Travel: More than a game of tag

We sat down with an internationally renowned adventure fly-fishing guide to talk about the future of tourism

Jonathan Boulton knows that the earth is experiencing massive changes. “Reading about it on your news App, or sitting with your children through David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet is one thing but, experiencing it worsening every year in the context of many different global settings is a very different situation,” he says.

Boulton founded Mavungana Flyfishing in Dullstroom in 1997 and has since run premium guided trips to target exotic fish species on fly-fishing tackle – from Atlantic salmon in Russia to peacock bass in the Amazon and giant trevally in the remote atolls of the Indian Ocean, among others.

As he’s fished some of the finest waters of the world people often ask him what is my favourite fish or destination is. “While I maintain picking a favourite fishing destination is impossible, if I were given just one more week to fish in my life, it would be for African tigerfish,” he says, waxing on about how special it is to drift past shores rich in bird life and wild animals;

watching sun-bathing crocodiles, grunting hippos, close (but not too close) elephants bathing and with the ubiquitous blood orange African sunset as the backdrop. “I have fished the Zambezi and Okavango River systems for many years; unfortunately, both systems are under continued pressure. Communities alongside the river have changed from subsistence fishermen to increasingly commercial operators, as expanding populations require affordable and accessible protein. Cheap nylon gill nets from China can be easily purchased in any village, greatly increasing catch rates and sales of fish, fresh or dried. It means that someone who was once a subsistence fisherman can upgrade from a dugout canoe to a fibreglass boat and later possibly to an engine and even a gas refrigerator allowing you to stockpile and supply even further afield once you have a vehicle.” For Boulton and many other high-end adventure-tour operators and outfitters like him, the answer lies in engaging with local communities and empowering them to look after the fisheries which provide so much sustainable employment through sport fishing and the lodge industry. “Hopefully, it’s not too late for the mighty Zambezi,” he says, explaining that while that system is unfortunately in rapid decline the Pongola Dam (also called Lake Jozini) in northern KwaZulu-Natal, is improving due to combined efforts from many stakeholders.

“It is a large man-made body of water up against the picturesque Lebombo mountains in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This is the southernmost extent of tigerfish on the African continent. Historically the fish have been small, but counter-intuitively, global warming suits this fishery. Warmer water and better clarity (due to reduced rainfall) fit tigerfish and each year the average size of fish we catch increases,” he says.

“I love the way we fish for them, using trolling motors to stealthily sneak into shallow water and present light brush flies on floating and intermediate lines. A lot of the shore is National Park land, some tribal and the balance privately owned. It is all well-managed and policed, so the game is safe and prolific. Floating plastic is a rarity and gill nets infrequent rather than the norm.”

Boulton and his team, in association with the University of Mpumalanga, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and Pongola Game Reserve have now taken it one step further and launched a groundbreaking tigerfish tagging project earlier this year.

“To our knowledge, very few tigerfish have ever been tagged within the borders of South Africa,” said Jonathan Boulton, founder of Mavungana Flyfishing. “Most of those that have been tagged, were in the rivers of the Kruger National Park, so we’re excited to learn more about the movements of these special fish.”

For Boulton and his team, who invested heavily in the research and tagging equipment, the results will prove very interesting, but for the likes of Adam Wyness, a Post Doctoral Researcher on the ‘Rivers of Life’ programme associated with the University of Mpumalanga it will prove invaluable to assist with future conservation efforts.

“Lake Jozini is a unique place, in that it has a very large and healthy population of tigerfish, on the surface at least,” Wyness said, explaining that in many places where they are historically distributed, they’ve been displaced by alien species.

“We’re using Jozini for this project as it’s got a good amount of recreational catch-and-release angling so it’s perfect for these kinds of studies,” he added. According to Wyness, tagging the fish will help them to better understand the population numbers, the movement of the population, the growth of individuals and to see the age of individuals.

“Their migration is a big issue. The dam was built about 60 years ago, so we want to see with the tags how much the fish move in and out of the dam itself if they’re going up the river and also how much they move within the dam,” he said.

“The tigerfish is very important for recreational angling, but its also a very important predator in the food chain, which is under threat from a lot of stresses – our waterways are under threat from reduced flows, reduced amounts of water, alien species, contaminants, pollutants amongst other stressors, so we want to see how they are doing.”

To find out more about the study, follow Mavungana Flyfishing’s social channels.

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