It was somewhere in the late 20-teens (like 2018?) that Prof. Gordon O’Brien (Research Associate of the School of Biology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Mpumalanga) shared an entire photo album of weird and wonderful fish species from a river in northern Zambia with Garth Wellman. He spoke of fish congregations below large waterfalls, which included a type of ‘blue’ yellowfish (a Labeobarbus sp.) and even tigerfish at some point along the river; this river, of course, was quickly added to the bucket-list of destinations and in 2024 and 2025 we (Garth Wellman, Ben Pellegrini and I) were lucky enough to raft approx. 60 km of this spectacular river with George Bell of Rivers & Dust Safaris.

After our success with bulky and colourful Muishond zonker patterns while chasing ‘blue’ yellows with George Bell in May 2024 (see: 80% Dagga Boy on page 32 of The Mission Issue 47) we based the majority of our flies on several of the smaller and psychedelic, tropical fish species in Prof. Gordon O’Brien’s fish collection:

THE NORTHERN ZAMBIA TROPICAL FISH COLLECTION

Orthochromis sp. (potentially Orthochromis kalungwishiensis (Greenwood & Kullander, 1994)) – Prof. Gordon O’Brien collection

Pseudocrenilabrus philander (Southern mouth-brooder) – Prof. Gordon O’Brien collection

Opsaridium sp. (type of African danio/barred minnow) – Prof. Gordon O’Brien collection

Enteromius fasciolatus (African banded barb) – Prof. Gordon O’Brien collection

Enteromius eutaenia (orange fin barb) – Prof. Gordon O’Brien collection

Chiloglanis sp. – Prof. Gordon O’Brien collection

Amphilius sp. – Prof. Gordon O’Brien collection

THE FLY PATTERNS

Here are examples of our flies, tied to ‘imitate’ some of the smaller and more colourful fish species in this river (many with fluorescent triggers that can work so well on predatory fishes):

While it really felt like we were tying flies for the Amazon, majority of the flies we tied worked really well in this African river – keep an eye out on the article in The Mission Fly Mag for our success on the fishing front (and to read more about the controversial, future developments on this incredible river).