KARIBA INVITATION TIGER FISH TOURNAMENT

50TH ANNIVERSARY

The Kariba Invitation Tiger Fish Tournament celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, starting on 26th October the Tournament promises to be the best for many a year.

Interest from teams outside of Zimbabwe has been exceptional and it is estimated that between 250 and 300 teams will enter this milestone in Zimbabwe’s fishing calendar.

To celebrate the anniversary a wide range of entertainment including Bud Cockcroft, Rob & Ellie Osborne, Fraser Mackay and Paul Bowen amongst others have been lined up to entertain every evening from Monday 24th October through to Friday.

There will be all sorts of fun during the three days with lots of giveaways and some great prizes to be won.

If you have not fished the Tournament before this would be an ideal time to start, and for those of you who have fished before, get organized you do not want to miss out, it’s going to be huge!

Full bar and catering will be provided throughout the week.

50 Years of Tiger Fishing…

www.kitft.co.zw
kitft@iwayafrica.co.zw

Kariba on Amazon.co.uk

“I have stated heretofore in print and am still ready to maintain my pronouncement, that the tigerfish of Africa is the fiercest fish that swims. Let others hold forth as advocates for the mako shark, the barracudas, the piranah of the Amazon, or the blue fish of the Atlantic. To them I say ‘Pish and Tush’.” L. J. McCormick, 1949.

“Wakey Wakey… Rise and Shine It’s Tiger Time!”
On October 6th 2010 one of the biggest annual fishing events in Africa and certainly in Zimbabwe will begin. The Kariba International Tiger Fish Tournament has been recognized by the International Game Fish Association as one of the greatest Game Fish tournaments in the World and KITFT was made a qualifying round of the IGFA Inshore World Game Fish Championships.

History

The Kariba International Tiger Fish Tournament started way back in 1962, when a bunch of farmers deciding to go fishing.

Since then the tournament has grown and in 1991 there were 333 teams – some 300 more teams than the first tournament. At last year’s tournament 186 teams participated from 6 countries.

The biggest haul was recorded in 2000 when 9 910.700 kgs of fish were caught. The biggest fish was caught by Mike Otto in 1989 weighing 10.210kg. Ladies have also become a force to be reckoned with and both the ladies records were broken in 2000. The top Ladies Individual Aggregate stands at 58.890kg held by Char Ward, and the biggest fish by a lady being 8.850kg, held by Merinada Wheeler.

More About the Tournament

• You can find more information and Live results during the tournament will be available on the official KITFT Website
• The official KITFT Magazine will be out in mid to late September and anyone anywhere can request a free copy by sending their Postal details to client@david.co.zw (they will post it to you)

More about the Tigerfish

• You can find more on the Tigerfish (Hydrocynus forskalii) on the Safari Guide website.

Kariba on Amazon.co.uk

Video of some short clips from my trip to Kariba in 2009

I only take video when not taking photographs or fishing, so there is plenty that I missed and I just use the video mode on my camera, so sorry for the camera shake! You can take a look at the photos I took on my last trip here: Beautiful Zimbabwe.

A few people have recently askd me about what equipment I use:

Binoculars
As well as a camera, I always have a good pair of binoculars with me and I would go as far as to say that they are as important, even more important than the camera. I mostly use a Steiner 10×26 compact when I travel or walk in the bush as they work well and fold up small enough to easily put in your pocket:

Best Birdwatching Binoculars

Camera
Believe it or not, I don’t use an SLR camera for my photos or a video camera for the films – rather just a single Digital Compact SuperZoom or Bridge camera and in particular the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ series of cameras (The model has been upgraded through the years). The main reasons for this are cost and size. They cost a fraction of a good quality digital SLR and that is not including the telephoto lens that you would have to buy for the SLR as well and they are also far smaller an lighter – therefore much easier to take on holiday with you. I also like the Panasonic’s because you can also get Telephoto Conversion Lenses for them to increase your zoom even more.

For more information, take a look at some article I have written on the Safari Guide website:
Best Digital Camera for Safari and Travel

Music is “Dreaming” by Bud Cockcroft and has been used with his permission – Go to www.budcockcroft.com for more of his songs and to buy.

I have just returned from my latest visit to Zimbabwe where I had an excellent time catching up with family and friends.

Every-time I go back I am stunned by just how beautiful the country, the people, it’s scenery and the wildlife is. Below are a few of the many, many photos I took either in my parents garden in Harare, at Mazvikadei Dam just outside Banket or on Lake Kariba.

Whilst in Kariba I went to see the dam wall because I knew that they had opened a few gates, I had not however expected to find three gates open! The power of the water coming through is incredible and you could even see the spray rising over the town of Kariba from Antelope Island in the early morning!

