Marrying varsity-level wisdom with the charm of Old Blue Eyes, Rhuan Human heads to Matoya Lodge on the Barotse floodplains for some double-figure tiger trophies.

“As a “koshuis” (residence) student in my first year of varsity, I learned a lot. Not so much from an academic standpoint but many of those valuable life lessons you tend to acquire at tertiary education institutions.

I learned that campus security staff are not trained Special Ops. and are generally slower and more unfit than the average varsity student. I learned how to make “pap” (maize porridge) in a microwave oven, how to boil eggs in a kettle and how to have a hell of a night out on a total budget of R50. Valuable, as I said.

Another life lesson I had as a “Jar” (a name given to a worthless first year student), was dating advice from a fifth-year senior. Standing outside a dodgy sports bar in Melville, Johannesburg, with all the wisdom and virtue that one can summon from a bottle of Wellington VO brandy, he said to me, “Jar, if you want to nab yourself a trophy wife, you have to look in the spots where trophy wives hang out. Don’t expect to find one in a place like this.”

Now, despite the fact that no first-year, sober or otherwise, is actually looking for a wife in a bar, his words were quite profound. Even though it was after- midnight, alcohol-induced counsel, it was advice I took to heart. In the years to come I managed to adapt it for different scenarios. It’s a simple concept. If you want top shelf wine, you’re not going to look for it from a vineyard somewhere in the Free State. Or if you’re in the mood for good sushi, you’re going to want to find a joint with a waving cat statue and a chef with an accent that could be Japanese, not that stuff in clear containers at the supermarket fish counter.  You get the point.

The same applies to fish. If you want to catch a trophy fish, you need to go where trophy fish hang out, and the Barotse floodplains are where trophy tigers hang out.”

Read the full story in issue 15 of The Mission: