Cameroon; Nile Perch Trip Report - February 2019

CAMEROON; A FLY FISHING EXPEDITION Trip Report by Charlotte Chilcott, February 2019

As all journeys have a starting point, how do you determine what it was? The prosaic will pick “home” or “airport” but while standing in one queue or another on my most recent trip – believe me, there were plenty of queues – I thought on what had lit the fire. What had made my reaction to the possibility of fishing in Cameroon so intense? If the chance came up to fish in Male or Benin, would I have had the same reaction? When the opportunities arise, I’ll let you know but to the first, I reckon it went as far back as childhood birthday books. For years Gerald Durrall’s exploits fired my imagination and those he wrote about Cameroon are amongst the most thumbed and re-read in my bookcase. Those books were my starting point on a journey that led me to an amazing place, some astonishing fishing and to two new fishing compadres.

Whispers of something new, something different came to me in Tanzania in 2016. Back in Tanzania in 2017, those whispers had more form, a West African river, home to three species of tigerfish. H. Vitatus, H. Brevis and H. Forskali. Possibly Nile perch. Possibly Niger barbs. Possibly many things.

In early 2018, I knew it was Cameroon. The fire was lit; I wanted to go. Escaping Colobus, farting tribesmen, majestic headsmen with many wives… years of Durrell pushed to the fore and pushed all practical considerations well and truly to one side.

By May 2018 I had my week, I had raided not only the new car fund but the house buying fund as well. In February 2019; I was packed and ready to go. My long suffering fishing partner Gordon Richmond was also packed and ready to go. Sadly going to Cameroon meant I had to miss Tanzania but the lure of two new species of tigerfish to target was too great and H.tanzaniae were sacrificed for the greater good. I had no idea what I was getting into. No idea what the trip would entail. Just knowing that I was going was enough.

What to do with a once in a lifetime opportunity? Prepare harder.

A personal trainer was tracked down, gym time was booked and I quietly snuck into the local gym on my way home. I ate a meal at 5 pm (diabetes and exercise needs planning) and slunk out at 6 pm on the dot several days a week for several months. Arriving home after my first session, my partner Jack arrived to find me red faced, sweating and collapsed motionless on the sofa. He went into full panic mode closely followed by full hysterics when I admitted to my great plan to be able to survive whatever Cameroon threw at me. I stepped up my casting practice, entertaining the evening dog walkers on the local school football field and snuck in some casting lessons to straighten out the wriggles.

Tackle wise, I had what I needed in my much loved Hardy Zephrus 9’ 9# with its predecessor, the Proaxis 9’ 9# coming along as a spare. That was the tigerfish taken care of. Nile Perch were covered with my Hardy Proaxis 9’ 11# and as a backup, I borrowed Peter’s Hardy Zephrus 9’ 11#. I also packed a Hardy Jet 9’ 5# for the Niger Barbs. As it turned out, between the four fishermen, we had 5#, 6#, 7# 8#, 9# 10#, 11# and 12# of various makes and origins, all of which performed well and everyone was comfortable fishing their weight of choice.

I am a bit short on reels so I had my crocodile stopping Hardy Fortuna X2 for the 9# and my Fortuna X3 for the 11#. The drag on those reels is nothing short of phenomenal and while they are heavy, I’ve not yet found anything I’d like to replace them with. I’d borrowed a Hardy Ultralite 5000 #5 from the office chalkstream kit and Peter’s Hardy SDSL as my spare 11# reel. I knew there was a spare Shilton in camp for the spare 9# and I regrettably, I didn’t make time to use it.

As we were targeting Nile perch at night, I had both reels set up; one with an intermediate line and the other with a Scientific Anglers 450 grain sinking line. I personally didn’t want to carry two rods; I’m clumsy enough in daytime and two rods in the dark was asking for trouble. Having the spare reel with me beat fiddling around in the pitch black, swapping lines, trying not to put white light on and having everyone shouting “LIIIGHHHTS” at me.

Two bits of kit I should have had? A second empty Omnispool because I just didn’t have the energy when back in camp to remember to put the line back on its spool. Mono. I had taken Fluoro with me but, for a variety of reasons, they prefer to use Mono. It wasn’t an issue and I could have fished with Fluoro but as Gordie had ample, he kindly donated to the cause.

Two bits if kit not to leave behind? A spare head torch as you are at a significant disadvantage if you lose yours or if it breaks. Clear safety glasses. Not what you would normally think to pack but eye protection shouldn’t stop when daylight fades… it becomes more crucial.

I’ve never fished in the dark before so that was something new to get to grips with. On a plus, as I can’t turn to watch my line as many do (too many heavy backpacks), I have to cast purely by feel and for me, that was an advantage in the dark. I do have a nasty habit of sweeping as I back cast. Two hefty whacks to the back of my head sorted that out on the first night. And yes, it did take two.

A couple of weeks before lift-off, heavy snow was forecast and as time crept closer, the weather forecast worsened, then improved and then, as predicted, snow started falling on the Wednesday. That evening at home, Jack said “Don’t worry, it will stop Thursday”. Well it didn’t stop and by Friday morning, with nearly a foot of snow having fallen overnight I knew I had to get out or get stuck. With a sheer stroke of luck, I found a 4x4 who was doing a Gatwick run so, throwing the last pieces into my bag, I headed to Heathrow while Amy found me somewhere to stay. The drive through the back roads of Wiltshire was nothing short of breath taking – both in its beauty and its horrendous road conditions – but by the time we were at Theale on the M4, the road was clear with only the odd clump of snow scattered roadside. Little wonder that when I’d told Gordon, my fishing buddy, that I’d be heading to the airport to escape the snow, he’d met the announcement with a marked lack of care. He told me later he thought I was taking the p**s.

