admintemperate waters of Nyangombe River is apparent.
And downstream, at Claremont Trout Farm, the state of affairs is felt in the 33 ponds that house different sizes of trout.
The fish crowd the points where water cascades from pipes that bring fresh water to each pond from the river.
The water, pouring from an especially made spout that makes a miniature waterfall, creates thousands of bubbles that are remarkable in whiteness as in their incessant hissing sound as they burst and form and burst again.
The fish crowd the point as according to their tradition as to get the cool freshness of the water and to take in the oxygen borne in the bubbles. Their dark bodies decorated with even darker spots upon the even scales, radiate in the water against the sun.
An odd member of the shoal is even more iridescent as its gracious golden body shimmers among its less fair counterparts.
(Biology, though, tends to exalt the latter as the golden members of the shoal at birth lacked the critical colour of life, hence albinism.)
As people walk past each pond, the excitement ramped up among the fish is incredible.
The fish are immediately assailed by sharp paroxysms of gluttonous anticipation which experience has no doubt taught them.
And when an attendant throws fishmeal into the pond, a tumult of excited fish swishes and swoops and latches onto the food, creating a picture of a mortal battle for survival underlined by voracity. Not that any would starve at the end of the day, though, as would suggest such a reference to the survival of the fittest.
In fact, Claremont Trout Farm is the embodiment of the trout treasure of Nyanga.
Founded by former workers at the Nyanga National Park in the 1980s, the farm is today the biggest producer of the rainbow trout fish ahead of Nyanga National Park and Rupara Trout Farm. Trout is a fresh water species that thrives in cool climates.
The first breeders in Nyanga were brought from Australia and South Africa. With a capacity to carry between 275 000 and 300 000 fish, Claremont is the hub of trout production in Nyanga, and the country at large.
Alson Chibvure holds the key to the treasure, having come here 23 years ago at the request of founder John English, who had seen Chibvure’s brother’s industriousness and saw an opportunity to bring the best in the younger sibling. English taught the younger Chibvure the secrets of the trade, which he has deployed here and elsewhere even when circumstances have changed drastically since he came.
But his commitment to the trade has remained almost constant.
He starts on a very mouth-watering note.
“Basically, we produce three products of trout here,” he says as he shows me around the farm.
“We produce the hot smoked trout fillet, the smoked salmon trout and the fresh fillet. We pack them into plastics containing one fish each then pack them into 10kg boxes which we put into the freezer and ready for sale.”
The fish are slaughtered when they weigh 200g, 225g, 300g and 325g which sizes are popular on the market. After grading, the fish are bundled into to the cutting room where they are gutted.
From the cutting room the fish are packed and refrigerated while for the other varieties, they are consigned to the kitchen for further preparation into smoked fillet and salmon fillet.
At a minimum of US$10 a kilogramme, the fish fetch what are by all means handsome returns.
Yet it is a perfect tonic for what is an expensive, meticulous and taxing venture which could go awry at any stage with dire consequences.
Chibvure explains: “Each pond contains between 5 000 to 40 000 fish. We have to continuously grade so that each pond has fish of the same size. Each pond holds 10 000 litres of water and the pipes pour 20 litres per second. The ponds are 20m in length, 4,5m wide and 1,2 m deep.”
He says it is critical to maintain the optimum temperatures of between eight and 14 degrees Celsius. For that reason, a clinical thermometer is placed in the water to measure the temperature.
“When temperatures are high we do not feed the fish. When temperatures are high the water has little oxygen and the fish are stressed. The fish do not eat as well,” he explains.
Unfortunately, perhaps owing to the phenomenon of climate change, extreme temperatures of up to 16 to 17 degrees Celsius have been encountered with worrying regularity in the last of the 23 years that Chibvure has been here.
He recalls that back in the day, temperatures would be constant at around 8 degrees Celsius.
In the brood stock, the project seems to have the perfect beginning.
“These fish will be two years old. We would have earmarked this stock from the hatchery and they will be the healthiest. They mate once from May to July. For this process we separate the males and females so as to stimulate them. When the females are ready they will have extended bellies and anuses.
“When they mate three males fertilise six females and each produces between 200 and
2 000 eggs depending on the size of the fish.
“The fish weigh between 500g and 1kg.”
After between 12 and 19 days of spawning the eggs get the shock of their lives, literally.
They are subjected to rigorous process of siphoning and bumping from bowels, which separates the fertile from unfertile eggs. The red eggs will be fertile while the white ones will be not.
Between and seven days the fertile eggs will be hatching and alevin come into being. The young fish will carry yolk sacks from which they will feed for a week. Thereafter, the sacks disappear and they are seen floating on top of the water. At this stage they are called fries.
They are fed on the commercial fry powder.
The next stage is the fingering stage as the fish weigh between 1-25g. They are fed on trout starter crumbles.
The third stage is the baby trout stage in which the fish weigh between 25-125g and fed on pellets while the fourth stage, in which fish weigh between 125-325g and fed on trout finisher, is the home stretch.
Chibvure says: “We slaughter the fish at this stage because that’s the size that is on demand. It is called the table trout. A fish weighing 300g-1kg is referred to as large trout and is both for the table and brood stock.”
The whole process takes between nine and 11 months. It is no easy walk. In fact, the challenges associated with trout farming are huge.
First, there is simply no talent around for many to pursue the venture.
“The reason why most people do not go into trout farming is that there are very few people who have the knowledge.
“Many farms around have tried it but the projects have fallen flat because they couldn’t find the experienced people,” says Chibvure who owes his skill much to experience and that lucky day 23 years ago when Mr English plucked him from obscurity.
Now he is some kind of celebrity.
“Many farms have been contracting my services and I have not been able to service them all and some ventures have collapsed because they don’t have the skills. I have resisted the temptation to leave this place,” he says.
His emotional attachment to the farm and trout farming is remarkable. And he is as attached and loyal to each fish as well, feeling with it as living with it witness, for example, his insistence on the correct reference of “golden” trout instead of an albino, which biology has wrought on the fish.
He explains that there could be cross-fertilisation between the golden and the normal rainbow trout to produce a variety of the latter.
Trout farming is one expensive venture, which could be why very few would manage it.
A 50kg bag of fishmeal, bought in Harare, costs US$38. For the up to 300 000 fish here, between 10 and 12 tonnes of food is required.
The farm also makes its own pellets, and they are an issue in themselves. They are made of fishmeal powder, chicken liver and cooking oil.
“So you see,” quips Chibvure, “these fish also want meat and cooking oil!”
There are a number of diseases that affect the trout that could harm the whole venture. These include bacterial diseases columnarisis, white spark, red mouth and
Streptococcus D. These, says Chibvure, they have learnt to contain and prevent using chemicals available on the market.
Pinhead, a condition that comes from the wrong feed, pop eyes, skin and mouth lesions are some of the challenges in the production of trout.
There are predators, too, to contend with.
These include otters (they are a particular menace during their own breeding season), the kingfisher, the hammer kop, the heron, alligators, snakes and eels.
With the end product fetching cool prices on market – the farm supplies its kiosk, hotels and one buyer from Harare who also exports the products – and providing recreation for anglers at Lock Moodie Dam, the rewards are great.
Trout fishing is one of the attractions of Nyanga, and next time one angles for angling, it might not be such a bad idea to visit where the fish is reared.
Online Reporter