Zambia by Richard Vaughan

Thanks to the abundance of lakes and rivers in Zambia, many rural people depend on fish  for their food.

As early as 1860, the explorer Richard Burton described the use of circular nets lowered from a canoe to catch fish attracted by the light of the wood-fired brazier.

The kapenta fishermen of Lake Kariba still bring in their catch of African whitebait in immense round dip nets. Nowadays the fish are dried in the sun and shipped by road in quantity to the towns and cities.

Fishing takes many forms, from large scale commercial netting to the small boy with his hook and line. The traditional ways of catching are as varied as the fish themselves....

......barriers across rivers, woven baskets, traps of a dozen kinds, nets, barbed spears and harpoons - even bows and arrows have been used to catch fish in Zambia. Every ethnic group has its own speciality.

THE MAMBOVE RAPIDS aka Anglers Paradise

The Rhodesian and Central African Annual - 1954

Situated some sixty miles above the Victoria Falls, and connected to Livingstone by a good all-weather gravel road along the north bank of the Zambesi River, are the Mambove Rapids, some eight miles above Kazungula. This is the terminus for the timber barges which transport rough-sawn timber down the river from the forests in the North on its way to Livingstone.

Here is to be found the finest  fresh water angling in Africa, if not in the world. Many visitors from abroad have fished these waters; they were not dissapointed. For the trolling enthusiast bent on hooking the bigger and more elusive Tigerfish, there are miles  and miles of reeds and papyrus banked stretches of calm water. The still fisherman, bent on catching "Bream" or Kurper as they are known in South Africa, will find deep stretches of water  teeming with fish of several species. A bag of up to 70 "Bream" caught by two or three anglers in a day. Also to be caught in the rapids on the spoon are the "Yellow Bream" growing to 7 lbs., and lovely eating. They seem to like the deep shady pools amongst the rapids, near a reed bank or mass of flood debris.  Tigerfish up to 17lbs. have been caught in these waters.

There is no accomodation at Mambove, so one should be prepared to camp out though there is a hotel in Kazungula. It is essential to have a boat and fairly powerful outboard motor. The best time of the year is when the river is at about its lowest level, from mid-July till the rains begin in October. This area is not only an anglers paradise: the person interested in nature in the raw will find plenty to fascinate him. There is plenty of bird life. Big game, such as elephant and hippo ( not to mention the crocs!) are found among the islands and rapids.