Just before we got to Theale, my knight in a shiny 4x4, jokingly said “well it’s too late now if you’ve forgotten your passport. Did you need many jabs?” The back of my neck went cold. My Yellow Fever book, which is a requirement for entry, was sat on my desk. In the office. A frantic call to my surgery had them promising to email me through confirmation. It was the best that I could do.

No snow met my eyes as I flung open the hotel curtains the following morning and it was with a lighter heart that I trundled my way to Terminal 4, meeting Gordon outside at an unacceptably early hour as he inhaled as much nicotine as he could before we headed off to check in. I always find check in a bit nerve wracking; a hangover from too many years taking cheap standby flights or choosing to book my holiday destination at the airport!

Nowadays, it’s more to do with the weight of the luggage as wherever I travel there are the ubiquitous weight allowances to deal with. I don’t have a problem with a 15 kg allowance but this time, having a 25 kg limit had thrown me and my normal structured packing regime had gone out the window. My bag weighed in at a happy 22½ kg. Both checked in, we hefted our backpacks, muffling the grunts as the weight settled and we headed to security, having perfected the nonchalant “my bag weighs under 6 kg” walk many years ago.

As a small blessing from the travelling gods, there is a smoking room in Terminal 4 and Gordon shot off like a wet bulldog to stock up on nicotine. The flight to Paris was mercifully short and it wasn’t long before we were navigating our way to our departure gate via countless escalators and a very quiet train. On a good day, three hours in transit in Paris is tight. We had half of that. More Security. The clock now seemed to be ticking very loudly. Panicking slightly, I said “yup, we are leaving from gate 49”. Off we trotted, vertebrae creaking as we route marched to the gate. Gordon diverted to the loo, I said I’d get in the queue. It seemed very long and the nationality mix didn’t seem right so I asked the chap in front of me if he was flying to Cameroon. “No”, he said surprised. “I am going a wedding in Delhi”.

My yellow backpack and I about turned and headed at the fastest pace I could muster to the loo where I terrified several gents as I stuck my head in the men’s door and shouted for Gordon. Nonchalantly, he strolled out and to his absolute credit, said nothing more than “right” when I told him I’d got the gate wrong and we were leaving from 29 not 49. So began the 2 mile trek to the other end of the terminal, clock ticking even louder as I eventually stumbled to a halt at the end of the queue. Establishing we were now in the correct queue; I had just caught my breath when we were boarding.

After almost three years of waiting, I’d nearly missed my flight.

Squashed in the middle row, at the very back, needing to recover from the near miss, I availed myself of as much fizzy stuff as the stewardess would pour me. The fumes wafting off both of my neighbours were potent and both were soon asleep, snoring rhythmically for the next six hours. It must have been one hell of a night. The flight was fine, the food was unremarkable, the safety video very chic. The contents of my handbag were inspected when I went to the loo and the view out of the emergency exit window was quite awe inspiring.

Flying over desert, dead deltas and dried up river courses littered the barren landscape as far as the eye could see. The sky was equally barren; not a cloud to be seen. While waiting for the woman with the biggest bladder in the world to vacate the loo, I gazed out of the window, wondering what events, and over what period, had wrought such immense changes.

Wheels down in Douala some six hours later, I could feel the heat before we had made it to the docking station. While by no means big, Douala was still bigger than I’d thought and it wasn’t long before we had once again donned the spine compressing backpacks and were shuffling our way – excruciatingly slowly – down the sauna like, wood lined tunnel into the main building. Stepping off the plane was like having your body wrapped in a hot, wet, slightly musty smelling towel. The humidity in Douala is like nothing I’ve experienced elsewhere. Costa Rica, Seychelles, Tanzania all come with substantial humidity but they are mere lightweights when up against this coastal city.

Eventually we wound our way into a blissfully cool air-conditioned immigration hall to face our first bureaucratic hurdle. Yellow Fever vaccination certificates should be waved with aplomb while you pick up speed and don’t make eye contact. My white piece of paper, courtesy of the Premier Inn at Terminal 4, didn’t cut the mustard and I was unceremoniously hauled to one side. “Where is your yellow book?” is what I think he shouted at me and while I tried to explain that my offensively white piece of paper had confirmation that I’d had my yellow fever jab, he muttered “I don’t have time for this. Go away”. So I did.

Then came the jostling for an immigration form we didn’t know we had to complete but did, filling in the ridiculously small boxes.

Coaxing the pen to work on slightly damp, limp paper. The queue moved slowly while everyone in front tried to master the finger print scanner and the immigration officer tried to master the camera. Eventually it was my turn and after much scowling at me, my photo and me again, I was waved through. Luggage retrieval was straight forward, plenty of trolleys and no-one hassling to help you for $20.

We were met in the luggage hall by Emmanuel who efficiently whisked us out into the fug, to meet our Cameroon ground handlers, the very efficient Vivien and our driver, Clements.

In the short ride from the airport to the hotel, we had a glimpse of Douala. It’s a busy, bustling, frenetic and sticky city. It’s not going to make it onto anyone’s honeymoon destination list but it is Cameroon’s main city in all respects barring political power. There isn’t much charm in its architecture, being primarily blocky decaying Soviet style concrete construction, although you do occasionally spot a charming but decaying building harking back to the German and French colonial periods.

