I awoke to great news here in Garoua, Cameroon. The rest of the Tourette Fishing guest on our trip made it in late last night after I headed back to the hotel. This includes Bill Douglass from Reno Nevada, Brian Griffith from New Jersey, Mark Micallef of Sidney Australia and my friends Jako Lucas and photographer Nick Kelley from the States. Jako and Nick are here at last minute to do a Yeti Story.
In typical African style, we experienced a few more delays. The trip paperwork says we leave at 9. Last night we switched to leave around 11. By the time it was said and done we headed out of Garoua for Nile perch camp at 3:40 PM. This is something you must expect in Africa and not a big deal because today isn’t a scheduled fishing day anyhow.
It’s a 4 hour drive from Garoua to camp. Scenic and through remote Cameroon villages and people. I rode with Koen (owner of the area we fish) and a Belgian hunter that arrived. Koen has a lot of crazy stories after living in Cameroon for over 30 years.
We arrived at camp around 8 PM to a campfire and were greeted with beers from the guides of Tourette Fishing – Fight it in Africa. The Cameroon guide crew consists of Stu Harley and Greg Ghaui. I fished huge tigerfish with Greg in Tanzania when I hosted clients for Yellow Dog Flyfishing in November of 2013. Both Granny and I spent time with Stu fishing smallmouth yellowfish in Lesotho in November of 2015.
Last but not least is Keith Clover, one of the owners and founders of Tourette Fishing. I first fished with Keith in Tanzania for tigerfish when we made the segment for the movie, “Connect”. We hit it off then and fished together in Lesotho since as well. It’s going to be a pleasure to catch up and fish with Keith again this week.
Its 10 PM here that means 2 PM in Idaho. Nonetheless it’s time to retire to my tent. I’m rooming with Bill. I should mention Bill is 79 years old and well-travelled and written many books. He’s a cool guy and already gave me a copy of his fishing book, Casting About in the Reel World. That’s all folks. In the morning we head out fishing.
Hi Jeff:
I hope you are doing well.
I am traveling to Slovenia and Croatia in late April. If you have any guides you know and could recommend for the Lake Bled area I would appreciate hearing from you.
Take care, Jim Fisher
Jim,
I fished there with Vladi so I had no guides and lucky for me a guy who spoke at least some of the language so we were able to figure out licenses and where we could go. I have no guide recommendations. I will check and see if Yellow Dog has any. I’m guessing you know but I have a good blog series for both places. At least you can get river names. Fishing there was fantastic!