Kenya‘s high altitude trout

[:en]Our trip had gone well up the Chogoria route to Mount Kenya having left Nanyuki after breakfast when a minor disaster struck. A quick passing forest storm rendered the forest track impassable even to our 4×4 vehicles. We were forced to leave the vehicles on the side of the greasy mountain track and to walk the 6 fisherman to our first camp which aptly named „half way camp“. I estimated a 5 km walk. The walk turned out to be a very pleasant and full of surprises as the forest opened its doors to us.

Cedar forest

We experienced all the smells, sounds and scenes that an African forest could offer from the towering ancient cedars bearded with fearns, twittering minuscule brightly coloured sun birds to rumblings crashing in the undergrowth as elephant and buffalo picked up our scent and set flight through the forest.

Our 3 porters and a cook had set up our camp, new 3×3 Trango mountain hardwear tents and cuisine fit for a king. We all slept well and after a hearty typical English breakfast set off on our walk to lake Ellice to fish for trout. 3500 meters altitude had by now made the fittest of our group breathing hard but the cool 5 degrees cooled and refreshed us as we walked.

Gorges Valley

The views of the peaks valleys and craters kept us absorbed and spellbound all the time reminding oneself we were still on the African equator and not on the slopes of the Himalayas. Our fishermen were in good spirits taking in this amazing scenery and actually being quite satisfied with just that.

Lake Ellice

The night before the topic of conversation had been floating lines, sinking lines and tapered lines as well as discussions about our Kenya flies such as like the pink Wooly Bugger, Mrs Simpson, Royal and Standard Coachman, Olive Bugger and the Black Wooly Bugger that ended up by all of them catching these mountain trout.

Lake Ellice trout

The view of Lake Ellice finally emerged nestled in a long wide open valley carpetted with tussock grass. Access to the fishing was relatively easy and we were soon all casting into those crystal waters.

Release

Lines sizzled as large trout leaped and splashed heavily into mirror waters as all fishermen hooked up into monster mountain trout that seemed to be in a permanent feeding frenzy, with no pattern as to when the fish were feeding we caught trout throughout the day on all 4 days.

Gently grilled

The average weight of our 19 trout was a staggering 2.5 lb per fish taken from all 3 lakes. And of course all our trout were returned to those icy crystal waters with the exception of 6 that we ate and were gently grilled on our camp fire in the evenings, the highly nutritious proteins firing us up for more of this amazing mountain fishing experience. Each night we all slept well in our sleeping bags as icicles like stalactites hung from our tents.

Further information:
Julian Wright
julian@africascents.com