A Ministry of Water Development technician named Botha then designed a brilliant system called a "spider" whereby a series of perforated pipes radiating from a central hub, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, was placed on an excavation about two metres below the surface level of the sand, the sand was replaced and the "spider" was connected to a pump and diesel engine situated on the bank above flood level, This system collected the water stored in the sand through the perforations in the pipe and transferred it to reservoirs from where it gravitated through canals to the irrigated areas.
It was a most remarkable sight to see the fields of green crops interspersed with glistening canals of water and knowing that the water was coming from under the surface of the sand which streched kilometres up and down stream, sere and yellow and dry without a pool in sight. This type of irrigation was of course only possible where a large reservoir of water was proved to exist under the sand, and only the larger rivers were capable of sustaining such a system. Other irrigation schemes were dependent on d ams for their water and I had great personal satisfaction of setting up a brand new scheme from scratch.
When the Bulawayo Municipality built the massive Umzingwane dam in the Mzinyatini communal area in 1962, the basin of water that developed back from the wall obviously flooded many hundreds of hectares of land and deprived many people of their grazing and arable areas. As compensation, an agreement was drawn up between the municipality and the government setting up a fund out of which was eventually purchased a neighbouring farm, for resettlement of those displaced by the water, and from which was eventually funded the construction of an irrigation scheme and a junior secondary school, which I will describe later.
Knowing that money was available for the irrigation scheme I sent the land development officer to search for suitable land below the dam. He came back very excited about his find - about 40 hectares of good soil about 6 kilometres downstream. It was fortunately not allocated for arable purposes though it had obviously been used for cropping in the past. Test pits were dug and the verdict was that the soil was suitable and the topography would suit a flood irrigation scheme. Meetings were than held. Firstly the Mzinyathini African Council were asked to do this until consultation had taken place with the local people whose grazing area would be affected by the scheme. Despite explanations that the yield from the scheme would be more than one hundred fold the yield of the five head of cattle that would normally graze in that area (at the recommended rate of one per eight hectares) the locals were adamant that they did not want anything to do with it. The inbred conservatism of the peasants was largely responsible for this attitude, so I decided to tackle the problem from a different angle and persuaded a party consisting of the chief, the council chairman, the ward councillor and the local village heads to accompany me and the land development officer down to the Tonqwe scheme in the Beit Bridge district. We set out, very cramped, in two cars and met our counterparts at Tongwe where we had a most interesting tour round their thriving scheme which was at that time an emerald jewel in the uniform drab grey dust of the Beitbridge veld. They saw the water being gravitated from the Tongwe dam into a series of canals from which it was siphoned onto the fields of maize. They were told of the average yield of 88 bags per hectare, compared with one bag from dry land. The conversation became very much more progressive, as I heard to my joy in the car on the return journey, and I had the immense satisfaction a week or so later, to receive the consent of all concerned for work to start.
Unfortunately, as so often happens, we had to work within a strict budget, which caused major teething troubles with the main 15 centimetre feeder pipe which bought water up to the night storage dam from the municipality's massive 100 centimetre pipe, which let water down by gravity from Umzingwane dam to the Ncema water works. Someone had persuaded me that to save money I should use second hand piping, which on the surface looked fine. When it was finally connected though, the result was more like a perforated pipe irrigating a sports field than anything else, as spurts of water rose in all directions from pin holes in the old pipes, which fortunately we had not back filled. Anyway, all were eventually repaired, the night-storage dam was completed, the lands levelled and contoured, canals were excavated and the larger ones concreted, and the scheme was ready for allocation to those fortunate enough to be chosen. The plot holders (half a hectare each) were chosen by the chief and his advisors from amongst applicants who had been dispossessed either by the flooding of the Umzingwane dam or by the irrigation scheme itself. They were each expected to join a co-operative society (yes, we had them in those days!) and received an initial loan for seed and fertilizer. Strict rules were laid down governing planting dates, watering dates and times, care of canals and equipment and everything else designed to make the scheme with 80 different individuals working on it for their own separate benefit, into a cohesive whole.
After a shake-down period resulting in the eviction of a few idle farmers who did not work to the rules, the scheme worked very well indeed. An interesting side issue was the appearance after a few months of tilapia fish in the night storage dam. Eggs or fry had obviously travelled all the way from the Umzingwane dam down the main pipe-line and up the feeder pipe into the storage dam. This provided an easily accessible fishing spot for the farmers whose children were delighted to try their luck and add protein to the family diet.
Fishing was one of the favourite pastimes during my off-duty hours and I had great sport at times. My favourite spot was at Kafusi dam in the south of the Gwanda district, where a group of us used to camp for the occasional weekend. The most successful time we ever had there was one bright noon-time with a fresh wind blowing the dam waters into 15cm waves.
