Nairobi
Trout were first introduced into Kenya’s highland streams in 1905. Men like Ewart Grogan, ‘baddest and boldest of a bad bold gang’, shipped Loch Leven fingerlings in ice-packed chests to Mombasa and then up to the Rift Valley on the Lunatic Express. From there, porters carried them up into the misty, forested Aberdare and Mount Kenya slopes. Rivers with now legendary names such as Amboni, Gichugi and the two Mathioyas were stocked — and our fly fishers’ paradise was born.
Last week in Nairobi, the Kenya Fly Fishers’ — the oldest club of its kind in all of Africa — held its 95th annual dinner. It was a strictly male affair, more than 100 members and their guests. Visually it was pure H.M. Bateman. In terms of atmosphere it would make the Bullingdon seem rather left-wing.
‘Only one lady has ever dared to break the taboo,’ KFFC chairman Chris Harrison had explained to me.
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