Fishing the DRC

[Batman]

as some of might have read a while back myself and 5 other gents headed up to the Drc last September for a trip of a life time. we haeded for Kinshasa on the 17th of September to visit the mighty Congo River. there where 2 teams that went up... first team myself , Francois ( from Frontier ) and Rob our camera man. second team Hennie, George and Brian. once in Kinshasa after a interesting welcome at the airport we headed for Maluke a sort of port above the Kinshasa rapids. there we got onto our boat for the 120km trip up the mighty Congo to the black river which would be our home for the next 15 days. after a 6 hour trip we arrived after dark at our camp on the banks of the black river. after chatting with the gents that had been fishing there for the last 2 weeks and hearing the stories they had about the fishing we where all a bit worried how the ishing would be???
the next morning we headed out on a dug out for our first experience on the mighty river. after a hour or so sitting in the dugout whilst Francoi was wetting his line and the next minute i felt a pain like never before. somehow the fly managed to hit me in the back of my head a the blood started to flow... let me just say to have a hook open on your skull is not fun especially
when its been thrown on a 12wt with 600gr shooting head... after cleaning the head we carried on with the fishing.. after a few days and only a few chases and a strike or 2 we started to think hard about the way we going to land one of these mystical creatures known as the Mbenga by the locals. books writen by Douglas Dann with pictures of 50kg+ Goliath tigers where read again and again to see how he managed to catch these monsters. live bait is the way to go with Brian catching teh first goliath in the group on a live bait. +- 6kg... with the days running short and very dry on the fish side we decided to head up the black river. you can only go so far +- 2.5km before you hit the first rappids. we organised 2 dug outs above the rapids through our guide and we walked to meet them with all camera equip and basic fishing equip to see what the mysical rivewr would hold for us as we had blanked on the Congo so far. we had a day that will saty in our mind for ever. the beauty of teh river and its surroundings was breath taking... no fish that day??? what are we doing wrong was teh question going through our heads.... on day 10 Francoi managed to hook a monster which due to us noy having a net lost... with our time running out and the loss of a goliath on fly
we managed to get the local fisherman to make a net for us so if we had another take we could at least land our quarry... day 12 and we starting to run out of time.. after long sessions of tying a variety of flys we headed out ... after 12 mid day i had a take and sid to others that this was teh one!!! after about 10 or so minutes i got my fish to the boat and we managed to net him next to the boat!!! at last we got a mbenga!!!! the first recorded Goliath Tiger Fish on Fly in The DrC on the mighty River!!!! let me just tell you that if i say i was excited it would be an understatement... the locals fihing heard the excitmenta nd came out to see why there was so much noise comming from our boat... they all thought we where crazy throughing a line with a few feathers on a hook out into the water and then starting again after pulling in our lines as they have never seen a fly fisherman. once back at the camp after photos with my goliath we cracked a beer or 2 or 8 and lit my cohiba to celebrate....

the Mighty Congo river is a place that one can only understand once having been there. the river where we fished was 1,5km wide and further up stream gets to 9.5km wide.... we hear in SA have no idea of what a river is!!!

there will be a full article comming out in TCF in the near future with the pictures of my fish... will let you know as soon as it on the shelves.....

[AquaBarbus]

We need to chat a bit, I travel to Gabon, Benin, Mali, Cote D'Ivoire and others all the time. I do want to start fishing many of the waters that presnet themselves, but havent had the courage to stand in a waterside bullrush'd area on my own yet.

However - is there an organisation I could contact, or some guys who have done it before in countries north of us, as to where and how to do it safely.

I Benin, for example, there is a LOT of water, a massive inland lagoon, and the sea on the other side. However I have been too cautious to go out on my own. The locals arent sport fisherment and anyone I have spoken to hasnt been ableto give valuable info. There isnt a great expat sport fishing community here either - that I have come into contact with at least.

So is there anyone on this formu that could point me in te right direction. I wanna try fool a couple of fish on this end of the continent at least.