We had no time pressure the following morning; with the tranquil gardens behind us, a construction yard below us and Douala’s busy main road in front of us, Gordon and I inhaled coffee, breakfast and more coffee. We watched birds, we watched the Sunday Douala peloton go past with ever decreasing numbers and we watched with sad hearts, trucks taking giant Cameroon hardwoods to the docks. Let’s just hope that their end journey isn’t as an end product for KimberleyClarke; that would be too ignominious an end for such huge, majestic trees.

Douala’s port, accessed through a constantly maintained channel, is key to the economics of the region and the port area, which we were kindly taken on a tour of, is vast and rambling with a depressing amount of plastic blowing, tumble weed like, down the dirt roads that wind through the area.

Our flight was due to leave at 1600 but we had been warned it probably wouldn’t. It didn’t. With a full hotel, we sat in the garden all day, slowly melting before finally leaving for the airport at 1800. Either the very good beer wasn’t very strong, or we were losing fluid as fast as it went in, but neither of us were feeling the effect of a significant intake by the time we left for the airport. There we met up with Chris and Martin, at that point two exhausted South African’s who just wanted to be able to sleep. Emmanuel hustled us past grabbing Fisheries officials, got us to the check in desks, made sure we were on the flight and took us as far as the final document check. There, he jumped the queue, and waved us goodbye.

We were on our own, marching down the empty, hot, echoing halls... all hoping we were going in the right direction. Another security check. Another camera excavation. Another wait. Another queue and we were finally on our way… at 2200.

The flight to Garoua goes via Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon and we probably spent as much time on the ground as we did in the air. Before we had reached the end of the runway, Chris was out cold, Martin not long after that. Sadly for me, the penetrating body odour of my neighbour kept me wide awake. When we finally landed in Garoua, it was late. Very late and the welcoming committee of dancing schoolgirls wasn’t for us. Several important personages had arrived with us and were being suitably greeted.

As we clustered hopefully around the carousel, Suli made himself known and another round of introductions were made. Our colourful quartet of bags collected we walked out into the mercifully dry heat of a Garoua night, straight into Cameroon’s finest. Judging by the weaponry and body armour on show, Cameroon has a healthy military budget but how do the black full face visors work in the dark? I was persuaded not to go up and ask. With a bit of haphazard packing, we all managed to fit, very snugly, into the Land Cruiser, setting off through Garoua to our hotel. Not the one we should have been in.

The important personages had taken those rooms. Instead to a hotel that truly could never fail to disappoint. Finally checked in, lifesaving water in hand, we were finally ready for bed. Gordon said he’d heard a lion. I mocked and Chris and Martin very carefully didn’t roll their eyes. It was about 1 am and we are all desperate for a nice shower and bed. Neither were to be and dawn came just a little too soon.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to trash a room, walk out leaving a trail of destruction behind me. The reality of doing so was a bit of a let-down. With no rock’n’roll evening behind us, both Chris and I managed to thoroughly trash our bathrooms with minimal effort. I moved the towel and the holder fell of the wall. I put the holder on the shelf and that fell off too. The tap was obviously next. It was time to leave. A smug Gordon awaited us. The zoo was next door.

While we waited for breakfast, two vastly rejuvenated South Africans were navigating the garden wasteland, binoculars pressed firmly to eyes, in hot pursuit of anything with feathers including a melanistic fly catcher.

Fed and watered, we repacked the Land Cruiser and headed off through the dusty and busy streets of Garoua on our four to five hour drive to camp.

Passing through a checkpoint, passports were flourished and closely inspected before we set off again. Air-con to a minimum, we were packed in tight and mercifully, the tar section with its axle destroying potholes, was relatively short and we spent the next few hours on good dirt roads.

Interestingly, there seemed to be very little food cultivation but a fair amount of cotton ready to be packed up and transported. Very possibly the time of year as we were heading into the dry season. It was very strange driving through what seemed to be both familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. Trees I thought I recognised, I realised were subtly different. Baobabs, Adansonia digitata, were same same but different to those I had grown up knowing.

Distant mountains rose, obscured by a heat and dust haze as we wound our way towards the hunting concession that would be our home for the next week. With the concession on one side and the national park on the other, the river forms the boundary between the two. We passed through villages with their laughing children waving as we passed. Goats tempted fate, crossing at the last minute.

A small gate, on the edge of a village was the only marker for our entrance into the concession and as we quickly left the village behind, we all felt our spirits lift as we knew we were on the home stretch. At some point along the way, we met the group leaving and took the opportunity for a leg stretch and tried to glean what we could from them of what was waiting for us. What tips could we extract from them that might help us in our own piscatorial pursuits in the week to come.

We learnt that we would have ice in camp thanks to them along with freshly shot Kob (antelope). Our footwear of choice was deemed unsuitable, there was apparently a very definite period in which tigers took flies and we should all expect dried, cracked lips by weeks end. They had landed some impressive fish between them all including a 120 cm and a 110 cm Nile perch, a Cameroon tigerfish slam of h.brevis, h.forskali and h.vitatis. All alongside a good number of perch up to 90 cm, several tigerfish, a Niger barb and a tetra.

The one thing that we all knew was that we all knew very little.

Although fishermen have been coming here for many years, they have been few and their efforts and successes little publicised. With Edward Truter always looking to find new water, the Tourette team live up to their name in that their compulsion to fish is constantly leading them to seek out new water, to find rivers where fly fisherman have either trod very lightly or not at all. Most importantly, wherever they go, their conservation ethic goes with them and this remote part of Cameroon is no exception. This is the pioneer season and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

The Camp we reached was far beyond what I had imagined. As always a huge pleasure to see Stu and Greg, two of the most accomplished guides I have had the pleasure of fishing with. I haven’t had the best track record of incident free trips in Tanzania and I daresay that the two of them had braced themselves for my arrival.

