An African Adventure: Tigerfish AND Carp Successes – Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

WORDS & IMAGES: Dave Charley   

So, after my close encounter with a toothy crocodile, and the completely failed Tigerfish mission, the beginning of 2022 hadn’t quite been the start one would have hoped for. However, with a positive outlook on life, all I could think was that it could only get better from now on!

My biggest challenge was still how to figure out a way of successfully transporting and stocking Tigerfish into the two dams. The larger dam was going to be a predator venue with over 200 tigers in, while in Carp Corner, I wanted around a 100 or so to ensure the water didn’t get overrun with lots of small carp from natural breeding, but so far in 7 months we had managed just 30 tigers.

Back to the drawing board, and I wanted to explore the concept of cages for a quick transfer of tigerfish once they’d been caught. We had tried building the 3m x 3m floating system for the ambitious dam mission, but now I wanted to construct something far smaller that we could leave with the local throw-net fishermen at nearby rivers.

We welded up a steel box structure and then covered it with shade cloth, nothing complicated! There was a flap-like opening at the top for the fish to be transferred in and out of, and then we attached a rope so the cage could be safely secured in the water from the bank or a boat. The next day we delivered a few of these to our trusted fishermen.

Two days later I got a call from one of the fishermen telling me that he’s caught some tigers and they’re swimming around healthily in the new cage. I jumped straight into the car to drive down to his location, which was just under an hour away (nothing is very close in Africa). I excitedly arrived and scrambled down the steep muddy bank of the river to meet him. He was smiling from ear to ear, and so was I when I transferred 14 healthy tigerfish into a bucket to bring back up to the car and a waiting holding tank. I was so excited and nervous as I made the return journey back to the farm, and that hour seemed to take forever! I called Piet in advance to tell him the amazing news, and as we both lifted the holding tank from the car and safely released the tigers into their new home, we were overjoyed at what had just been achieved. One day with the new cages had accounted for almost 50% of what we had achieved in the previous 7 months!

Persistence and perseverance had finally paid off. The next day we released another 12, and then 9. It carried on like this, and although it was a two-hour round trip each time, it was well worth it. Incredibly by early April we had stocked more than 300 tigerfish into the two dams. To this day I’m still not aware if anyone has even attempted to try anything like what we accomplished with regards to stocking tigerfish.

It was during these successful stocking months that we also had to address the issue of the grass covering more than 70% of Carp Corner dam. When the dam was filled, the terrestrial grass was still present, and clearly didn’t mind being covered in water! The shoots were breaking the surface of the water over most of the dam, making it almost impossible to fish in. The only clear patches were where the excavator had removed the topsoil to build up the banks or islands.

We had no option but to drain down the dam and tackle the problem at root level. There were a couple of very long, deep channels dug into the dam, so there was no issue of losing our tigerfish, as there was still plenty of deeper, grass-free, water for them to swim around in. The shallower areas slowly but surely began to dry out in the African heat, and it wasn’t too long before we could start burning the grass and solve the problem once and for all.

We were very fortunate with the timing of this undertaking, as the winter rains started to come down in the middle of April, and literally didn’t seem to stop for more than two months! The dam quickly refilled, and the grass thankfully hasn’t been seen since.

The heavy rains also worked wonders for all the indigenous trees we had been planting around the venue, and seeing the growth of these was really rewarding. The dams were becoming something of an oasis, as the fairly bare surrounding lands were formerly cultivated for agriculture during the colonial times, meaning nothing much was left of the indigenous flora. We were noticing more and more new species of birds visiting, which was very exciting for an enthusiastic bird watcher such as myself. To create a fishery from scratch, where there was literally almost nothing when we started, and then to start seeing an environment beginning to flourish, is an incredibly rewarding feeling!

Towards the end of August, we had the very exciting task of netting our carp from the grow-out pond, to select future brood stock fish, and start to populate the Carp Corner dam. It had been 1 year and 5 months since the 100-baby carp arrived at the farm, and now was the first time I would be able to see exactly how they had developed. I knew from the hours spent watching them feed that there were some pretty impressive specimens present, but with the turbidity of the earthen pond, you couldn’t clearly see everything in front of you.

Having reared carp back in the UK, I was used to seeing fish of around 1lb, or 0.45kg, after a year or so. These fish would now be classed as C2’s, having grown through 2 summers, although they were still 2 months away from celebrating their 2^nd birthday! Well to say I was blown away by some of the carp would be an understatement, and what a wonderful feeling to finally be stocking some carp into the dam that we’d been working so hard on for the best part of two years.

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking for this article.

*Dave Charley may be contacted on WA: +258 845901250.

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