NO TIME TO DIE

FLY FISHING – GENTEEL SPORT FOR LIMP-WRISTED, TWEED-CLAD, UPPERCLASS TWITS. RIGHT? TRY AGAIN. AS JAZZ KUSCHKE WRITES, FLY-FISHING CAN RESULT IN SEVERE INJURY OR DEATH, FROM BREAKING BONES IN DISTANT VALLEYS, TO BEING ATTACKED BY TWO-TON PACHYDERMS, STUNG, BITTEN OR WASHED OUT TO SEA. USER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Photos. Ryan Wienand, Jazz Kuschke, Andreas Linz, Riaan Heyns, Jonathan Boulton, Francois Botha.

“Somewhere along the line, you’re going to get into shit,” says Garth Wellman. “If you fish alone in remote places, it’s only a matter of time.”

Garth is an immensely experienced and well-travelled angler in both salt water and fresh but, in 2019 his luck ran out when he had a bad fall on the Cape streams, breaking his leg in multiple places. Fortunately, Garth was fishing with a partner. “If I had been fishing alone, I would have been in deep. My fishing partner managed to climb out of the valley, run back to the car park, pick up cell reception and call in the troops.”

Even so, it was a mission to get him out. Garth fell at around 5pm, the paramedics got to him at about 8pm and it took the better part of six hours to get him out the valley, into an ambulance and off to hospital.

Garth says, “I learnt a couple of lessons for sure. A: Never fish alone and B: Always be prepared to spend a night out there. Have sufficient clothing, rations and a space blanket to do that. You never know when it might happen.” Garth was fortunate to get away with his life. So were these fly anglers:

HIP HIP HOORAY

Ryan Wienand and the sea cows of Tanzania

Late one afternoon we were drifting down a section of the Mnyera River in Tanzania where we’d seen a few hippos earlier in the day. We have a section we call Oxbow Lake and it’s very good for tigers. I had just rinsed my hands and grabbed my rod and started casting when we were hit. There was zero warning. We had no clue the hippo was there. It felt as if an airbag had gone off in my face. It was just this unbelievable force. The hippo launched the boat vertically and threw me into the air and outward over the railing. Somehow, as this was happening, I managed to claw my way back into the boat but, for a moment, the boat was vertical in the air and I was looking down into the hippo’s mouth. I landed with my chest on the railing as the boat came down. I don’t know how, but I managed to get my knees back in on the boat and get my weight backwards, all the while watching this hippo’s mouth, wondering if I was going to land on top of it. It was going to hurt. I winded myself badly on the railing and stayed on my knees for a good five minutes afterwards. Thankfully, we were on quite a big, heavy boat with a 60 Yamaha on the back. If it had been smaller, there would have been no way we would have stayed upright. That was crazy enough but then, a year later, it happened again on a small tributary of the Rufiji River. We went up there early one morning – the Rance brothers and I – and headed back in the late afternoon on the small tinny with a 15 horsepower engine on. You know hippos - they’re in the reeds during the morning, but, in the afternoon, they are getting ready to go out and graze. So, when we headed back that afternoon, there were hippos everywhere. I told the boys to sit down on the bottom of the boat, not even on the bench. I used to be a PH (Professional Hunter) so I had my rifle with me and I was on the front. The next thing, I thought we’d rammed into a rock, it hit us so hard. It was a female that had hit us from the back, on the side. Craig Rance was full of slime and water, because it hit about six inches behind his hand which was holding the back railing. Fortunately, our driver, Saidi, was super-reactive. He locked the engine away from the cow and accelerated so that the back of the boat was now spinning around. The force of the impact knocked me down and I couldn’t get to my rifle. As I looked down the side of the boat, all I saw was the hippo trying to get into the boat, porpoising out of the water. Every time she would just miss the boat because it was accelerating away from her in an arc. She would just touch it and push it away, splashing water over the boat. The third time she did this, we hit the bank and then Saidi managed to accelerate and get us away from her. That was a much closer shave than the first incident. This cow was attacking us. She wanted to get in the boat and eat us.