Half the party was on the dam wall and half on a boat about twenty metres out. I was in the boat and the big bream suddenly went on a feeding frenzy that a fisherman probably only comes across once a year. Whenever we dangled a rod over the side, down went the line with a pull, no fussing around smelling the bait, and up came a fine fat bream. The party on the wall were having no luck at all so after we had had all the fun that our consciences could justify we paddled to the wall and changed places. I then affixed a big heavy red float that I had never used successfully before and with this and appropriate sinkers managed to cast to where the hungry school had been feeding and managed to keep pulling them out. After about an hour of frantic activity the fish went off the feed (or else we had caught them all) and back we went to camp with bulging keepnets. The smallest of the bream was about 225 grams and the biggest was a whooping 1.06 kilograms which I was lucky enough to catch. I understand that Kafusi is now a muddy puddle in which a few barbel struggle to survive. It has silted up almost completely.
Another memorable occasion in the same vicinity was when two of us caught 120 small bream in exactly an hour at Patana Dam. The biggest weighed about 100 grams but they made the tastiest sundowner snacks.
On the same patrol during which we visited the little iron god Chingombe, we enjoyed some exciting night fishing on the banks of the mighty Zambezi near Mana pools. It was rather foolhardy to do so because of the attraction that light is said to have for hippo, but we set up a Tilley lamp on a sand bank in a little inlet where a minor tributary entered the big river and proceeded to fish. My companion who had never caught a tiger fish before baited up with a portion of fillet and cast in. It was incredible because his reel never stopped spinning - the bait had literally been snatched by a tiger the moment that it had hit the water and off it went. After a very spirited flight he landed his first tiger - a fine 3 kilograms. A few minutes later we each hooked almost simultaneously one of those strange fish commonly called "pink ladies". These were each about 2 kilograms in weight. Finally my big rod sprang to life, the reel screamed and 15 minutes later I hauled in a 20 kilogram vundu, which is the big brother of the barbel, and can weigh up to 50 kilograms. Things then went quiet and we packed up and returned to our camp site nearby where we had put our stretchers under a huge acacia albida tree. Fortunately no big game wandered into the camp where we had no protection except for a mosquito net. All we could hear was the soft rustling of the great Zambezi below us, with once the distant "oo-ee" of a hyena and the snort of a hippo.
I caught my biggest tiger fish below the wall at Kariba where the maelstrom of the turbine outflows pours into the pools gouged out by the thundering might of the water roaring down from the sluice gates when they were open. It was said that this pool was a favourite haunt of big tiger feeding on the remains of fish unlucky enough to have come too close to the turbine inlets and subsequently torn to pieces on the blades. I caught a small chesa and used the fillets to bait my tiger rod, casting into the middle of the rushing swirling pool. There was so much movement caused by the current that I thought it might be difficult to detect a bite, but when it came there was no doubt at all. What a wonderful knock - strike hard and out of the water flew a glorious silver and blue fish, lashing its powerful body to try and get rid of the hook before I brought it in - I was using heavy tackle because of the conditions. When I weighed it, it was 7 kilograms. I happened to be on circuit court at the time. I had had my morning session at Kariba and so stuck my beautiful fish in the police deep freeze overnight. In the morning I tied it to the radiator grill of my car, in a wet sack, and proceeded through Northern Rhodesia as it was then, to Chirundu, stopping every few miles to pour water on the sack. At Chirundu I again put it in the police deep freeze while I held court and then tore back to Karoi where I delivered my fish, cool and fresh. My family was most impressed but despite my wife's efforts, when cooked, the flesh was yellow, very fat and full of bones - not at all nice.
Kariba lake itself can be very fickle as far as fishing is concerned. There were times when I caught nothing, one terribly frustrating time when my friend in the same boat, using the same bait and methods as I was, landed twelve fine bream whilst I didn't even have a bite, and times when everything went right.
On my last official trip on Kariba before I retired, the District Commissioner and I were inspecting the fishing camps that had been set up for the Batonka after the war. We were using the big district Development Fund launch "Sir Patrick Fletcher" named after the former Southern Rhodesian Minister of Native Affairs. Behind the "Fletcher" we towed a staff member's private runabout and from this, one never-to-be-forgotten morning, we fished off the shore of the Chete Game Reserve. On one side of the first little bay we chose, a herd of buffalo were quietly grazing. On the other side a herd of elephant were drinking. The weather early in the morning was cool with a little soft breeze blowing from the lake. Cotton wool clouds floated in a bright blue sky and the fish were biting, biting wherever we cast. When we tired of one place, we tried another, and the fish were there. Eventually, keep nets bulging and time passing all too quickly, we motored back to the mother ship where the staff spent the rest of the trip back to Binga gutting our catch, throwing the mess overboard where it was snatched up by seagulls which I was most surprised to see there. I packed my share of the catch in a cool box with ice and brought it safely home to Bulawayo where we had fresh fish for weeks thereafter.