Perched on a bluff, overlooking the river, I was struck by the same feeling that I’d had on the journey in. It too was “same, same but different”. Greg, whose home is further East in Tanzania stood next to me and asked me what it reminded me of. I just couldn’t pin it down and went with a tentative “Selous?” I was close but no banana… Greg’s comparison was Tanzania’s Ruaha River and as soon as he said it, I was transported back many years, to the first time I saw the Ruaha. In front of camp the river was wide and shallow, with rills running into deeper, faster green water along the river’s edge and amongst the sand bars.

On the far side, we would later have our first sighting of Colobus, Olive baboons, Red River Hogs, Red Flanked Duiker and Grey Duiker.

The birdlife was abundant and Chris and Martin dug into their seemingly bottomless knowledge of both flora and fauna. By the week’s end, they would have identified 75 species including the much sought after Egyptian Plover which, in this part of Cameroon at least, is regarded as a “trash” bird! Chris seemed to take the ease with which it could be photographed quite personally; I think he felt that such a sought after species could at least make an effort to be difficult to photograph.

Settled in, watered and fed, bags were emptied to find one set of kit to take down to the home pool to stretch our arms, get our eyes in and basically straighten out the kinks from the five hour drive down. Our first sight of the river was uplifting; it was a way off, we had a short jaunt over to the river, amazed at the size of the hippo prints in the sand as we got closer and closer to our goal. Accompanying us were BeBe and Baloo.

BeBe’s role was obvious; he had a gun. Baloo’s role less so as all he seemed to do all day was whittle something.

Spoons mainly. In the process of setting up the operation, the antipoaching unit were rotated through and as BeBe was the only one who showed any interest at all, he has become a permanent member of the team. It was very heartening seeing both of them scooting over to see what we had hooked. In fairness, it must be a bit of mystery to them; why fish hard all day and in the dark, without any bait, only to put the fish back? What is the point? Life in Africa is harsh so to waste the opportunity to have a full belly must be perplexing. I eventually coaxed a smile out of both them as they settled down to watch us put rods together, choose leader and eventually decide on a fly.

Happily putting my rod up, it wasn’t long before my feel good feeling fled. It was hard to tell in the light but I thought my rod tip looked different. It was. After my Alphonse trip in November I had obviously not checked my kit and in the rush to beat the snow, I hadn’t done my customary check at home. Feeling unbelievably stupid, it is with full credit to the rest of the gang that not one of them gave me any flack… not even Gordon. When things are tough, there’s always something good to balance it out and in this case, the light was fabulous so I took photos, watched the pod of hippos watching us. It wasn’t long before Martin, Gordon and Chris had all bent a rod; landing specimens of all three tigerfish species – small to be sure, but tigers nonetheless. Small they might have been but feisty they were… their aerial acrobatics a taster of what else was to come. Gordon kindly passed his rod over so I could also have an arm stretch and it didn’t seem long before we were making our way back to the truck and back to camp.

Stu and Greg had obviously worked hard to get camp set up and ready. Without the benefit of a Homebase or a Wickes, downtown Garoua has probably never seen a shopping spree like it but the end result was worth the trauma that both endured in trying to track down what was needed. Two decent sized safari tents each had two single beds and were roomy enough for two anglers with their kit.

They also had some of the widest Velcro strips on the doors that I have ever seen. Or got stuck to. It didn’t matter what I tried, my hair got stuck to the Velcro strip every time I went in or out of the tent.

Making myself shower at night was hard; I was absolutely knackered every evening but my one and only daytime shower got a bit crowded with mozzies, tsetses and ants and I rapidly decided to stick with the later, but less crowded, evening ablutions. It is cold at night and although they took up too much room, I think we’re all grateful for the sleeping bags we’d carted along. Apparently on his first trip up to Cameroon, and warned about the heat and humidity, Stu had packed two t-shirts, two pairs of shorts and a toothbrush.

As a result, he came very close to being a Darwin Award recipient; dying of hypothermia in Cameroon would have downright embarrassing.

Mornings were relaxed; everything needed to warm up, including us, before we headed out for the day. It was with a wee bit of trepidation that I unpacked my #11. Well founded, as it turned out. My rod tip was again an odd colour and my heart sunk. I scrabbled quickly for the 9# that had the wrong tip and the gods had forgiven me… I swapped the tips around and could finally relax and get the rest of my kit ready for the first day out.

What can I say? For me it was brutal. For the rest of the group it was hot, sticky and tough but with 1½ good legs, and probably another 12 months needed in the gym, I very carefully made my way around. It took a while to get used to fishing from behind boulders, of keeping the rod high in order to keen the line free. I am at heart a saltwater flats fisherman so navigating structure isn’t something I’m used to.

Greg had imparted his little words of wisdom earlier; “with tigers, you have two chances. Two chances only”. No pressure then. Dressed in full bush camo, we soon lost Gordon amongst the rocks and small shrubs. Regular puffs of smoke marked his spot but apart from the occasional muttered curse, he fished with enviable concentration.

The water was surprisingly clear and we opted to take a break from trying to tempt tigers. We thought we’d chance our luck with tempting yellowfish. With only a 9# to hand, we were a little over gunned with 4 lbs tippet on a 10# line. It would have been interesting to see how that battle had turned out had they been interested in any of the nymphs they were presented with. Giving up on them for the time being, I returned to tempting tigers. Stripping fast, slow or mixed raised no interest at all so a change of fly was called for.

