HARRY AND THE HIPPO

          I was looking for a file in my somewhat chaotic and crowded filing 'system' when I came across this piece which I wrote years ago. It is based on a true incident, but I tried to give it a bit of local colour for a competition I thought of entering. Never did it. Didn't have the courage to expose my inexpertise. Couldn't care now - I'm among Friends and some may find it amusing.        

Harry nearly went overboard when he hooked the hippo.

The two of us were in Zimbabwe on secondment from the ATO – Australian Tax Office. Part of what the local businessmen called The A Team, sent across to help the new government stop the tax dodgers in their tracks.

We had a fair bit of time off and every spell we could we headed up North to Lake Kariba. What a place, I tell you. Nearly 250 kilometres long and sixty wide, it was stuffed full of fish and it had a game reserve down one side of it. You could loll back in your boat when the fishing was quiet and watch a herd of elephant or buffalo drift by. Plenty of antelope too and the occasional lion or leopard. It was only 365 kilometres up to the Lake from Harare, no traffic and no speed limits - well, there were speed limits, but no cops to enforce them - so we used to make the trip in about three hours flat.

So this particular weekend, Harry and I shot through when we knocked off at lunch time.  We'd arranged to meet a couple of our pals up at the Lake - Bob and Jim. They owned a charter boat between them and usually brought along some of their mates for these weekends. These blokes all had two things in common - a love of grog and a love of fishing. I'm not saying we were invited along because we had a good supply of duty free, or because we were in the tax office, but Harry and I agreed that it didn't do us any harm either. And it saved an awful lot in boat charter fees.

We made it to the Lake soon after noon and half an hour later we were out on the water, heading for a creek where the fishing was usually tops. Well, maybe we did leave the office a bit before lunch.

Getting there an hour before sunset gave us plenty of time to get out in the dinghies to catch some bream for tea. Harry and I shared a boat with one of the crew - a local bloke called Manzi. He was the best fisherman I ever met and you knew that when he was with you, you'd come back with a full keep net.

Manzi guided us into a great little bay. There was a patch of weed in the corner and that usually meant some fat bream. We rigged our rods, got our lines into the water without any delay and settled back, rocking gently in the boat, waiting for the first bite. As we sat there, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a patch of the weed which seemed to rise every now and then. I thought nothing of it and concentrated on my float. As I did so, I noticed a twin line of bubbles moving rapidly out of the weed. Before I could ask Manzi what kind of fish caused these bubbles, Harry's reel started to scream and his line stripped off at an incredible rate. He leapt to his feet - not a good idea in a light dinghy - and, swearing like a trooper, managed to regain his balance just as a hippo surfaced not twenty feet from the boat, wearing his hook as an earring and his float as a pendant. Its bellow indicated that it was not happy with these arrangements.

"Break the line, sah," urged Manzi as he frantically started the engine. Harry needed no urging and as the hippo submerged the line snapped. Manzi slammed the boat into gear and I wore Harry in my lap as he finally lost it. We shot out of the bay, going like a Bondi tram, trying to untangle arms and legs, happy to leave the hippo to it.

That evening, as we sat and watched the sun go down, we told our tale to the guffaws of the local mob. But Bob didn't laugh much. He just sat there thinking and when we had done he quietly said to Harry, "You know, Harry, I reckon you could have landed that if you hadn't tightened your drag so much."