The next generation of pellet thiefs.

Picture left we have Yama an elderly lechwe rescued from a poachers camp many years ago. Right we have Yama's daughter and then the new arrival in the middle, Yama's gran daughter. The Lechwe live on the pond bank and are very tame. Yama is showing the others how to steal her favorite food - fish pellets!

Cousins

The Ausies cousins do Zambia with a flurry of driving, motobike riding, boating, fishing and fishing! Jonathan was the first man in the pond commonly know as croc bait. When he was not eaten we joined him for a cooling dip.

Lessons in fish farming - big fish, big hat and big grin.

Anna keeps a keen lookout for whats infront as she learns to drive Jonathan flys by on the motobike.

Fine fishing on the pond at my house Anna shows the boys how it's done.

Hammer head birdies!

This is one of five tame Hamerkop birds. They are second generation being hand raised on the farm. Their parents fell out of the nest above the swimming pool and have always lived on the farm. These five we rescued and now live in the back garden with their own paddling pool with a plentiful supply of fish.

As you can see in the pic it did not take the cunning and rather lazy birds long to figure out if you stand on the edge and let all the water out the fish are much easier to catch! The birds all set out at dawn to hunt fish on a fish farm. Hunting fish on a fish farm with over two million fish must be hard work as they return for elevenses to find a paddling pool full of bite size fish.

Green fingers

It’s nice and hot here but the rains loom and we will soon turn from a dust bowl to swamp. I have been investing a lot of time in my garden planting bananas, guavas, paw-paw, pumpkins, flowers and tomatoes. My strategy has been to plant as many as possible and hope some make it past the chomping jaws of the game animals.

I have been adopted by an orphan Puku named Gorgeous who is a great fan of my plants.

Gorgeous likes to rest on the banks of my pond and is quite tame. Even sitting down a few meters from me to watch as I ate lunch today.

I have also been invaed by fifty weaver birds move in to a tree hanging over the water building their strange hanging homes.

Below is a pic of the new pond we have put is as our personal fishing spot. We also put in a few ponds to get some fish to sell but they are not nearly as important as our fishing pond!

Tiger

The Might Zambezi the might Tiger fish and the Mighty fisherman!

BBQ time!

I could have been a vegetarian!

Lake Somba

Lake Somba (means fish!) is coming to life now with fifteen huge carp now calling it home. This is Douglas and his fine catch Tank (yes all the fish have names!)the Full scale carp.

The bridge to the island only just fitted it's a bit safer than walking the plank. I wait excitedly to see who will be the first to fall in from the bridge! I have been plying all guests with as much wobble juice as possible - it only a matter of time!

We have christened the island with it's first evening of BBQ fish, fire and booze. May it be the first of many.

I am now a multi millionaire (Kwatcha!) with my own private island!

I like cats.

The african catfish or barbel grow to pretty impresinve sizes. This lady was from one of our ponds we keep them with Tilapia as make all the baby fish disapear!

This little fishy!

My pond is full of water so it's time to add fish. The fish in the picture is Harry the carp named after the fine angler who landed him with his trusty accomplice Doug.

The guys decided to get into the pond and release the fish and got a bit a shock when they found they had no chance of touching the bottom!

The Mighty Zambezi

Six guys, six rods and five days on the mighty Zambezi. A recipe for some serious fun. The Zambezi is home of the tiger fish, if you can’t figure out why it’s called a tiger the clue’s in the picture below!

Between fishing trips we also managed to check out some game animals with a great pride of lion resting in the heat of the day down by the water.

The elephants come down to the waters edge to drink in big numbers. Hippo are everywhere and crocs are cruising about. The Zambezi is massive I will never be able to take the Thames seriously again.

Home sweet Home

I have been busy putting in a little pond in the back garden. The area on the left is an island bbq area you can just see the log being used as a temporary bridge. The area where the photo was taken has disappeared now. The holes with water in are eighteen feet deep! Yes I might be getting carried away with the big yellow digger but boys will be boys!

Thief in the night!

May I introduce Pastor Paul! This guy was caught red handed last night trying to steal a bike. It would have been bicycle number eight along with many other missing items. Luckily some of the staff spotted him and gave chase subdued him and tied him up. When we got to the police station they recognised him as a known chicken rustler. Today the police went to his house and found pots and pans linking him to earlier crimes here at Kafue Fisheries. The police have been very good and are now conducting an intense interrogation to find the full story. It was funny he is a pastor of his local church - guess he needed to top up the collection plate!

It's been a while.

To catch up on the gap -

I went to England to celebrate Big Brother wedding. An absolutely fantastically amazing day.

Back to Zambia to find the rains have stopped but to my horror the river level is horrendously high. Some of the ponds had wire mesh along the banks as the river level was higher than the pond walls so the fish could have swum away! Above is the truck turning circle at the pump houses. The road was four feet under water!

I managed to get ill but took lots of drugs and got better!

The demand for fish is mind blowing we are selling over fourteen tons a week at the moment through one shop the size of a single garage. We can deliver three tons in a day and that will be gone in a few hours! Even pushed up the price to slow things up but they keep coming.

Better make it snappy if you want to spend a penny!!

This curvey lady has been loitering around the loos! The guys were finding it a bit off putting so we had to trap her and send her off to breed at the croc farm. One of the night watchmen went to the toilet and found her waiting for him on the path when he had finished. He returned to the toilet for several hours!

Rain Rain go away!!

You may be aware that southern Africa has had a little rain. Here has been quite something. The water was right up to the veranda of the house. The upshot of this is that I was able to fish from the veranda and caught twenty six catfish between one and two foot in length from the lawn. It has put the farm into survival mode as everything is a little difficult when you wading of sliding in mud to get anywhere.

The slightly aquatic path to the office.


Fishing over the lawn - well croquet was out!
The horses paddock good thing they have long legs!
The front of the Flynns house.
The water at the veranda when it was receding as least we don't have to irrigate the lawn!

Life in the flood plane!

Happy Christmas and new years greetings to all. To re-cap on life here it's pretty much been farming pigs and fish. This months challenge was a record rainfall in December of thirteen and a half inches. Believe me that is a lot when you live a flood plane that's as flat as a billiard table. The paths have degraded into a soggy quagmire. Bellow is a picture of one of the roads on the game farm.