Lifting my rod, BANG. And gone. It was so hard. So fast. With the new fly on, I cast, stripped, cast and stripped. Nothing. Nothing again.

Then another mighty wallop but as quickly as it had come, it had gone. That was my two chances and in the quiet period that followed I was convinced that I’d blown my options. Casting a little further out but letting the fly swing right up close to the rocks, I stripped hard once. On the second, BANG and on. Rod straight, I had been warned that these tigers come in hard, fast and aerialise almost immediately.

Whatever I thought I knew from fishing in Tanzania went right down river. This was a whole new ballgame. Stumbling over the rocks and trying to keep tension, to keep the tip down, whilst at the same time having to keep the butt high and the rod at arm’s length over the rocks. At the same time stripping, line on the ground getting tangled in rocks and river debris, I like to say I was in control… but I’d be lying. I had hooked myself a nice h.Brevis which expressed its dissatisfaction at being hooked by jumping straight off the bat. Not a pause between the second jump, or the third. Head shaking all the while and then the hook was free. My first Cameroon tigerfish was gone. What a fight though, for the size of the fish it fought with an enormous amount of power. And height; those jumps were several feet out of the water and there was no pause between them.

I also had my first Nile Perch 101 courtesy of a juvenile fish landed by Gordon. Stu pointed out what to avoid as NP have some serious weaponry on board. I felt the coarse plates in its mouth and marvelled at the subtle colouring that you miss, as I was to learn later, when landing fish in the dark…

On we went but we had obviously had our window and we eventually wandered back to camp for lunch. I foolishly ignored Stu’s suggestion that I have a dunk to cool off. Not wanting to hold the guys up, I passed on the cooling dip but foolishly missed the subtext... “would you like to cool off?” was really “get in and cool off”. Lunch wasn’t as restful as it should have been and needed to be! I managed to sit on the stretcher that then ripped but I was so tired that I just wedged myself in and made it work while I snoozed. Rubbing away an irritating fly, I was a tad surprised to find myself with a handful of blood. I had obviously over heated to the extent that I’d sprung a blood vessel and I had a veritable crimson river flowing. Rolling off my shredded stretcher, I bled furiously for a short while, a part of me hoping that the blood sacrifice would pay dividends in the long run. It had in Tanzania so fingers crossed.

The afternoon passed swiftly and it didn’t seem long before we were taking down the 9# and putting up the 11#. Hunting out my headtorch and clear safety glasses, I had absolutely no idea what it was like to fish in the dark. As daylight faded, we were all in situ and had made the most of our time working out our casting distances and angles. It was necessary to get our footing right and understand what was around us. It is not somewhere that you want to trip. As dusk faded to night, the reality of casting in the pitch black struck home. There was a little natural light but not much so many things took some getting used to. How long was the cast? Had my fly turned over or was it tangled? Where was my line? Where I thought I had placed it might not be where it had landed. The river could be very quiet and then suddenly come to life, swirls followed by loud “blooping” and more swirls. Then nothing. The sounds of the African bush were muted but constant and the hippos grunting and snorting carried clearly through the night. I knew that they were a fair distance away, but it didn’t sound like it!

What I knew about Nile Perch could easily have fitted on a very small stamp so I was keen to absorb everything that Stu could offer up. I am sure he is related to my Irish doctor… “well, it might work, but maybe not”. “It’s worth go, but don’t bank on it”. “Try it and see”. You get the gist; we were working it out as we went. It seems the trick is not to be constant. Fishing a 450 grain sinking line, the count varied but between 5 and 15 was deemed sufficient depth. Stripping had to be varied.

Short followed by long. Fast long, following by short slow. Slow long followed by slow long followed by very short and very fast. At one point I found myself falling into my Bahamian triggerfishing rythym of “pip, pip, piiiiiinnnnngggg”. Time seemed to pass very slowly in the dark; every now and then someone would turn on their torch and you’d see a little red light bobbing around before darkness descended once more. The occasional mutter and curse wafted down the river and suddenly we heard “IN” from Martin who had broken the Nile Perch duck and landed the first fish of the week, a very respectable 85 cm.

I was in a fabulous spot; quite high above the water, nothing behind me to get hooked into although dropping a back cast did run the risk of simply snapping your hook on the rock. Having found a few discarded broken flies from the previous group, it was worth checking regularly that all was in order and I had an intact fly. I had a 45 degree angle to work including the river’s edge as it looked deep and inviting, pushing up against the rocks.

It was beginning to feel like an evening of a thousand unresponsive casts when the earlier blood sacrifice paid the first of its dividends.

With a fish on, I had my first experience of the sheer power of a Nile Perch. You see photos of these sturdy fish and you see that enormous paddle so you know that they will be hard fighters. What I learned quickly is that they are also dirty fighters. Any ledge, nook or cranny is enough to see your Nile Perch viewing it as a refuge. No matter how big or small, they’ll wedge themselves in there.

Helping me around the rocks – falling in wouldn’t be good – the rod was passed back and forth with Stu keeping it all calmly under control while I manoeuvred around. I can’t say I was calm or under control but after a hard – but not too long fight – I had my first ever Nile Perch, lying in shallow water between two smooth rocks with Greg and Stu getting ready to measure and weigh the beast.

They haven’t yet caught enough NP to have a huge amount of data so over time, it will be very interesting to see what the correlation between length, girth and weight is. Measured in at 110 cm and weighing about 45 lbs, we released the obliging perch back into the depths before making my way back to my spot to carry on.

