the water. No matter, we will get better.

Did we get better? To an extent yes, our launches progressed to an acceptable level and our re-entries efficient, but we still had our share of “fun” on the water. Next time out we came within seconds of capsizing a long way from shore, the evasive action taken meant that I slipped and fell, giving my ribs a mighty crack on one of the reels. One advantage of intense pain is that the motion sickness is forgotten, next time I will hammer my fingers. One aspect that never improved was our fishing, having trolled blindly for days, we sought advice from a regular fisherman in these waters and he kindly helped us with co-ordinates to a reef. The week was drawing to a close fast and this was our last chance.

We set off full of hope for our destination 12 miles off shore, we find the reef and the fish finder is encouraging. Five minutes later and the fish finder packs-up and with it our radio.  Blind, mute and deaf we troll for hours without so much as a sniff. Well and truly beaten we motor back despondent but at least alive.

Seven days of fishing come and go, we head home almost empty handed, a single fish was caught from the beach at night. Considering that this was the first fish caught from the shore in God only knows how long, we all agreed that it must have been a retarded fish. Robbie, the catcher, insists that his superior skills where responsible, the rest of us know better, anyone that doesn’t eat chicken because it tastes too much like chicken cannot be taken seriously. Yet I would do it all again, for the fun is not in the fish caught but in the stories to tell. Everyone that ventures into Mozambique on fishing trips catches plenty, those stories have been told time and again, ours was a unique experience and that makes it worth doing. I eagerly anticipate the next phone call because maybe next time we will get lucky and maybe we won’t, but there will always be a story to remember.

Francesco Migliore