Trout fishing at Mount Kenya

Sparkling clear water flows down the slopes of Mount Kenya carving a path through the tall forest trees and the mountain air, heady like champagne. Sun rays filter through the canopy to warm the air.

It’s a perfect morning for trout fishing and we are at Kiganjo Trout Hatchery in Mount Kenya Forest Reserve started by the colonial British in 1931.

It’s one of the main trout fisheries in Africa, says Opallo Erick the senior fisheries officer. Our fish guide spent a couple of years at the university studying fish, which goes to show that rearing trout is a delicate science.

Trout, one of the tastiest freshwater fish, was not indigenous to Africa and it was introduced in Kenya by the maverick Major Ewart Grogan in 1905. Major Grogan is famous for the Cape-to-Cairo walk for the love of a woman and many other escapades and projects.

He introduced trout to River Gura in the Aberdares, reputed for being the fastest flowing river in Africa, and the fish took to the cool, clear waters and laid eggs which hatched at 9,500 feet. That was the start of the trout industry in Kenya.

The Game Department took control of the waters in 1926 and by 1939 there were 373 miles of river containing brown trout. Grogan introduced two species of trout: brown and rainbow.

And so it comes to be that on this fine morning before breakfast, we’re standing by a pond that is the mating point for rainbow trout - recognisable from the lateral line on its body.

“The females are bigger and more brightly coloured while the males have hooked lower lips,” Opallo points out. The fish are kept in the pond for two weeks for sorting – the ripe females are selected for the eggs and the males for the milt (sperm).

The farmed fish need some help from human hands with a gentle squeeze from the abdomen to the anus to release the egg and sperm which are then transferred to buckets inside the hatchery. It’s called stripping the fish and if you’re around on Tuesday or Friday morning, you can witness this.

The milt and ova are mixed in a bowl for fertilisation. Once the ova is fertilised the eggs are washed to rid them of excess milt and other particles, and placed in incubatory trays in troughs fed by clean running water from River Sagana.

The tiny ova are cleaned daily and spoiled eggs removed with siphons. Three weeks later the eye sack develops. Fast forward to the raceways where the fish are raised to table size for sale.

Cultivated trout are prone to skin infections, but new research on farmed trout shows that cross breeding populations from different rivers – Gura, Chania and Rupingazy – improve stock.

After being schooled in the art and science of trout farming, it’s time for breakfast laid exquisitely on an iron-cast bridge straddling the Sagana after which it’s time to fish for the trout.

Clad in ankle length rubber boots and armed with fishing rods, we make it to the river below. It’s a patient art and Benson Maina the naturalist at Mountain Lodge and my brother standing in ankle deep water, try their luck at catching trout for lunch.

It is midday when we return to the ‘tree-lodge’ that’s raised on stilts above the forest canopy and escape into the charmed forest before lunch. A pair of suni – the world’s smallest antelope – peer at us through the undergrowth but waterbuck keep their distance.

A family of colobus monkeys forage the high canopies of the trees. It’s their world and we are only visitors – and custodians for without these natural forests, there would be no home for them.

Maina points to trees and herbs used as food and medicine and a deep hole formed by bombing during the Mau Mau fight for freedom. It is a moment of reflection as we pay homage to the freedom fighters of yesteryears.