Month by month
Kafue in March
In March the tap starts to close. Rainfall drops by more than half, from February's 229 mm to 108, the first wave of seasonal camps unlocks along the river, and the rods come out again on the 1st. Busanga, meanwhile, stays deep underwater.
If you only want the answer
March is a green-season month with momentum. It suits birders, anglers marking the season opening on 1 March, and anyone who wants lodge life on a brimming river at low-season prices.
Reading the March numbers
The normals show 108 mm over 12 rain days, with days of 27.9°C and nights of 18.6°C. The storms come fewer and shorter now, with real sunshine between them, and the bush stands at maximum green while the drying quietly begins underneath.
The first reopening wave
Ila returns from its February pause on 1 March. In the north, McBrides' and Hippo Lodge both begin their March-to-December seasons at the water's edge, Nanzhila Lake Camp comes back to life beside Itezhi-Tezhi, and Mawimbi's rate sheet starts running again. The Busanga camps remain months away from their first guests, and nothing north-west of the river corridor is drivable.
For a self-driver the calculus is unchanged from the deep wet: firm ground only, which means the M9, the access roads and boats for everything else.
Rods out on the 1st
Zambia's national fishing closed season ends on 1 March, and Kafue's camps run largely catch-and-release fishing for bream, tigerfish, pike and barbel against a $30 per-person, per-day park angling fee. One current caveat: after an upstream mining contamination incident, the government suspended fishing on stretches of the Kafue River outside the park, and whether the in-park reaches are affected is unverified, so confirm the position with your camp before you travel with a rod.
A March habit worth building: drive and boat in the mornings, because what rain still falls prefers the late afternoon. Nothing needs booking more than a few weeks out.