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Monday, February 17, 2014

Grant's birthday weekend 16 Feb

On Sunday afternoon, Grant and I drove across to Wessel, Louise and young Wessel at the client camp. The men had arranged to do a spot of fishing on the mine as the sun set. Louise and I accompanied them, sat at the vehicle and shared a month's worth of news since we'd both been out to South Africa on leave.
 
 Malachite Kingfisher perched on a reed on the other side of the recycled sewerage pond
 Blacksmith Lapwing (Plover) on the wall of the not-so-recycled pond nearby

The fishing location was the recycled dam near the town's sewerage works. While this can be quite a smelly noisome place at which to spend any length of time, a sewage pond is traditionally known to be a prolific birding spot too. 

 Intrepid fishermen get to it, while Louise watches 

 Young Wessie was in his element: I think he would fish every hour of the day if he was allowed to! 

After losing a very large fish, Grant was the first to land a big barbel (catfish)

 Wessel (Snr) kindly removed the hook from the barbel's mouth (you can see Grant's sandalled toes behind the fish) and then released it back into the dam

Twenty minutes later young Wessie landed his barbel (catfish)

Note how the lad watches his father free the hook from the barbel's mouth (Wessel had to do this without touching it!) and released it back into the water

 Young Wessie's catch! 

Congratulations to Birthday Man, Grant and young Wessie on great catches which are swimming free again today! 

Here's wishing all reading this post today, a wonderful week ahead!

9 comments:

  1. Looks and sounds as if it was a great day for!! Fun shots for the day! Thanks for sharing! Have a great new week!

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  2. Sounds like just the right way for Grant to spend his birthday! It looks like a lovely spot too. So nice and green.

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  3. When I was that age I would have spent every minute fishing - and pretty much did in the school holidays!

    Cheers - Stewart M - Melbourne

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  4. The Kingfisher has lovely colours, I like its orange feet. I see the boys had fun fishing.

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  5. A fun birthday weekend and sounds like a great outing for everyone.. Awesome birds and photos, JO!

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  6. Wonderful pictures. I enjoyed my visit to Africa this morning!

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  7. Hi Well that was a wonderful day out and both boys caught fish and I am sure you had a great chat.

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  8. That looks like a great day of fishing! What a wonderful experience for all, especially young Wessie. I was curious about why they threw the fish back. I'd have cooked up that catfish immediately and served it for dinner!

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  9. Ah, fishing...reminds me of my father and brothers.
    Birthday greetings to Grant. You two have your birthdays close together, as my parents did.
    That Wowzio thing has just popped up again. It came up before I finished reading about the fishing, but I got your blog back and finished the story.
    Sure wish we could figure out what's happening.
    Meanwhile, give the cats and Princess a hug from their Auntie Kay in Canada.
    Luv, K

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Thank you for visiting my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate your feedback. Jo