POINT OF NO RETURN Riaan Heyns almost goes too far in the Seychelles

I was on Alphonse Island, in the Seychelles. On this particular day, most of the crew had gone to St Francois, but Andrew Apsey and I chose to fish the flats at Alphonse. We split up and I decided I was going to fish Point Tamatave, the south westerly-point of Alphonse, on my own.

I fished the channel close to the island and caught a couple of nice bones and then it started drying up. I walked towards the edge of the reef and I came across a trigger and then the whole ledge just ran dry completely. I realised I needed to fish on the surf side, so I decided to walk as far as I could along Tamatave while it was dry, then work my way back. I must have been just short of a kilometre from the island, fishing the surf when I found a lovely looking spot. I put on a Flaming Lamborghini and an absolute tank of a bluefin came and smashed it and missed. I changed flies and cast again. No interest. So, I walked about 50 or 60 m further ahead and let the point rest for a bit. When I put the Flaming Lamborghini back on and cast at the bluefin again… same result. This was the biggest bluefin I’d ever seen and I became absolutely obsessed with it. It made me look like the biggest asshole in the history of man. I was so preoccupied with this fish that I’d let it rest, catch some other fish, come back and do the same thing over and over again. Suddenly the wave action started picking up. I looked behind me and saw that the tide was starting to push in over the lagoon. I thought I’d better start heading back. Then I saw that fish breach again. I turned around and gave it a few more casts, but I was beaten. I let it go and fished on the way back. After I had walked about 150m on the reef, a reef that was bone dry an hour prior to that, the water was already rushing between my knees and my hips and I knew I was in trouble. It was like a river in flood coming over that reef. If I had to guess, I probably had another kilometre left to walk to get back to Alphonse. When I was about halfway there, I was up to my waist in the water. I’ve got one of these ATG bags that you can inflate and I was thinking, ‘I’m going to use that to stay afloat’, but it looked like the current would take me past the island and I would probably end up on St. Joseph’s. What made it worse was, all of a sudden, there were turtles all around me and lots of lemon sharks. Then I thought, ‘Now all I need is for a tiger shark to come.’ Obviously, the deeper it gets, the slower you walk. I walked like I hadn’t walked before. I was ready to drop my rods and swim for it. I was a few hundred metres from shore and the water was literally up to my shoulders. I was holding my backpack over my head. No one knew I was there. At various points I had to tread water a bit just to find some elevated reef. By then I was convinced I was going to die. When I got to about 200m from shore I felt some sand under my feet and I knew I was near the shallow channel just south of the main island. I tiptoed my way to safety and got out of the water completely exhausted. I trudged up the beach, plonked down on the sand and sat there on the shore under a palm tree trying to process what had just happened. I could hardly believe that I had made it. All of a sudden, I heard a woman’s voice, ‘’Hey Riaan, you want a beer?’’

I looked around the corner and, in a little bay, I saw two of the wives of our group, sitting in the shallows with a cool box drinking wine. There I was, still coming to terms with surviving this whole ordeal, almost getting eaten, nearly drowning and then two mermaids just nonchalantly offered me a cold beer. It was kind of surreal.

WHEN THE DOWN CHASES THE MAN Andreas Linz tangles with the (wrong) wildlife in Baja

A few years ago, I went on a mission to the Baja, Mexico, to target rooster fish. I went to a spot my wife’s uncle’s friend knows. He spends a month up there annually. He sets up a shade cloth camp on the beach with his 4x4 and boat and then fishes. After catching nothing all the first week, I finally connected with my first rooster. That night I went back to the campsite and decided to make a big bonfire on the beach. At that point, it was just me and another old guy in the campsite. He lent me his bakkie (truck) to go into the desert to collect firewood. I came back and started making the bonfire. Everything was peachy. I’d caught my first rooster; the fire was going; I was sucking back on a few Coronas and having a smoke. As I reached for a piece of firewood to throw on the fire, BAM! something stung me on my thumb. There, on my thumb, was a little white, creamy-coloured scorpion.

I was kind of pissed by this stage, as was the old guy. “Bru,” I said, “I’ve just been stung by a scorpion.” He said, “Did it have big or small pincers?” “Little pincers.” “Fuck. That could be a poisonous one.” Bear in mind, this was Mexico. I didn’t know anything about local critters. A bit like if something bit or stung me in remote parts of Africa, I also wouldn’t have a clue. By then, my whole arm was burning. So I asked the old guy,

“What do we do now?” There were two options, both crap. We could either get in the 4 x 4 and drive the four hours to the clinic, or I could just sort of ride it out.

