By:Grace O’Leary
Being a beginner fly fisherman I was a little nervous about going to a fly fishing only camp. I was worried I wouldn’t catch anything and my guide would be annoyed with all my flower picking and berry eating.. but this was Africa baby, my guide sat his round touchie down right next to mine and gobbled back those berries! After some small chit chat and being told my soul would never rest being trapped in my dreams, I decided to get back to fishing. You can’t catch anything with a dry line!
Our guides.
We hired a private driver from Nairobi, John, to pick us up from the airport and drive us to the Ragati Reserve located 2 hours North of the city on the lower reaches of Mt. Kenya. What drew us to this remote fishing camp was actually the fames of Mt. Kilimanjaro, she is known all around the world, even if people don’t know where she is they have heard the name before. Mt. Kili is located in Tanzania on the border of Kenya. Being hikers and living in the mountains the idea of climbing to the summit was more than familiar but more money than we wanted to spend. We don’t have many rules but one is that we don’t pay to walk. This brought our attention to Mt. Kenya, only several hundred meters shorter than the infamous Kilimanjaro, it would be a worthy competitor but this mountain offered something else we desired, trout fishing. And that was the end of that.
Tucked away in the dense forest is a quaint camp set up along the winding river. The grass is groomed, pathways are swept and all the banana leaves are picked up in the morning. The guides ensure you have hot water to wash your face and private toilets to take all the private poops you want. Considering we live in our van, this camp was pure luxury! After familiarizing with camp, we geared up and headed upriver to fish nymphs in the slow runs..
The river was so beautiful, small and it winds its way through the dense forest with these amazingly deep runs. The vegetation is so thick in some places you can’t see more than 5 m infront of you. Then you’ll come around a bend and the foliage opens up and there is raspberry bushes growing in the patches of grass that can reach the sun. There are hanging vines and sunken logs and some of the bananas leaves have changed colour and dropped into the river making their way downstream. All the rocks are covered with green moss making them pretty slippery.. I know because I slipped and ate rock on the way down. Face down and ass up Joseph loaned a helping hand and was a gentleman, not mentioning it at all. FYI: There are stinging needles everywhere so make sure you wear long sleeve and pants.
It didn’t take long before I was snagged up and my guide, Joseph, realized he might be doing a lot of unhooking from vines not fish. Luckily the river was opening up a little, and I mean a little, giving me the room for a small backcast sending a cast up the river showing Joseph I mean business… when the conditions are favourable of course. We were shut out so far this afternoon of fishing but our luck was about to change. Rob was still feeling eager when we got back to camp so he fished the thin stretch of water running through camp and caught a Ragati Red! EFF YA!
It was night and the animals were just beginning to come to life. Walking around camp was a great reminder of how far from home we are and how unfamiliar we are with the creatures of the night. With all the excitement and long travel day we passed out almost immediately.
The following days went a little differently, we both were catching fish and I had gained my guides confidence back. We were in full swing now and I was feeling more and more confident with Joseph watching my every move. In the afternoon Rob hooked into the only 7 lbs rainbow trout in the river, they are that special, and for once.. I wasn’t the one to forget the net! It was a heartbreaking moment no doubt and a learning experience for our guides. We weren’t able to land the fish for a photo before he broke off but at the end of the day we didn’t care because we enjoyed our time. We did however capture some photos as this all went down! Along with the photos of the fish we didn’t catch we also have some more pictures from the weekend! To see more pictures of the fishing camp, you can view them under EYE BACON