[poppernel]

as some of might have read a while back myself and 5 other gents headed up to the Drc last September for a trip of a life time. we haeded for Kinshasa on the 17th of September to visit the mighty Congo River. there where 2 teams that went up... first team myself , Francois ( from Frontier ) and Rob our camera man. second team Hennie, George and Brian. once in Kinshasa after a interesting welcome at the airport we headed for Maluke a sort of port above the Kinshasa rapids. there we got onto our boat for the 120km trip up the mighty Congo to the black river which would be our home for the next 15 days. after a 6 hour trip we arrived after dark at our camp on the banks of the black river. after chatting with the gents that had been fishing there for the last 2 weeks and hearing the stories they had about the fishing we where all a bit worried how the ishing would be???
the next morning we headed out on a dug out for our first experience on the mighty river. after a hour or so sitting in the dugout whilst Francoi was wetting his line and the next minute i felt a pain like never before. somehow the fly managed to hit me in the back of my head a the blood started to flow... let me just say to have a hook open on your skull is not fun especially
when its been thrown on a 12wt with 600gr shooting head... after cleaning the head we carried on with the fishing.. after a few days and only a few chases and a strike or 2 we started to think hard about the way we going to land one of these mystical creatures known as the Mbenga by the locals. books writen by Douglas Dann with pictures of 50kg+ Goliath tigers where read again and again to see how he managed to catch these monsters. live bait is the way to go with Brian catching teh first goliath in the group on a live bait. +- 6kg... with the days running short and very dry on the fish side we decided to head up the black river. you can only go so far +- 2.5km before you hit the first rappids. we organised 2 dug outs above the rapids through our guide and we walked to meet them with all camera equip and basic fishing equip to see what the mysical rivewr would hold for us as we had blanked on the Congo so far. we had a day that will saty in our mind for ever. the beauty of teh river and its surroundings was breath taking... no fish that day??? what are we doing wrong was teh question going through our heads.... on day 10 Francoi managed to hook a monster which due to us noy having a net lost... with our time running out and the loss of a goliath on fly
we managed to get the local fisherman to make a net for us so if we had another take we could at least land our quarry... day 12 and we starting to run out of time.. after long sessions of tying a variety of flys we headed out ... after 12 mid day i had a take and sid to others that this was teh one!!! after about 10 or so minutes i got my fish to the boat and we managed to net him next to the boat!!! at last we got a mbenga!!!! the first recorded Goliath Tiger Fish on Fly in The DrC on the mighty River!!!! let me just tell you that if i say i was excited it would be an understatement... the locals fihing heard the excitmenta nd came out to see why there was so much noise comming from our boat... they all thought we where crazy throughing a line with a few feathers on a hook out into the water and then starting again after pulling in our lines as they have never seen a fly fisherman. once back at the camp after photos with my goliath we cracked a beer or 2 or 8 and lit my cohiba to celebrate....

the Mighty Congo river is a place that one can only understand once having been there. the river where we fished was 1,5km wide and further up stream gets to 9.5km wide.... we hear in SA have no idea of what a river is!!!

there will be a full article comming out in TCF in the near future with the pictures of my fish... will let you know as soon as it on the shelves.....

Fantastic read, enjoyed that to the utmost. Will read it then further in the mag, great going!!!

[Batman]

We need to chat a bit, I travel to Gabon, Benin, Mali, Cote D'Ivoire and others all the time. I do want to start fishing many of the waters that presnet themselves, but havent had the courage to stand in a waterside bullrush'd area on my own yet.

However - is there an organisation I could contact, or some guys who have done it before in countries north of us, as to where and how to do it safely.

I Benin, for example, there is a LOT of water, a massive inland lagoon, and the sea on the other side. However I have been too cautious to go out on my own. The locals arent sport fisherment and anyone I have spoken to hasnt been ableto give valuable info. There isnt a great expat sport fishing community here either - that I have come into contact with at least.

So is there anyone on this formu that could point me in te right direction. I wanna try fool a couple of fish on this end of the continent at least.

have sent you a PM.