The Rufiji river is a beauty. Our guests love the boat trips upriver from our camp, and it’s great watching the river change from wide, languid and lazy, to ever narrower, steep and dramatic with Stieglers Gorge as the exclamation point at the end. But, because supplies of fresh food of any description are always a challenge for us out here, we like to encourage our guests to take along a fishing rod or two and see if they can drag their attention away from the views long enough to add to our larder.
With or without success, it’s always a source of great stories – crocs that take the bait, the fish that leapt into the boat of its own accord (they swore it’s true), and the inevitable tales of the-one-that-got-away.
Then we have the fish that’s probably bragging to its mates about the guest that got away. When the Avery’s returned from the river yesterday, they sheepishly apologized for having surrendered a fishing rod to a fish. Yup. Not content with only hook, line, and sinker, this fish yanked the entire tackle out of Mrs Avery’s hand, and swam off triumphantly, trailing the rod in its wake. Or maybe they just do ‘tag and release’ differently where they come from.
But they did bring back two hefty catfish, which were swiftly cleaned and sliced up into goujons, and served with an impromptu lime aoli as ‘bitings’ before dinner. You can’t get fresher than that - delicious.
