African Waters

A few weeks each year, the river looks a little different 🍂🎨

📍 Makhangoa Community Camp

The reaction usually says more than the photograph.

📍Sette Cama, Gabon

Photo: Alexis Pageau

On World Oceans Day, we're reminded that protecting the coastline starts long before anyone steps onto a beach.

Earlier this season, Estelle spent a morning with the children of Sette Cama talking about plastic pollution and its impact on sea turtles before heading out to put some of those lessons into practice.

📍 Sette Cama

A closer look at one of the Mnyera’s better-known residents.

📍 Mnyera River, Tanzania

Cold mornings on the Orange River.

📍 Kalahari Wilderness Drift

The final moments usually involved a fair amount of chaos.

📍 Rio Colorado, Costa Rica

Midday on the Mnyera usually means finding some shade for an hour or two before heading back onto the river.

📍 Dhala & Samaki Camp, Tanzania

Sette Cama was traditionally fished almost entirely with treble hooks.

Over time, guides started moving more and more guests across to inline setups instead, whether that meant inline singles on hardbaits or circle-hook style rigging on soft plastics.

The difference during releases became difficult to ignore.

Fish could be unhooked faster.
Less handling in the surf.
Far fewer fish getting pinned awkwardly in current and white water.

It also became noticeably safer for both guides and guests, especially with species like giant African threadfin that tend to throw violent headshakes in the shore break during releases.

These days, treble hooks are no longer used across the fishery.

📍 Sette Cama

End of the day on the Orange River.

📍 Kalahari Wilderness Drift

A good Orange River largemouth.

Measured quickly in the shallows before being released.

📍 Kalahari Wilderness Drift