A close circle of friends can add to the joy in your life
Three days is not enough time to explore Qhora (Kob Inn). I did the best I could to cover all the bases but I came up short. The area is a paradise. If I were a dog and had 10 tails and 15 trees, all 10 tails would have been wagging as would those of my buddies too. We were on the Gonubie Baptist Church men’s fishing weekend this past weekend and we could not have been happier.
Out of bed at 4.30am on Friday and on the road at 5am we were in convoy, three vehicles, nine guys and happy Friday never looked so good. The Shell garage just outside Butterworth at the Mazeppa turn belongs to the family of Sibu Mkukwana and our sunrise coffee there with him was a brew of great celebration.
Simple pleasures are just that much better in good company aren’t they?
The turn-off to Qhora is in Idutywa and surprisingly the road to the coast was not that bad. The moment we got to our lovely accommodation, it was meeting our hosts, offloading at top speed and then scattering in all directions with fishing rods to find the best water we could.
No surprise, I took my canoe and headed for the river at top speed with good buddies Marc Morell and Steve Scheepers. It was a sight to behold. Our gracious host gave us the boathouse keys and Steve had possibly eight canoes to choose from.
Kob Inn Hotel by the way also has a boathouse full of craft and R100 will put you on the river for the day.
Mud prawns on the Qhora are not easy to find unless you are about 3km upriver but we got some to start with near the mouth and drifted up, fishing with the incoming tide. The grunters were not big but one legal one submitted to the net and was seduced to the pan. The twin brothers Karshagen are a formidable paddle tail fishing force and got a small but legal kob that quickly ended up as fresh fish bite starters for the team. As is so often the case on this type of adventure we took hopelessly too much food and ate a long way past our heart’s content.
Saturday it was up and chasing good water once more. I opted for the river again.
Fish, eat, sleep, repeat. The rest of the team headed for the sea. The brothers Karshagen are like a pair of athletic Jack Russell terriers and with light tackle spinning gear they think nothing of traversing 12km of coast to chase kob. Another kob was found and two grunters from the river to honour promises to friends. Saturday night we braaied too much meat and fell down in comfortable beds to dream about Sunday morning. Heaven we are told is better than this. It is hard to imagine.
Sunday morning the lads were off for promising water one more time like a starter’s gun had gone off, and this time the fish came on. Jyson Karshagen was targeting silver steenbras and to his credit the young man brought target species in. The fish was just undersized and he put it back.
Dad and uncle struck gold though and came back with a pole between them supporting two fish not much different from the scouts from the promised land carrying a pole between them supporting a bunch of grapes. Steve Scheepers, deserving of a diligence prize, plied his spoon until he got a kob to take home. Mike Roebuck hooked two but lost both but at least he got to see one of his kob before it swam away. He was not displeased.
I was glad to catch a bluefish and a black tail in the sea and tithe it, along with a grunter, to our staff. I wish I could find money as easy to tithe as fish. Jujura River and Shixini River were on my radar but I never made it to either of them.
Two more for the bucket list and sea spots galore unattended. We did not even get to have a beer at the hotel. Perhaps next time. My good wife reminds me that you have to make your own sunshine and fellowship with good men is a good thing.
I am lucky I married the right girl. Hopefully good exercise and the great outdoors keeps shooting pains in the left arm away and or clutching a heaving chest and keeling over. Writer Dan Buettner in The Blue Zones documents the Japanese concept of moai as a strong contributor to longevity. It might be true to say that Qhora adds length to life. If not length it is at least and certainly a joy of spectacular proportions.