The Price Of A Tiger

Voetspores Johan Badenhorst and his son Streicher recently travelled to the Zambezi River to catch some tigerfish. Their fishing trip turned into a rather costly outing, as officialdom cashed in.

- Johan Badenhorst

To catch a tiger in Africa is something special. I am obviously not referring to panthera tigres, largest of the cat species; they are only to be found in Asia. I refer to the fish, belonging to the family alestidae. To do so may be difficult and expensive, especially if you hunt for the big ones. Recently, Streicher and I made a trip up the Zambezi to look for a couple of decent size tigers. It became a costly affair.

When I speak of an expensive journey, I do not imply anything about the lodge and guide fees. Those fees, we knew, were going to be in dollars (US, not Namibian or Zim) and we knew what we were in for before we set off. The problem was that the real big tigers are to be found in the Zambezi on the Barotse floodplains, located in Zambia.

We travelled to a lodge close to Lukulu and north of Mongu. Most clients prefer to fly in as this is a long journey by road. This is exactly what the rest of our fishing group, consisting of Dick van Straaten, his son Ricko and eight other guys, did.

For Streicher and I, travelling by car, the last 180km of gravel is in a terrible condition. It is a road that can take anything between four and seven hours, and something on your Cruiser is bound to break as you hit pothole after pothole and ditch after ditch. But this was not the real obstacle. The real hinderance we found at the border control at Katima Mulilo.