Trout In The Horn Of Africa
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 31 July 2012 07:38
- Written by Ian Cramman
If you should ever find yourself heading for Ethiopia (unlikely for most I know but hey, it happened to me) then one thing you really need to pack is your trout rod. No, don’t adjust your specs. Suspend disbelief for a moment and read on. Ethiopia is a huge country mostly known for its arid and parched low-lying Eastern regions but it’s really is an incredibly varied place from massive lakes and swampland, deserts and virgin forest to high mountains.
In fact, much of the country is made up of vast, high and cool mountain plateaux. The Bale Mountains in the South are one such area and, of prime interest to the readers of this publication, there are a couple of rivers there that are just hoaching with quality trout!
It was the Colonel who put me in the picture you see. Over a few beers in Addis Ababa (my then work place) I confessed my deepening trout fishing withdrawal symptoms. He smiled indulgently and then spilled the beans about those streams in the Bale Mountains National Park. No one I ever spoke to knew chapter and verse about how trout had got there but the was that they had been brought up from Kenya many years ago and then left to get on with it. It always seemed strange that there should be trout in rivers that eventually empty into the tropical and baking seas of the Somali coast but there you are, the Bale Mountains are that kind of strange place. Over the next couple of years we’d invariably arrange at least a trip or two a season as soon as the rainy season ended and when the fly-fishing withdrawal symptoms started up with a vengeance. The usual trip went something like this:-
An early morning start from Addis would see between two and four 4WD vehicles heading out the city going South. Invariably there’d been the usual last minute panics about whether three cases of beer per person per day were sufficient and if non-essential items like food and tents could be jettisoned to allow more alcohol space. Finally though we’d set off. Out of Addis past Debre Zeyit the road drops from the highlands into the heat and dust of the rift valley with it’s huge shallow lakes, towering cathedral-like termite nests and thatched hut villages. At Shashemene (the home of Rastafarianism) you swing a left (goodbye tarmac!) and start to head East and up out of the rift valley. The countryside gets greener and lusher and the non-metalled roads get worse as you gain height into the southern highlands.
After hours of bumping over rough boulder and dirt roads and round hair-pin bends that drop off into hundreds of meters of nothingness we’d finally roll into the village of Dinsho inside the national park itself. A short drive above the town is the park lodge and ranger station surrounded by thick forest cover. A quick stop sees park fees and permits paid for and Abdulle the obligatory fishing guide from the village arranged for early the next morning. The lodge itself can be booked as accommodation and though the bunk-rooms are a bit on the spartan side there’s a good communal lounge room with a roaring fire to keep away the night-time chills.
Us hardy chaps preferred camping though and there’s a great spot in a clearing above the lodge where you can see for miles over the valley below to the distant hills. Invariably the only company would be the warthogs and mountain nyala that always seem to come crashing through the undergrowth just when you’re hunkered down for some quiet ablutions! If you are camping remember that you’re in the mountains and it can rain occasionally – usually at night. Also at over 3000m altitude it can get extremely brass-monkeys by the early hours so a good warm sleeping bag is a real necessity.
After setting up camp a big pot of something hot and filling simmers over the stove. The ice-cold beers then appear from the cool-box followed by a few warming drams from back home. The campfire is stoked up to ‘roaring’, the b.s. (as well as the alcohol) flows freely round the fire and gradually the bumpy day starts to fade into distant memory, an excited anticipation of great fishing ahead growing.
Ouuuuuch. I never should have had that last half-dozen drams! It’s “sparrow fart AM” in the morning, blooming baltic to boot, barely even light and the altitude fuelled hangover is kicking in with a thumping pulse – whose idea was this anyway? Don’t panic, time for a deep breath and a couple of paracetamol before heading out to face the grey early morning light. Abdulle has been hanging around waiting for the lazy ‘Ferengi’ to stir so it’s time to grab the rods and get into the wagons. Just outside of town you turn off the road and start to drive across the plain, dodging hummocks and rocks, heading towards those distant hills. You think ‘where are we heading, I don’t see a river?’ and then you come to it. This part of the Web River is a gorge cutting right down into the plains and your right on top of it before you know it’s there.
