Zambezie Fishing Report

Wow! I say it again Wow! I got to fish with Ru - Keith and Ida's oldest son - a lawyer by trade at age 26 but making a go of it here in missions in Zambia - he has guided for several seasons on this river so I was in great hands. We fished the main channel a bit and I got one heavy hit but no luck till we crossed into a side channel in what technically would be Namibia (a new country to add to my list of places I've visited). Lost a fly to a fish and put on a new one and finally caught a small one (the first photo) then caught a 2lb fish (second photo) and one more small one before we had to head in. It was unbelievable toward the end. The tiger fish were pounding the bait fish so hard in such numbers that it at times sounded like someone had lit a line of black jack fire crackers. I also saw the fish hit birds even though they didn't pull them under. Beautiful fish and while I didn't catch a truely big one I was impressed by the fight and was glad of a 8 wt both for the fish and the size of the flys we were tossing. Great set of teeth on these things.

The river itself is amazingingly beautiful. I saw amazing birds including a mating pair of African fish eagles. Running up the river to return the boat was quite an experience too as particularly in the side channel you had to face forward with your sun glasses on even though it was quickly getting too dark, just to protect your eyes from the continuous pelting of small bugs hanging on the river. When we would slow down for a canoe I could litterally scrap dead bugs off my forehead. As we approaced the main channel we were warned by a couple of mokuros (dug out canoes) full of people to watch out as there was a hippo. Never saw it but cool none the less - particularly from the safety of a decent sized and motorized boat. The lodge we borrowed the boat from was quite nice and pretty reasonably priced so if we do take a men's trip here and want to add some fishing they would be a great option.

I simply can't tell you what an unbelievable experience this day has been between worship and fishing - truely fun and God was so present.

It was great to walk into a late dinner with about 6 of our group out with the afore mentioned dinner with Heath. I had a great conversation with Keith and Ida who really allowed me to minister to them in some ways and flat out said that with all they are asked to do to minister to others here they count on groups like ours to minister to them. They also gave us high praise for not being missionary tourists and actually making a difference in a fairly effecient manner. I do hope we can continue to have a relationship with them and with this place - the needs are tremendous everywhere in Africa yet despite tons of looking I could not come up with a single other place that would allow a group of this size and age to have an experience like this and so far no one is sick. Hard to believe in about 60 hours we are saying good bye to this place. Pray we end well and travel safe. This experience is richer knowing all of you are behind us and that we can share it with you. In Christ - Jon