Gone Fishing!

Edward had googled "bass fishing in Gauteng" before he left England and found Ithumela - a private smallholding about 20 kms north of Pretoria.

We set off early on Sunday morning and arrived before 7h30. It felt as if we were in somebody's back garden as we had to drive past the house (including a large cage of Vervet monkeys??) and park more or less on a lawn. There were 4 or 5 small dams and a walk down the track brought us to a stretch of river that was hardly flowing.

George caught the first bass ......

and not to be outdone, Edward followed soon afterwards.

Both bass were caught before 9h30 and after that ............Only a crab........

It was cloudy and chilly so Peter and I sat in the car and updated our bird checklists. I had some new lifers to add from last week's trip. We counted up and much to my dismay I found that I had 303 birds which was 3 short of Peter's total. Barrie what have you done?? 

Peter the Bird Watcher

So, Peter is promoted from apprentice 

and

where was our promised "300" party?

The sun appeared and Peter and I left the fishermen and walked down to the river. Within 5 minutes Peter spotted an unusual bird that looked like a goose but had a bright orange beak. It was skulking along the opposite bank, and disappearing behind the reeds. Luckily we had taken "Sasol Birds" along and found that it was an African Finfoot. This was a new "lifer" for both of us and Peter recalled that Barrie and Sue had once spent 8 hours waiting to see one at some dam or other. Next time take Peter the birder along!!!!!!

Maximum zoom but still far away - the African Finfoot

Several hours went by and still no more fish were caught, after 14h00 the sun made a permanent appearance and brought out a few more birds. A black shouldered kite was hunting and a pair of African Fish Eagles were displaying and calling from a distant tree ( no it was not a ring tone!). We were lucky to see a Giant Kingfisher close by and a few arrowmarked babblers were chattering noisily.

Several more hours went by and still no more fish - by now I had finished 3 of the Black Belt Sudoku puzzles in the book that Mike had given me for Christmas.

I decided to take a photo of our car - just to prove to Barrie and Sue that despite travelling several kms on dirt road to reach the fishing spot - we still had our front number plate.

Finally as the sun was starting to set we managed to "lure" (no pun intended) our intrepid fishermen back to the car for the trip home to Centurion.

Off to Magalies Park tomorrow - and more fishing!