Hello again fellow Hunters,
At this stage I’d like to again apologize for taking so long to finish this hunt report.
I have a million excuses, including death of a close relative here, multiple waves of visitors from out of state and so forth.
But, I will spare you the misery of having to read all my feeble excuses.
We still have company and another wave to arrive a couple days after they leave.
But I promise all of you that I am trying to finish this report.
Anyway, back to the Okavango River:
Incidentally, each morning around 2:00 AM, a lion would wake us by roaring loud, over and over.
Evidently he lived approximately straight across the river from Ndovu Lodge.
However, it sounded as if he was right beside us in our tent.
His serenade continued each morning until just after dawn.
It took Kelley quite awhile to relax enough so that she could fall asleep during this lion’s tireless roaring.
A great help for her was to wear foam ear plugs.
I have audio of the roaring but for unknown reasons, I cannot transfer any of my many videos into my threads and posts here.
If anyone wants to receive an audio clip of this roaring, via the private message feature here, with your Email address and I can email it directly to you.
Anywhooo, on the first morning, we rolled out of our rack and walked over to the dining facility, to have breakfast, just prior to daylight.
We (including Juan) were the first guests.
We began with coffees and rusks aka: “granny biscuits”.
The coffee was properly brewed, high quality and not instant.
Within a minute or two, one of the kitchen staff appeared and asked us if we wanted eggs and how we would like them cooked.
Very soon thereafter, we were enjoying a full breakfast.
After breakfast, we walked down the well built stairs to “our” boat.
It was a pontoon / platform design, with a canvas roof, stretched over a metal tubing frame.
The boat and the anti-sun / anti-rain top were in excellent shape, obviously well maintained.
The motor was a new looking outboard (might have been a Yamaha) perhaps 25 or 30 horse power ?
Whatever it was, it had no trouble moving our boat about, including against the current while traveling upstream.
Furthermore, it was not especially noisy either.
Our Boat Driver / Captain was a local fellow named Michael.
He spoke excellent English (undoubtedly some other languages as well).
He was always smiling and happy to tell us all about the many birds and animals we observed up and down the river.
Also, Michael told us that he was a life long sport fisher / meat fisher, as he had been born and raised along the bank of this Okavango River.
So, we stopped here and there with the motor turned off, in order to bait fish and to cast about with lures as well.
The bait was individual minnows, frozen and thawing faster than we could use them
up.
Michael rigged these, each threaded onto a single hook, one per fishing rod.
We individually cast our respective minnows into the river and waited.
These minnows were approximately 4 inches (about 100 mm) in length.
If they had been dusted in corn meal and deep fried, I would have eaten them myself.
The river was very high and murky but slow moving.
We could only see about half a meter into the muddy water.
There were tiger fish and barblefish living in this river, among other species.
However, no species of fish there were cooperative, during the several days we tried to catch them.
Michael sometimes suggested that we cast lures so, we would try that for a while.
Then, he often would have us troll said lures behind the boat, as he motored along, very slowly upstream, to the next spot of his choice.
Then with the motor off, we would cast lures for awhile, eventually switching back to the single baited hook.
Nothing seemed to impress the fish.
With the river high and murky, evidently they had pretty much stopped eating.
There were a few times (very few) that one of us would experience a tiger fish grabbing a baited hook.
But tiger fish are toothy and Michael said that only about 1 in 7 strikes results in a well hooked fish.
The only fish we caught was a very small tiger fish, about 14 inches / 35 centimeters.
I was using a minnow on single hook and had dropped it in behind a big rock, where if trout fishing, a trout might be resting from the river current.
Wham, a little tiger fish grabbed the bait and I successfully set the hook for a change.
We took his photo and set him free.
No other fish were caught by us.
In comparing notes with another fishing guest at the lodge, he completed his holiday there without catching a single fish of any description.
The river was just too high and full of silt this time.
We shall have to return one day when the weather has not recently dumped unusually heavy rain there.
Since the weather was pleasant while we were there and the river slow moving, we enjoyed our daily boat rides.
We saw many animals and birds.
Elephants, hippos, buffaloes, warthogs, impalas, kudus, bushboks, crocodiles and many other species made themselves available for pictures every day.
Huge flocks of spur wing geese and other migratory birds seemed to be constantly flying along the river course, not far above the tree tops.
On our last day, we chose to cross the river and join 4 other people on a game drive.
This was through a wildlife preserve there where the lion roared each morning.
After breakfast, Michael ferried all 6 of us over on the boat.
There we were met by our driver and Tour Guide, with a multi-seat photo safari style vehicle.
I cannot remember his name but he was a cheery fellow and very knowledgeable of the Okavango’s flora and fauna.
We motored slowly here and there throughout the huge property.
And, the animals were both diversified as well as plentiful, especially elephants.
We however only saw one heavy tusked bull among many, many elephant sightings.
He was camera shy and we only managed a picture of him as he was facing away / walking away from us in thick bush.
We never saw the roaring male lion.
But, we did see a very young lioness.
She had killed what I think was an impala and she was napping on a run down ant hill, next to the carcass.
This property included a veritable ghost town of deteriorated concrete structures, as it had once been occupied by the South African Army.
This area was their base for a time, many years ago, when South Africa controlled what is now Namibia.
Eventually, we stopped in a shady spot for lunch on the tailgate of the vehicle.
It consisted of various well prepared meats, cheeses, crackers, potato crisps, fruit and drinks, including bottled water, sodas, and cocktails with ice.
This game drive and lunch under the trees was a very pleasant way to spend our last day.
After lunch we pressed on, continuing our game viewing drive.
An 2 or 3 hours before supper time, we all were delivered to the river bank.
There, our boat was waiting and we boarded same for a ride back across the river to Ndovu Lodge.
Most evenings, including this one, we sat out on the large wooden deck, just outside the dining facility.
Here we enjoyed a perfect view of the river and visited with fellow guests, while enjoying gin & tonic or whatever anyone wanted from the bar.
When dinner was served, it was only a few steps to our table.
One evening the staff sang an Africa style tune and rhythm of “happy birthday” to one of the guests.
I videoed this but again, I don’t know how to load videos into the forum.
The birthday celebration was fun to watch and listen to.
We packed up and left the next morning, in route back toward our Lodge Aub, up in the Khomas region, for a bit more hunting.
I will post more on that soon.
Photos:
1.
Kelley & myself on the boat, with Michael driving it.
2.
A large crocodile approaching, perhaps hoping for a tossed fish head or a clumsy tourist for lunch.
3.
Nduvo Lodge River Deck.
4.
Close up of the approaching croc.
5.
Young croc and a baby croc.
6.
Good ol’ Juan.
7.
Blueball Monkey.
8.
Impala and warthog.
9.
Buffalo on the run.
We never did figure out what he was running to or from.