“What do you wanna do?” he said. I said, “Okay, let’s just see how it goes.” From then on I was just power-drinking Coronas and smoking as the pain started moving up my arm and under my armpit. I was really starting to freak out. The joy of catching the rooster fish was long gone, the booze was taking hold and so I figured I would just drink myself to sleep. I was lying on the sand, looking at the stars and before I knew it, I had passed out. What happened next was this full-on psychedelic dream, where I was walking in the desert towards the sunset holding my mom and dad’s hands.

I woke up the next morning and my whole left arm was completely numb with pins-and-needles. When I eventually got to the clinic they told me, “You were very lucky, that was a deadly type of scorpion.”

The numbness lasted two or three days and then the feeling started to come back. We camped on the beach for another three weeks and caught some lekker roosters, ladyfish and snapper.

SINK OR SWIM Andy Coetzee takes a long swim to freedom

Around 1996, I was living on North Island in the Seychelles doing some environmental research for Wilderness Safaris. I was on the island all by myself. Part of the research was to plot the coral reefs and find where the good fishing was. It was May or June and the south-west and south-east monsoons were blowing off Mahe. I had this dodgy rubber duck with a 15 horse-power engine and so I went out into a bit of bumpy surf to the northern point where the wind was blowing from behind me. I was drifting along catching a couple of bluefin and kawakawas, just getting a sense for where the fish were. I ended up a bit far from the island so decided it was time to head back. I pulled the motor but it wouldn’t start.

Now, having looked at the map the night before, I thought if the southeast monsoon blows south-west like this it’s going to blow me on to Somalia. I didn’t have any water or any other gear with me. I just had my fishing rod and my baggies and that was it. And, blow me down, I couldn’t start that motor. My options were to A) jump overboard and swim to the shore (which was about 2km away by then and fast disappearing), or B) tie the rope to my waist and swim with the rubber duck and my fishing tackle, or C) jump over the side with my fishing tackle and abandon ship. Eventually I chose B), tied the rope around my waist and started swimming. I would swim for, say, 15-20 minutes until I was really tired and then jump back on the boat, try and start it and it would kick in with barely one cylinder and then cut out again. I’d then jump over the side and carry on swimming again.

It took me three hours to get back to the shore. By then I was on the western side where the waves were a little smaller but there was still a swell. To get through the swell without a motor I tied the rope around my waist again and kind of acted like a sea anchor. As a wave came, I would push the boat away from me and it would go in stern first. Eventually I got out. I was very, very shaky, but I survived. I swore I’d never go out in that dodgy boat again. However, three days later, I was sitting with my binos watching sailfish and kawakawa cooking some baitfish and I was out there again in no time. But then I got clever. I powered upwind with it so, if I broke down, I’d wash back into the island. Lesson learnt.

SWEPT AWAY Jonathan Boulton of Mavungana Flyfishing puts a foot wrong off Benguerra Island and it was nearly his last step

Mark Taylor – who had worked for me for many years before going abroad to Farlows and eventually Osen Gard – had come over to South Africa between seasons for a bit of a break. I had been commissioned to do an article on the newly-revamped Benguerra Island Lodge. On Mark’s international guiding salary, the charter flight ticket was small change, so he joined me for the fun. We got some cracking cuta offshore but then the weather turned horrendous, so the usual tactics (developed by the pioneering island fly guides Andrew Parsons, Ant Diplock and later Graham Pollard of drifting pinnacle reefs and dredging full sink lines and mega clousers from the boat), were no longer on the cards.

We were now forced to fish land-based but we had great action with lighter nine-weights, fishing in low light and into the night using luminous, squid skirt flies. Ant Diplock would take his boat to North Point Benguerra, anchor in the lee and then we would walk onto the very aggressive, wave-beaten sand point. Here we’d chargeup our luminescent flies with head torches and land some really good bigeye trevally. We didn’t want to shine our torches on the water as it would frighten the fish and destroy the night vision of the others casting on the water’s edge, so we would walk up away from the water and turn our backs to the sea. We would take it in turns and rotate into the prime casting spot where the wash and the drop-off met, and then go back up the beach once our flies had dimmed for a recharge.

