Fishing with Hippos

Fishing is a passion Michael and I share. Being around so much water in northern Botswana and Zimbabwe spurred the passion during this portion of our trip. With the help of a lovely woman at our Zimbabwean lodge, we found a man to take us fishing in Victoria Falls. We didn’t know who this guy was just that he came with excellent references. Neither did we know where he was going to take us fishing; just he would pick us up at seven in the morning. I was concerned. I have been on the water with hippo – the animal that kills more people than any other in Africa – way too many times during my African travels and I began to feel, years ago, that I was pushing my luck so, in the back of my mind, I hoped we were going fishing in a small hippo-less pond.


Our fishing guide arrived right on time that morning. He picked us up in a silver older model SUV. A man of few words in the beginning, we left the lodge and proceeded down the road, avoiding warthogs that were casually parading down the main road. After driving only a few miles, he turned off onto a lovely piece of property along a waterway that was a next to a private restaurant/bar. I knew the water I was looking at was the Zambezi River and I knew it contained hippo but I felt this man must, in all of his experience of fishing in Zimbabwe and on the Zambezi, know how to avoid the beasts that I feared so greatly!

He loaded us, a tackle box, several rods and reels, and a cooler onto a small motor boat and off we went down this very wide portion of the Zambezi River. Much to my delight there were no hippos in sight. Our guide stopped the boat at a beautiful spot where we learned his tricks for tiger fishing and cast our reels. We fished this spot for a while with no luck. After about thirty minutes the guide suggested we head to another spot in the opposite direction, passing the place where we began the journey.

Michael and I were sitting in the back of the boat in swivel seats facing the rear. The guide sped up and swerved to the left casually hugging a bank a bit. I noticed the pod of hippos that was now to our left, the bank on our right. Just as I noticed the hippos and not three seconds after we passed them, a huge male hippo – the biggest I have ever seen - catapulted out of the water in the wake of our boat, three quarters of his enormous body came completely out of the water. Michael and I both saw him. Simultaneously our mouths gaped open and we turned to look at one another in complete astonishment. (For me it was complete horror.) I knew this hippos’ intention was to get us out of his territory and he was going to do that by flipping our boat then biting the first one of us he came to in half. He was only three seconds too late in accomplishing his goal.

I was stunned dumb. We stopped further down the river and cast the lines out in this new location but I was not a relaxed fisherman. I had lost my ability to think about anything but hippo. There was another hippo not far; albeit a sleeping peaceful one. But I could not stop watching him. I watched him while casting my line but was more interested in him than fishing. Then our fishing guide went to start the motor of the boat to relocate us and the motor would not start. He did get it started after a few tries but that did me in. I had visions of us in a crippled boat floating into a hippo pod. I could even see the story appearing on the next episode of the show I Shouldn’t Be Alive, two American tourist boat capsized by a rouge hippo on the Zambezi River.

I turned to Michael and said, “I can’t find my spit and I need to pee.” I asked our guide to please take me back to shore which he did. I stayed up at the restaurant and read while he and Michael fished more.

That evening we went back to that same restaurant with some locals and enjoyed a wonderful braai (bar-b-q). I was telling the story of the hippo and said the only person I knew of that survived a hippo attack was that guy Paul who appeared on many shows telling his story. One of them said, “Yeah, that happened right out here,” Pointing to where we had been fishing that morning.

I think now I am truly done with hippo. Never say never, but I don’t think I will ever be in the water with hippo again. I have truly pushed my luck!