Chapter 27 Bass fishing in hostile territory

One of the guards came to see me while he was doing his call-up in the Army and wanted to know if I wanted to go fishing with him and his troops.

I still had my camo from the Air force and quickly got dressed and off we went on an army truck. A few miles south of Wankie we turned off the main road and proceeded to the most beautiful dam I have seen. A few guards were placed around the perimeter because this was terrorist country and we proceeded to catch bass. This really was a special dam as we caught some nice bass around 5 to 8 pounds while the guards were on the outlook for terrs. We filled the keep nets with some lovely fish.

NOTE: these names are fictitious.

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Chapter 28 Zambezi in flood

During my off days one April I went to the Wankie Angling and Boating club to go fishing. What a sight, the river was in flood and was considerably higher than I had ever seen it but the water was clean, not muddy as you would expect. This was because the rains fell in Angola and the mud was settled before it even reached the Victoria falls. I launched my boat and went upstream to the rapids which were nearly under water. Tying the boat to a tree on the bank I proceeded to try and catch some fish. One rod I left in the water with a piece of meat on it.

After about half an hour I noticed the rod that was in the water was slowly being dragged to the edge of the boat. Quickly I grabbed it and started to reel it in finding that there was a barbell on the hook. As I lifted the fish into the boat I noticed that it was an electric barbell and I certainly was not going to try and take the hook out. Leaving the fish in the bottom of the boat I returned to the launching site and called for my servant to come and get the fish. I lifted the fish with the rod and he grabbed it but let go of it immediately. “What’s wrong” I asked him. “It stings me” he replied. I then explained to him what it was and how to get the hook out. “First you grab a stick and kill it before you try to get the hook out” I told him which he did but that day he learned a valuable lesson.

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Chapter 29 Africa Express

During 1976 I heard that a movie was being made at Victoria Falls and decided to go and look.
 

I arrived at the Big tree, a baobab tree that was said to be the biggest in Rhodesia where the shoot was taking place. Ursula Andress had to fight a guy while she was dressed as a nun but it was a stuntman who did the fighting. She was sitting on a chair looking at the “fight”. I couldn't help myself and started chatting to her and she was quite pleasant about it and we talked for a while. Later that evening in the hotel I was with a guy who was the guard on the train they used in the film and he officially introduced her to me. I never got to see the movie as it was distributed overseas and was I think in French.

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