I had on one of Stu’s flies, a big yellow and black bumblebee. At that point, it had landed several NP, all of them over a metre so it seemed sensible to keep it on! I worked my way across the pool, from left to right until I was casting back up the edge. I had just finished my count, and as I reached the end of my first strip, BANG. Fish on and running. I couldn’t co-ordinate myself well enough to turn on my head torch, manage my line and keep tension so with a huge amount of luck, the line was all back on the reel without snagging or wrapping before I managed to turn the torch on.

This fish was fighting harder, and dirtier, than the earlier one and the pole had to be used several times to try and push the line out from under the rocks and encourage the fish to move so I could gain some line back and bring it towards the surface. Eventually, we were back in the same spot, between the two big rocks. This fish was notably rounder but only a little heavier. Measured in at 113 cm, it moved off into deeper water, not even leaving a wake behind it. The downside of catching at night is that once you are wet, you get cold and I am eternally grateful that I was in the cab and not on the back of the truck as we eventually called it a night and made our way back to camp.

Driving around, I had commented on the acres of worm casts and Greg’s description of what the earth must look like in the rainy season still makes me feel queasy. The upshot of the uneven ground is that porcupines don’t like it. It is much nicer to run along the nicely graded, smooth road so every evening we’d have a side bet on how many porcupines we’d see, scooting along in front of us and refusing to get off the road until the very last minute.

Late back to camp, we fell upon our evening meal before heading off to bed.

Sometime after midnight the temperature plummeted and with much shuffling around in the dark, finally managed to get the sleeping bag over me. Morning came around very quickly and I think we were all grateful for the leisurely start. By 1000 we are all loaded up and ready to go, keen to see another part of the river.

It didn’t disappoint and after making camp in amongst the trees, we split up and headed our separate directions. The target again today was tigerfish, yellows if we saw them feeding but tigers were on our menu and it was with that in mind that we picked our way across what looked like a moonscape. From ground level you really don’t get the scope of this river system; deep pockets of water are well hidden and whilst you think you are heading to the main river you can see in the distance, in reality you are fishing your way to that.

Greg put Gordon up high in a gorge with fast flowing water pushing hard down the inside, leaving calm pockets behind the rocks, perfect resting spots for an ambush predator. I was a little further downstream, on more friendly terrain, fishing up and across, working my way down river. My second cast had a big hit but I failed to connect and I stripped in, checked my fly and cast again.

Working the pool on the far side, opposite the line that Gordon was fishing. As I stripped fast, trying to keep tension in the fast flowing water, I had another big hit. So big it made my fingers tingle. No connection; was I just not quick enough to react? Was it an uncommitted strike or tail slap? Greg just laughed and said the h.brevis conversion rate was about 16:1 so I had a way to go. Just then, Gordon shouted and from his very lofty perch, high above the water, we could see that he had a fish on. He slowly made his way to a point where Greg could land the fish and soon we were treated to the sight of a nice h.vitatis. The tigerfish of the Zambezi, h.vitatis has very distinctive dark stripes and is probably the most colourful of the species, its fins sporting shades of deep orange and red, fading to translucent at the fins edge.

We moved on and lost Gordon once again amongst the rocks, accompanied by BeBe. They fished in companionable silence; Glasweigan and Cameroon French finding common ground through Silk Cut extra light. As we made our way upriver, I had several more hits, several connections but nothing stuck until we reached a small pool, swinging wide to our right and disappearing into a narrow gully that Gordon was covering like a man possessed. As I stripped fast across the pool, I saw a swirl and stripped faster.

Nothing so I picked up and cast again, slightly to the right of where I had been. Two strips and I had a hit. Determined not to lose this fish, I kept the rod tip down and walked backwards up the sandy bank, playing the fish on the line as there was too much line out to want to get it back on the reel.

The water was so clear that we could see the flashes of red as the tiger shook his head, rolled and tried to shake the fly. The mouths on h.brevis are relatively small and they don’t have the upper hinge that h.tanzaniae have; perhaps some of the difficulty in getting them to stick is that we were fishing too big? As Greg readied himself to land the fish, we decided to try for some water shots before bringing the fish in and that change of tack wasn’t a bright one. With one last head shake and sideways flip, it shook the fly and we were treated to a tail flick as it retreated back to the depths. Live and learn. On we went, having a few more hits and losses; not least with a memorable trout strike on my part which turned the air blue over my head for some time. I could hear Glasweigan chortling from somewhere amongst the rocks.

By the time evening came around, we were all keen to see yet another part of the river and to get set up for the evening session. Our spots for the evening were slightly more exposed than the night before and as the sun set, we all had lines in the water, working out our casting pattern, making sure we knew where we had put kit bags and didn’t have anything to fall over. It was a more productive night in terms of enquiries.

A few Nile Perch were on and off in quick order “IN” “OFF” echoing down the river until we heard Martin shout “IN” and I could hear his line zipping off. As he fought his fish, Stu and Greg went to help keep it clear of the ledges and bring it in, I had a small bump. It

might have been the bottom, I might have bumped a fish with the fly but re-invigorated, I re-cast, varying my strip and on a long, slow strip, had an almighty take. Before I could do anything my line was on the reel, I was fishing in complete darkness and conscious that they were all busy getting Martin’s fish in, I hung on and tried to keep the fish up, trying not to give him room to run and hide.

Eventually, I knew I needed help and my rather apologetic “Chaps, when you are ready” brought Greg and line pole up to help. With it not being as rocky as my perch the night before, Greg was free to concentrate on keeping the line clear while we moved down toward Martin and Stu who were still dealing with his fish. After a few short but hard runs, a few sticky moments when a convenient ledge provided shelter, we had my fish in and Martin and I had the pleasure of a Nile Perch double up.

