Perkins: So it'll just grow back again, will it?
Doctor. Livingstone: Er... I believe I had better come clean with you about it. It really is not really a virus, I will be afraid. You see, a virus is what we physicians call 'very, very little'. So little, it might maybe not possibly have made off with the entire leg. What we are looking for here for is, I think --- and this really is no longer than an informed guess, I had like to make that clear --- is some multicellular life form with stripes, enormous razor-sharp teeth, about eleven feet long, and of the genus felis horribilis --- what we physicians, in fact, call a tiger.
Everybody: A TIGER? IN AFRICA?
Monty Python - The Meaning of Life.
I was following a different form of Tiger. The Goliath Tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath), referred to as Mbenga in equatorial Africa.
It had been November 2009, the wet season and I found myself on the Congo River, about an hour or so outside Kinshasa, the administrative centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I was in and wet, drained mortal fear of my entire life. I was surrounded by stone, mud and armed men. Thunder grumbled in the sheet and space lightning still flickered above the jungle on the far distant bank of the mighty waterway.
My guide was a local fisherman who had recommended a set of pools at the foot of roaring rapids that he assured me would hold Tigers.
Me were two pre - pubescent Congolese irregular militia just behind. At the very least they looked irregular, bloodshot eyes, around 14 years of age and a little twitchy around the gun trigger part of the AK47's. His RPG had been leaned by one of them against a tree stump about 10 feet from my fishing spot. The pressure was definitely on. To this day I usually do not understand what these were doing there, all I knew was that this was a once in a very long time chance and I had 5 hours to land one of the most sought after fish in the planet.
The guide had supplied a container of live bait and I was equipped with what appeared to become a decade old surf casting pole and an aged Shimano grinder reel, both of that have been supplied by way of a South African major stationed with the United Nations peacekeeping troops in Kinshasa. As the mist swirled around me and the roaring of the broken water hammered my eardrums I started to thread the jerking Kamba lure fish onto certainly one of the razor sharp # 6 hooks (there were three as a whole, for some reason he insisted on fish fillets for the other two).
I project in to the churning brown pools and instantly felt the current begin to snatch at the line, dragging it towards one of the mats of Water Hyancinth which were always appearing at the fringes of the pools I was targeting. The drag have been set by the guide and I really could sense the baitfish twitching at the line. Suddenly, nothing. No weight, no pressure, merely the sensation of a severed line, drifting in the present.
I began to reel in to have a look at the terminal tackle and replace the wire leader which had obviously been snatched away by one of the Congo giants or severed by an underwater obstacle that had been hidden under the wildly thrashing brown waters of the flooding River.
With no warning the reel was screamed off by the braided line, as it disappeared off the reel like smoke in a high wind the puff just serving to keep the line straight. In reality I might have sworn I smelled burning.
Quick as a flash the electrified guide jettisoned his home made cigarette and leaped to my assistance. Shouting to keep it tight and set the hook in the bony mouth of the Mbenga he was sure was on the end of the line. It was at this point that my absolute ignorance of Congo Tiger behavior came to my rescue. I simply slipped back into old habits and tightened the line, only to have the fish jerk at the rod, setting the hook without my assistance.
Expecting the fish to perform for the security of the rocks I kept the pressure on the line and was astonished when it went slack again. I was certain that the fish of a very long time was gone once and for all. The guide was by this time swaying in time with a internal beat, and beseeching the fishing gods to take pity on the Mzungu who was quite definitely out of his safe place in every way possible. Frantic winding motions were made by him and I determined that it was safer to humor this man who was certainly on the ragged edge of delight.
I reeled in furiously, by this time exhausted by a mixture of adrenaline and the results of three days' worth of unsanitary Primus lager and dodgy Congolese cooking.
A flash of silver broke the line and the water began its march to towards the far bank of the Congo, more than 4 miles distant. Tightening again I started to win straight back line, inch by fighting inch. A torpedo broke through the top and leaped in to the atmosphere and every thing appeared to slow down. Because the fish tail walked over the brown Congo waters The scales could be seen by me on the olive green straight back and the wildly tossing head. It had been a Tiger.
After an hour of runs and reclaimed line the guide finally stepped into the brown shallows of the Congo and grabbed the now exhausted fish behind its tail and under its head. It wasn't a huge specimen, just a fair sized example of the species, but it had fought like a giant.
(Looking back on this experience it was an absolute miracle that I landed the fish. I had the wrong tackle, I had an inexperienced guide, no idea how to read the wildly thrashing water, a dodgy stomach and I simply didn't have a clue. Every fisherman who has fished for Goliath's thinks I must have hooked a fish that had been hit on the head by far too many lead sinkers).