You scramble down into the cool stillness of the gorge and tackle up. An 8 or 9 foot 5 or 6 weight rod with a floating line is all you really need. You let Abdulle search through your fly box to see what he recommends for the end of your line and invariably it’ll be a Montana nymph or similar that he’ll pick out. And he’ll be right too as you won’t go to far wrong with a size 10 or 12 weighted Montana on this river. The water is milky opaque but that’s normal conditions. Nothing rising but that’s normal too. As you make your first few casts you start to warm up and the light grows. You work your way between pools searching out good lies rather than stalking individual fish. Top trout spots in normal water are the heads of pools where the fast well-oxygenated water tumbles in. You get into position at a likely looking pool, strip some line from the reel and cast, dropping your fly into the white-water at the very head of the pool. You begin a fast figure of eight retrieve to keep up with the nymph and then BANG. 
The shock of the first take has just sunk in when piscine chaos breaks loose. These might be rainbow trout but neither they nor their forebears for generations have ever seen a pellet or a pen. They are fit, fast, full finned and not overly happy at being hooked. A good fish (and fish of over two pounds are not uncommon from this small stream) will lead you a merry dance up and down through pools and rapids. Even the more average three quarters of a pound fish fight like caged tigers and will put a big smile on your face with a 5 or 6 weight rod.
This stretch of the Webb is a lovely bit of water full of varied pools and runs with something different round every corner. There are miles of water between the naturally demarcated top and bottom of the beat. At the bottom it gets seriously overgrown and difficult of access – though I’m sure that the intrepid bushwhacker will find some virtually un-fished gems of pools in there somewhere. The top of this stretch ends at an impressively large waterfall and pool above which there is a rickety wooden bridge that the local herdsmen and women use to take their livestock to and from the pastures on the other side of the plain. Beyond this point the river is reputed to hold broonies only! Few but large and almost mythologically elusive (well, to me so far anyway).
But back to our day though. You spend a few hours moving between pools working your way up through the gorge steadily catching fish as the day warms up and the sun starts to rise over the canyon walls. Now it’s time to head back to camp as the fishing goes off the boil when the sun gets on the water – simply too bright and hot. The sport has been good and you’ve had six fish for the morning’s efforts. The best is somewhere around two pounds and it had your heart in your mouth several times as it fought all the way to the net. All came to a weighted upstream nymph and all are fin-perfect wild ‘bows in prime condition.
Back at camp the couple of trout that you knocked on the head in the morning make a perfect lunch stuffed with fresh wild thyme from the bankside and baked in foil in the embers of the campfire. You wash the fresh fish down with a cold beer, sit in the warm sun considering what to do to while away the afternoon until the evening session and contemplating what a hard life it is!
If you’ve had a productive morning why not make things a bit harder on yourself for the evening session and head to the area’s other main river the Shaiya for the last hour or two of light. The Shaiya is about 40 minutes drive from Dinsho and is larger and much more open than the Webb. It’s a really pretty stretch of water that runs through farmland and forest with more larger, slower pools. In places looking across the water at a stand of conifers you could be on some stretch of the upper Clyde or similar. 
There are also some big trout in the Shaiya it’s just getting them out that takes some doing! My biggest from the area came on the Shaiya. It was a beauty of 54cm and solid with it. A weighted black imitative flexibody nymph pitched into a calm pocket behind a big boulder in heavy rapids accounted for this fish the hardest, most vicious fight I’ve had on trout tackle. Blanks seem to be the rule rather than the exception here but the rewards are worth it – so if you’re feeling lucky….
Outside of the trout, Bale area holds a lot of interest for both fisher and non-fisher alike. There are good nature walks in the forested area around the lodge which are well stocked with antelope including nyala and bushbuck, warthog, monkeys and lots of birdlife (many endemic species). The lodge can also organise longer (day or multi-day) hikes and pony treks across the Saneti Plateau. For the less energetic you can drive right up and across the plateau on a road over 4000m up in the sky. However you get there though the plateau is well worth visiting with its weird afro-alpine vegetation of giant lobelia and striking red-hot poker aloes and the chance to see the worlds rarest canid the Simien Wolf before it disappears forever.
If you do decide to go, make sure that you organise things with a reputable and experienced company (check out the latest Lonely Planet Guide for a list) and read the latest travel advice on the FCO website before you set off www.fco.gov.uk/travel . Despite the difficulties of getting there, this is a magical place with some unique fishing and you won’t be disappointed. One of these days I’m going back – I’ve still got one of those big broonies to catch!