Weighed and measured, Martin’s fish was 95 cm and mine was 104 cm. Not as round as either of the fish I’d landed the night before, but still deep in the chest; it obviously had some filling out to do. With the fish released, we were soon back in our spots but it seemed that the feeding period for the night was over and we headed back, enchanted by the delicate footed porcupines once more on the drive home.

Bigger fisher were still to come …

With the first half of the week behind us, we were depressingly on the downhill slope towards heading home. We still had plenty of fishing to do and whilst the body might have been a bit stiffer than it was at the beginning of the week, there was plenty of unfinished business to attend to. Moving down to a section that we’d not previously fished, Gordon, Chris, Martin, Greg and BeBe headed one direction while Stu and I went the other, our focus very much on the tigerfish while the others were on a species hunt.

Baloo stayed behind to whittle.

While Cameroon tigers came in hot, they are equally quick to retreat. They certainly didn’t settle in the same way that the tigers I’d encountered in Tanzania did and Greg’s earlier advice that you had two strikes or were out, seemed bang on the money. Stu and I held back from the edge, not wanting to spook the fish; the water was very clear, moving through at good rate but not too fast to be able to effectively strip. I cast and stripped, recast and stripped faster. Nothing. Recast a little higher up and stripped then repeated the process again. We changed fly as the original obviously wasn’t flavour of the morning and repeated the process. The stretch of water we were fishing wasn’t huge, it wasn’t wide or particularly deep but we could see a good number of fish so carried on. Moving forward slightly, I recast and on a somewhat bored strip, had an almighty BANG. It went off like a rocket, keeping the rod low as the line tightened, I prayed that this one would stay attached.

After some heart stopping moments, Stu was able to bring it in and I had finally managed to land my very first h.brevis and what a beautiful fish it was.

The colouring is more subtle than h.vitatus but no less eye catching and they are formidable fighters. I tried to be cool about it but inside, I was leaping about, yelling and hollering in delight… Stu just grinned at me, gave me a hug and a high five; he knew there was a party going on in my head.

Fish back in the water, fly and leader inspected, on we went. Stu had said earlier that there was something very special ahead and I thought that the water we had just fished was it. No, a little further on we came to a stretch of water that was mind blowing. Crystal clear, with a perfect flow rate and a bed of clean sand, the river had little structure and plenty of fish. I’m not exactly built for stealth so keeping low and keeping quiet were enough of a challenge to keep my mind off the fact that what we were about to attempt was basically upstream dry fly fishing... for tigerfish.

Casting upstream, letting the fly drift back towards us, just keeping contact, there was no reaction. I recast, this time keeping more tension but not making the fly move. Some of the smaller fish reacted, rising up slightly and then settling back into their lie. I repeated this a couple of times but with no reaction, the next cast was squarer so I could strip it back, to move the fly faster. There was a definite reaction, with the tigerfish moving to follow the fly, staying deep but watching it all the way.

Deep breath. Try again, repeat the process with a faster strip, more akin to that I use in Tanzania. This time another follow, shallower and faster. Next strip was fast, and produced a fast, rising follow. Finally, having reached my max stripping speed and not reached the point where I could provoke a take, I passed my rod to Stu. He encountered the same response, resorting eventually to a GT style strip… which emptied the pool. Somewhere between my max strip speed and Stu’s lies the sweet spot but it wasn’t our day to find it so we moved on. I never once imagined I’d ever be casting to tigerfish in water so clear that I could see their every reaction – I could easily have been on one of our chalkstream beats.

On we went, again keeping back and looking at clear water with some very big fish. Sneaking up behind one worthy of being called ‘Bismarck’, Stu suddenly stopped and told me reel in, we were heading out.

Puzzled I looked up, saw nothing but followed where Stu was pointing.

All I saw was several big rocks and some egrets. Slowly I realised that it was unlikely that the little rock, on top of a big rock, would be moving if it was a rock and a hippo came into focus. Snoozing in the sun, with only its feet in a trickle of water, it did “rock” exceptionally well. We retreated back to base; I chilled, Stu tied flies and we waited for the others to join us. It was a good day on tigerfish all round with all three species landed, Martin cashing in with a very hefty h.brevis.

Dusk on the water is really very special; there’s a brief point when all is quiet as the day shift hands over to the night shift. We had one incredibly odd night when it stayed quiet. The hippos weren’t moving around, the cicadas were silent and the Nile perch weren’t interested. As we’d had no hits at all, we retreated early and I have to say, it was good to be back in camp at a decent hour.

When we returned to what I called the “canal” it couldn’t have been more different. The bush was alive and the hippos were moving. This elicited the occasional shout of “lines out” as one barrelled on through and the Nile perch were feeding. I was the quietest of the four anglers with only a few enquiries. Gordie, Chris and Martin all had fish on, and fish off. In the darkness, sound seems amplified and when Martin shouted “IN” all I could hear was his line ripping through water. Reel screaming, line running, Martin was hanging on as his leviathan screamed upriver. Martin was fighting hard to stop it or turn it, doing everything that he could to keep the fish away from the freshwater oyster beds. The oysters are incredibly abrasive and having leader or a line run over an oyster bed is a fast way to disaster. One minute your fish is on, and poof, the next it’s gone. Losing a big fish is gut wrenching but it seems worse when it’s someone else who has lost it; perhaps it is because you know there’s nothing you can say that will help. When the fish are on, they are on so rule of thumb is that when one gets a hit, you all redouble your efforts.