Doctor. Livingstone: Er... I believe I had better come clean with you about it. It really is not really a virus, I will be afraid. You see, a virus is what we physicians call 'very, very little'. So little, it might maybe not possibly have made off with the entire leg. What we are looking for here for is, I think --- and this really is no longer than an informed guess, I had like to make that clear --- is some multicellular life form with stripes, enormous razor-sharp teeth, about eleven feet long, and of the genus felis horribilis --- what we physicians, in fact, call a tiger.
Everybody: A TIGER? IN AFRICA?
Monty Python - The Meaning of Life.
I was following a different form of Tiger. The Goliath Tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath), referred to as Mbenga in equatorial Africa.
It had been November 2009, the wet season and I found myself on the Congo River, about an hour or so outside Kinshasa, the administrative centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I was in and wet, drained mortal fear of my entire life. I was surrounded by stone, mud and armed men. Thunder grumbled in the sheet and space lightning still flickered above the jungle on the far distant bank of the mighty waterway.
My guide was a local fisherman who had recommended a set of pools at the foot of roaring rapids that he assured me would hold Tigers.
Me were two pre - pubescent Congolese irregular militia just behind. At the very least they looked irregular, bloodshot eyes, around 14 years of age and a little twitchy around the gun trigger part of the AK47's. His RPG had been leaned by one of them against a tree stump about 10 feet from my fishing spot. The pressure was definitely on. To this day I usually do not understand what these were doing there, all I knew was that this was a once in a very long time chance and I had 5 hours to land one of the most sought after fish in the planet.
The guide had supplied a container of live bait and I was equipped with what appeared to become a decade old surf casting pole and an aged Shimano grinder reel, both of that have been supplied by way of a South African major stationed with the United Nations peacekeeping troops in Kinshasa. As the mist swirled around me and the roaring of the broken water hammered my eardrums I started to thread the jerking Kamba lure fish onto certainly one of the razor sharp # 6 hooks (there were three as a whole, for some reason he insisted on fish fillets for the other two).
I project in to the churning brown pools and instantly felt the current begin to snatch at the line, dragging it towards one of the mats of Water Hyancinth which were always appearing at the fringes of the pools I was targeting. The drag have been set by the guide and I really could sense the baitfish twitching at the line. Suddenly, nothing. No weight, no pressure, merely the sensation of a severed line, drifting in the present.
I began to reel in to have a look at the terminal tackle and replace the wire leader which had obviously been snatched away by one of the Congo giants or severed by an underwater obstacle that had been hidden under the wildly thrashing brown waters of the flooding River.
With no warning the reel was screamed off by the braided line, as it disappeared off the reel like smoke in a high wind the puff just serving to keep the line straight. In reality I might have sworn I smelled burning.
Quick as a flash the electrified guide jettisoned his home made cigarette and leaped to my assistance. Shouting to keep it tight and set the hook in the bony mouth of the Mbenga he was sure was on the end of the line. It was at this point that my absolute ignorance of Congo Tiger behavior came to my rescue. I simply slipped back into old habits and tightened the line, only to have the fish jerk at the rod, setting the hook without my assistance.
Expecting the fish to perform for the security of the rocks I kept the pressure on the line and was astonished when it went slack again. I was certain that the fish of a very long time was gone once and for all. The guide was by this time swaying in time with a internal beat, and beseeching the fishing gods to take pity on the Mzungu who was quite definitely out of his safe place in every way possible. Frantic winding motions were made by him and I determined that it was safer to humor this man who was certainly on the ragged edge of delight.
I reeled in furiously, by this time exhausted by a mixture of adrenaline and the results of three days' worth of unsanitary Primus lager and dodgy Congolese cooking.
A flash of silver broke the line and the water began its march to towards the far bank of the Congo, more than 4 miles distant. Tightening again I started to win straight back line, inch by fighting inch. A torpedo broke through the top and leaped in to the atmosphere and every thing appeared to slow down. Because the fish tail walked over the brown Congo waters The scales could be seen by me on the olive green straight back and the wildly tossing head. It had been a Tiger.
After an hour of runs and reclaimed line the guide finally stepped into the brown shallows of the Congo and grabbed the now exhausted fish behind its tail and under its head. It wasn't a huge specimen, just a fair sized example of the species, but it had fought like a giant.
(Looking back on this experience it was an absolute miracle that I landed the fish. I had the wrong tackle, I had an inexperienced guide, no idea how to read the wildly thrashing water, a dodgy stomach and I simply didn't have a clue. Every fisherman who has fished for Goliath's thinks I must have hooked a fish that had been hit on the head by far too many lead sinkers).
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