OVER THE BORDER ADVENTURES: Tigerfish Abundant @ Massingir Dam, Mozambique

WORDS & IMAGES: Chantelle Stucki van Zyl

It is always exciting to explore and fish a new water, such as Massingir Dam in Mozambique that has been on the bucket list of LegaSeaSafaris for quite some time, and indeed, as we had imagined, experiencing this massive dam on our first trip, in April this year, was absolutely amazing!

Massingir is the second largest dam in Mozambique. Built during the 1970’s in the Olifants River to provide irrigation in the Lower Limpopo Valley, its earth fill dam wall is 4,500m long and 47m high, and at full capacity holds 2.8 billion cubic metres of water.

Travelling to Massingir firstly entails a road trip to the Phalaborwa gate of the Kruger National Park where the Letaba Camp provides a welcome stopover to stretch one’s legs and have a coffee or other refreshment. Then it’s a gravel road trip through the Kruger Park bush to the Giriyondo Borderpost, and then a rough gravel road (take it easy!) to get to the Albufeira Camp on the shores of Massingir Dam in the ‘Parque Nacional Do Limpopo’.

After arriving at our huts, doing all the unpacking and loading the boats, we headed for a fishing warm-up in the late afternoon, and just being on the water was amazing; seeing game grazing on the riverbank already made the trip one of my favourites! After supper we went to bed excited about not knowing what the next day would deliver, and early the next morning, with the cool box packed, a short drive to the launching pad saw us launched on the water. Yeah!

What a massive dam! Working our way around the shoreline with no idea of any good fishing spots, we noticed a beautiful dagga bull (old buffalo bull) relaxing in the shallow water. I always “have to go closer please” … What a sight he was! A short way further on, one of our guests, Frikkie Leonard, was the first to get a solid strike and succeeded in landing the first of the many tigers caught on our trip.

Nets of the locals are everywhere on this massive dam. You have to constantly be on the lookout for them to avoid getting the engine or trolling motor caught up. Rock cliffs, boulders on the banks and the luscious green bush of the late summer delivered the most amazing views that Nature has to offer in this part of the world. Hearing Fish Eagles cry, seeing lots of hippo and even more crocodiles, herds of buffalo and Impala, our hearts were full!

Husband Nick landed his first tiger with great joy as this meant we had fillets on board to make the hook-ups even more promising. Not long after I also landed my first tiger on Massingir. Oh joy! Nick, as is usual, out-fished us all; we didn’t expect anything less of him with his natural (uncanny?) talent of always landing an abundance of fish. Our day was blessed with many tigers being hooked, what an amazing day! On the way back, the Lord put the cherry on our cake by spoiling us once again with the sighting of a large elephant herd enjoying the coolness of the water after a long hot day! How lucky could we be? Once again, “Nick…can we move a little closer….?” I was keyed up with excitement and amazement!

After trailering the boat and freshening up at camp we decided to try out dinner at a local restaurant, aptly named “Tilapia Restaurant”. It turned out to be a great experience with cold ‘2M’ beers and cold drinks, the friendliest service (our hands were washed by our hostess!) and then our dinner, a proper Mozambique-style peri-peri chicken with chips or salad!

With rainy weather the next day we decided to sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast and fish the closer banks and fish some islands in the afternoon. I enjoyed the abundance of different bird species such as the bee-eaters, wagtails, swallows, Guinea fowl and of course a troop of monkeys mucking about. Back at camp we had a traditional braai with extra meat for our lunch boxes the next day.

To make the most of our last day on Massingir we were up early, and on the water Nick van Zyl (Snr) turned out to be the ‘catfish master’ of the trip as he and Frikkie landed several of them in-between the tigers.  

Exploring the area on the way to the river mouth which had even more hippo and crocodile, Nick (Snr) finally joined the tiger fishing ‘club’ with the rest of us with great joy. Tigerfish bites were plentiful, hook-ups and landings slightly fewer …

I watched in total amazement how some local kids formed a wide circle in the water and with big splashes chased fish into their nets. Obviously, they knew about the large numbers of crocodile and hippo in these waters, and yet they continued their fishing despite all the obvious dangers!

With quite a considerable catch, in volume but not in size (this time around!) our last day on this magnificent dam had to come to an end. We once again enjoyed sightings of lonely buffalo bulls lying in the cool water as we headed back to the launching pad.

After packing up we hit the road back to the border; while only 80km, due to the gravel condition it takes approximately two hours … But as a going away present from Massingir, approaching the border Nick stopped the vehicle and pointed … “look, wild dogs!” Man, oh man, quite a sight!

Massingir, we will be back!

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