My quiet trend continued. I heard Gordie swear a few times and then Chris shouted “IN”. It was like Groundhog Day; line ripping off the water, reel on overdrive. Chris battled to keep his fish from running too far or too deep. All I could see in the tiny light of his head torch was Chris teetering on his rock, keeping the pressure on. In what seemed very short order, Chris landed the biggest Nile perch of the week at 119 cm. Can’t argue with that smile.

Gordie had been suspiciously quiet and then Greg pointed out from the darkness, “You’re not going to catch anything if your line isn’t in the water”. By this point in the week, Gordie was suffering with a very heavy cold and was fishing lightly; Greg’s pithy comment obviously did the job as he was rewarded not long after with a handsome fish.

I’ve been asked a fair bit what it was like, fishing for Nile perch after sundown. Well, can you see anything below? No? Neither could I. An amazing experience, fishing in the dark definitely had me focussing on what I was doing. I wasn’t distracted by birds or wildlife, wanting to take photos or being nosey and watching everyone else. I was absolutely focused on what I was doing; feeling my cast and in tune with my line in a way that normally escapes me; I am very easily distracted.

My last evening sessions didn’t add to my Nile perch tally for the week but with three fish over a metre I counted myself very fortunate indeed… it is rare that I fish well at the beginning of the week, normally I’m sweating it by the Wednesday and it all comes together at the umpteenth hour; it was a nice change to have done it the other way around for once.

Final afternoon and one last chance to fish. Greg and I went off on a last session for Cameroon tigerfish. Sliding down the bank, we made our way down river, staying well back on the sand so as not to spook the fish. It was a surreal experience; flats wading in Africa. Fishing over very skinny water into the deeper, faster channels. These pockets are stuffed full of fish but they are hard to hook and even harder to keep on. We worked our way through the flies we had with us, settling on a Woolly Bugger of all things that was rapidly reduced in size by the near constant strikes from the h.brevis and h.forskalii. Many hits, many losses and some landings later, it was time to head back.

As we made our way back up to camp, we saw prints that Greg though were adult and juvenile elephant, a rarity to see here and uplifting because of that. Stu had walked down to join us and as the three of us walked back towards camp, hand on heart I could say it was end of the best week away I have ever had. It even beat the Burning Man festival I survived in my 20s. It seemed Cameroon had one last physical challenge for me; getting back up to camp. Stu and Greg did it in about 5 strides; I took a little longer, with a lot less grace and much more dirt.

Leaving camp the following morning, we emerged from the quiet of the bush… into school sports day, very nearly ruining the white lines at the end of the 100 meter lanes. After the tranquillity of camp and on the river, the sheer volume and number of people was a shock to the system but none of us could fail to be lifted by the sheer enjoyment of the crowds.

The journey back to Douala and to the airport was more of the same that we encountered on the way in; lots of queuing, delayed flights and the added excitement of Gordie’s bag not arriving. Turned out the following morning that it was downstairs next to the conveyor belt; it was obviously one bag too many for the baggage handler to cope with. Or perhaps he felt it was just too disreputable to move. Finally homeward bound, we did some rather belated present shopping at the airport, stuffing it all in to the small spaces in our backpacks. During security checks, Gordie’s camera had to be excavated twice resulting in his wooden hippo being unable to fit back in. It was handed over to me, with a firm Glaswegian reminder not to forget to give it back.

“Well”, I thought, “where Cameroon failed to physically beat me, Air France may well succeed”. What I didn’t know at the time was that, at the other end of the row, Gordon was making his peace with his maker and trying to set up a gig with Lemmy. I have never, ever, experienced turbulence like it and for what seemed like hours but probably wasn’t long at all, we went up, down, left and right.

Just to round off the flight, as we approached Paris we heard “Plze turn off ze phone and ze liptop. We will be landing wiz ze autopeelot as ze fog is zo zick we cannot land normalalament”. Fabulous.

Reunited outside of the plane, Gordon and I walked along in silence for a time. “I thought that was it”. “F**k me, so did I”. Enough said. By this time, we had been on the move for nearly 72 hours and were operating several levels below normal. Gordon went off to sniff out a smoking lounge while I found the gate, tried to sit down with my backpack on, fell off my chair, cracked my knee and spilt my coffee.

A while later, and as the fog stubbornly refused to lift, Gordon said “shall we go back?” My much mumbled reply was “yes, but not next week, I need to sleep”. Saying goodbye, I trotted off for my flight home which I spent in a catatonic haze. Staggering through Heathrow, I managed the automated passport control, found my bag, found my ride home and made it to my front door as I hit the 82 hour mark.

I still had Gordon’s hippo.

I had waited so long for this trip, did it live up to the expectation? Yes and in many ways, it exceeded expectations and has left me really wanting to go back. There is so much more to the fishery than what I focused on as I spent my time on tigerfish and Nile perch. Fishing for the Nile perch was much more fun than I thought it would be but I had no benchmark for the species and I’d never fished in the dark before. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer group of people to spend a week with and I sincerely hope that we can all fish together again in the not too distant future. Full credit to Edward Truter and the Tourette team for continuing to hunt out these wild and remote spots in the world. They can only benefit from the conservation protocols that Tourette are able to put in place as a result of having travelling anglers like us, visit and fish.

Finally, if you are looking for a travelling book look out Edward Truter and Martin Rudman’s book, “Fishing Stories for Africa”.

For more details on fly fishing in Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa please do not hesitate to contact us here or call our office on +44(0)1980 847389.

I NT E R N AT I O NA L FLY FI S H I NG S PE CI A L I S T S

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A special thanks to Andrew Luedke and African Waters for the stunning imagery.