It was my turn casting and, being vertically-challenged, I recall really pushing the limits and wading pretty deep. Too deep. It was raining heavily, so I had an old Patagonia rain jacket on, hat, head torch and the ubiquitous laundry stripping basket. As I took one last step before releasing my last cast, I had that feeling underfoot of the sand dislodging, as it was sucked away by the wash. The next thing I was out in the rip current and getting swept away from the point.

Gone!

“THE NEXT THING I WAS OUT IN THE RIP CURRENT AND GETTING SWEPT AWAY FROM THE POINT.”

I looked back and all I could see was Mark and Ant with their backs turned towards me charging up their flies and having a drink. I was screaming hysterically, but they didn’t turn to look, unable to hear anything over the crashing waves and pelting rain. I thought it was my last day. The deadly currents in the channel between Bazaruto and Benguerra and the reputation of the huge sharks that patrol it are no joke. Sucked out in the current, I focused on not panicking, I unstrapped the stripping basket and put that in the same hand as my rod. Adopting the crucifix position I floated on my back looking up at the inky night sky. Instead of trying to fight against the rip current, I just took a right angle and paddled across it. After what seemed like an age, I felt the sand under my feet again and eventually managed to get out and scramble back onto the shore. At a guess, I came out about one kilometre around the point.

Walking back up, absolutely exhausted and looking like a drowned rat, I eventually reached Mark and Ant and the welcome: ‘Where the fuck have you been!?’ Look out for more wild stories from Jonathan in a book covering all his adventures, out soon.

AFLOAT Francois Botha and Arno Mathee, go adrift off the Republic of Congo

Arno Mathee and I went to the Republic of Congo to explore for tarpon. We soon figured out that they were not in the estuaries, but in the backline. There was this particular place at the mouth of an estuary where the tarpon would congregate. We would travel there, about 20 miles up the coast, and then start missioning right on the backline, targeting monstrous tarpon in between sets of waves. The surf at its flattest was about six feet and when normal was around eight feet. At sea level it looked 20-feet. It was quite a daunting thing, especially considering we had a tiny little inflatable with a 25-horse motor, which we were still running in. There was quite a big oil content and often the spark plugs or something else would get flooded and it would take a while for the motor to accelerate. We were put-put-putting in between sets in the impact zone when a set came through. As I tried to accelerate, the motor cut out. I tried starting the motor with the kind of urgency that takes hold when your life depends on it but, it just wasn’t starting. Next thing this huge wave flipped us. Arno had his fly rod in his hand, but everything else had gone. I thought, at least we’re super buoyant, if the surf pummels us, we will go to the side. Another wave came through and knocked us off the flipped boat. We climbed back on again and, as another wave hit us, a very strong offshore breeze started blowing us out to sea. Arno just said, ‘Paddle.’ I lay on the front of the nose like a surfboard and began to paddle. Each time I looked up I realised the beach was just getting further and further away. No-one even know where we were. We had one Rasta back in camp ghetto-blasting Bob Marley. If we didn’t come back for a week he would just think we had gone home without saying goodbye. As we drifted further and further out, I got this real sinking feeling. I’ve been in some really hairy situations in my life, but when it dawns on you that you are in real shit, it’s just a different experience. Arno and I are very experienced skippers but, try as we might, we just couldn’t right this boat. We were adrift for a few hours by that time and the coastline was just a slither. It was like the opposite of when you have just done an ocean crossing and start seeing land for the first time. It was a really harrowing experience. Miraculously, we then saw some guys far out to sea on a pirogue. In that neck of the woods, they have these giant trees that they use to make these one-ton plus, seven or eight metre long pirogues. Fishermen use these to paddle out to far out reefs. It just so happened that the direction in which we were drifting was also in the direction of their reef.

We were waving and shouting and eventually took our shirts off and started waving those, going mad to get their attention. Eventually they saw us and one of them just lifted a paddle up as if to say, “Yeh, yeh, we see you...”

Long story short, they helped us ashore and we managed to dry the motor and restart it.