Wildcast

It doesn’t take long to miss the wild dogs. We’ve been gone only half a day and just not seeing them this morning leaves me with an empty feeling. And I’m sure they’re missing us! So I like to think, but not likely. They’re probably only too happy not too see my green monster grumbling towards them at dawn.

And I know they like to think they’re the only attraction on our list. But not so. Last week Professor Brian Marshal from the University of Zimbabwe was at Malilangwe to provide training to the game guides on fish in the Malilangwe dam. We gate-crashed their session and learnt a lot about the ecosystem of the dam and it’s fish.

Well the truth is I knew nothing about fish and so anything anybody told me was going to be good.

We all boated up to the top end of the dam and set out the fishing net. This was to catch those fish in the shallows. Our catch wasn’t substantial as most of the fish shoals hang out in the deeper waters, but we did catch a good variety.

Trolling the net under normal conditions is a simple procedure but the Malilangwe dam added some new ingredients to the mix. Crocodiles and hippos. And just before we dragged the net through the shallows a rather large croc submerged itself in the deeper water. And of course brave old me wasn’t in there dragging nets and catching fish, I was of course the ‘official photographer’. Photographers don’t get their feet wet you know.

There was a brief moment of panic when something big hit into the net scattering a couple of net keepers.

With the net pulled ashore there was indeed a monster in there, a huge Barbel (Catfish) over a meter long, which brought big smiles to the guides of course as they treasured this one for smoking later.

We also caught Mozambique Bream. They were full of lesions. These were caused by a parasite that somehow got into the water system and attaches to the fish with an anchor on its head and then gets to work. This obviously weakens the fish and might kill them.

The parasite was also found in Induna dam and is thought that it may be transferred by birds. Prof Marshal said it was the first time he’d seen this parasite and so couldn’t say if it was a normal thing in these waters or if it was a real cause for concern. They plan to monitor it in the future.

In another catch we also a little Tiger fish. These guys are known to give a good fight when caught on a line and one always has to be careful when handling them as they have a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. This little guy wasn’t too bad but the big dudes can be quite scary.

When sitting high on the cliffs above Malilangwe we can see shoals of fish swimming around which at times are hunted by the White-breasted Cormorants in groups surrounding the shoal and darting in for the catch.

Malilangwe dam as an ecosystem seems pretty stable but it has been known to completely dry up once. That was in the very bad drought of the early 90’s. But for now the dam is really healthy and a great place to spend time watching the water birds, eagles, crocs, hippos and with a dash of exercise a little sport fishing will always be successful.