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

I hope you enjoy the photos, if you would like to use any please feel free to contact me. I have also recently had a few people ask me about what equipment I use:

Binoculars
As well as a camera, I always have a good pair of binoculars with me and I would go as far as to say that they are as important, even more important than the camera. I mostly use a Steiner 10×26 compact when I travel or walk in the bush as they work well and fold up small enough to easily put in your pocket:

Best Birdwatching Binoculars

Camera
Believe it or not, I don’t use an SLR camera – rather a Digital Compact SuperZoom or Bridge camera and in particular the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ series of cameras. The main reasons for this are cost and size. They cost a fraction of a good quality digital SLR and that is not including the telephoto lens that you would have to buy for the SLR as well and they are also far smaller an lighter – therefore much easier to take on holiday with you. I also like the Panasonic’s because you can also get Telephoto Conversion Lenses for them to increase your zoom even more.

For more information, take a look at some article I have written on the Safari Guide website:
Best Digital Camera for Safari and Travel

Below are a few great Coffee Table type books on Zimbabwe:

A map of Kariba showing the under-water topography has been published and is offered in both hard copy and digital version.

The map information covers the eastern basin from Charara to Photo Corner just beyond the narrows.

The height and river information was compiled from the state topographical maps, completed in 1955. Mapping technology has since vastly improved so the accuracy of these old maps is not great. To improve accuracy the vectors were adjusted to fit, as best as possible, more modern data. The maps were then re-projected onto the WGS 1984 datum (spheroid).

The contour intervals are at 25 FEET vertical distance and water supply level is taken at 1600 feet a.s.l. and thus this is the level depicted by the shoreline.

At a scale of 1:100 000 the physical map size is approximately 1100mm x 600mm. Due to the small size of the market lithographic reproduction is uneconomic and so the prints are generated on demand. They are printed on a 150 gram gloss art paper through a colour laser printer that produces an excellent image which is colour-fast and waterproof. However the restriction on the print size means it has to be produced in two halves and joined down the length. Unfortunately they are relatively expensive. The map can be personalized to include photographs and other specifically provided detail. This option may well be popular for house-boat owners.

The digital version comes on CD with an application that needs to be installed on a desktop/laptop. Global Mapper is a simple application and experimentation will familiarise you with its workings. As the map is geo-referenced the cursor position is shown with a lat/long readout. Zooming in and out, measuring distances and adding your own data are primary functions of this application. You can change view parameters from kilometres to nautical miles, for example A search tool allows you to find any of the named data features.

If you have a data cable you can plug your GPS into your desktop/laptop and experience live tracking. Global Mapper 5 only works with serial port connections so if your data cable is USB you will need to purchase GM version 7 or later. Please note that the map cannot be up-loaded to your GPS instrument.

The digital data also includes A4 sized bitmaps of the lake (Zim side only). These have been supplied so that you can print out copies of specific areas at a larger (1:50 000) scale.

This product is the result of thousands of man-hours and is a very useful tool for planning, navigating, recording and analysing. The cost of one hard copy is USD45 and the digital version is USD40 (includes installation on a laptop). Bundled in a package deal the cost together is USD75.

A copy is displayed in the Fishing Shop in the Golden Stairs Nursery complex – come along and see it when you have time.

Contact Kevin Philip on 744067, 0912 709 350 kevnlea1@yahoo.com for more information.

Kariba on Amazon.co.uk

“I have stated heretofore in print and am still ready to maintain my pronouncement, that the tigerfish of Africa is the fiercest fish that swims. Let others hold forth as advocates for the mako shark, the barracudas, the piranah of the Amazon, or the blue fish of the Atlantic. To them I say ‘Pish and Tush’.” L. J. McCormick, 1949.

On October 21st 2009 one of the biggest annual fishing events in Africa and certainly in Zimbabwe will begin. The Kariba International Tiger Fish Tournament has been recognized by the International Game Fish Association as one of the greatest Game Fish tournaments in the World and KITFT was made a qualifying round of the IGFA Inshore World Game Fish Championships.

History

The Kariba International Tiger Fish Tournament started way back in 1962, when a bunch of farmers deciding to go fishing.

Since then the tournament has grown and in 1991 there were 333 teams – some 300 more teams than the first tournament. At last year’s tournament 186 teams participated from 6 countries.

The biggest haul was recorded in 2000 when 9 910.700 kgs of fish were caught. The biggest fish was caught by Mike Otto in 1989 weighing 10.210kg. Ladies have also become a force to be reckoned with and both the ladies records were broken in 2000. The top Ladies Individual Aggregate stands at 58.890kg held by Char Ward, and the biggest fish by a lady being 8.850kg, held by Merinada Wheeler.

More About the Tournament

• You can find more information on the official KITFT Website

More about the Tigerfish

• You can find more on the Tigerfish (Hydrocynus forskalii) on the Safari Guide website.

Kariba on Amazon.co.uk