La Pescadores

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Friends and family,

Well, I have returned home but John remains in Argentina, climbing glaciers and mountains. I thought I would finish up my blogging on this trip with two entries. First, this one about fishing.

Since I did not have the ability to upload photos of fish, there has been some reasonable skepticism about how good the fishing really was. Well, here are some pictures and some notes about that!

We started on the Rio Limay with our guide, Mauro. He has a beautiful custom made drift boat, see the first photo, and we hit the water in a howling wind....welcome to Argentina. Of course, John caught the first fish...a theme that will emerge throughout the trip. I had not had any action until we stopped for lunch, then, while Mauro was setting out lunch, I shifted to a streamer and after four casts, BANG, a beautiful rainbow, around 21" (see photo). Time for lunch. We had action the rest of the day off and on, frequently stopping to wade and learning to spey cast in the process as the wind continued to pick up.

That night we were to stay at a 'hut'. Well, here is a photo of the hut, complete with a large kitchen and the asado over the open fire which was so often the dish of the night. After a good night's sleep, we headed out for day two...at breakfast we talked about the wind, it was up again, but as long as it was not from the east, all was well. It blew like hell all day from the east. I caught one fish at lunch time on the spey rod, and that was it. Well, you have days like that.

We pulled off the river and headed for the Estancia Traful, the ranch on the Rio Traful where we would be staying. When we arrived we had a choice, wine and rest or some fishing. You will see from the photo sequence of the brown trout I hooked up with that choosing to fish was a great decision.

The next day we waded the Rio Traful, and it started quickly and kept going all day. I picked up a nice rainbow on my fourth cast and managed to pull off the Argentine grand slam....Perch, Rainbow, Brown, and Salmon. But the big news was John's day. He first caught a small brown, and then, with the same fly, caught a beautiful brown that weighted in at 4.5 kilos (see photo). We broke for lunch and right after, at the next pool, he landed a larger salmon, about 5 kilos! Later that afternoon he commented to Mauro that he was still using the same fly--quickly Mauro grabbed the rod, pulled in the fly, cut it off and gave it to John, this was something he should save.

At the end of the day I had picked up nine beautiful fish all ranging from 15 to 22 inches and John, well, you know the story.

The next week we drove up to St. Martin and Junin and tried a couple days of fishing on our own. We went to the Malleo river on a native people's reservation. We caught lots of small fish, but the big catch was the rainbow we ambushed who was lazily sipping small insects. It took a size 18 caddis imitation and about 6 casts, but we finally caught his attention and landed him!

Our next guide was Ale on the Collon Cura. As usual, the wind was howling on the first day, so we were fortunate to have a guide who launched us on the side waters of the still high Collon. We fished still pools all day and, like usual, John nailed the first fish. Lots of fish on this day, all in the 15 to 20 inch range and all great fighters. We finished the day at a great spot where we decided to try the world famous and very ugly Chernoble Ant....I have them in my box, but never use them. I will now! Once I put one down right where Ale said a great brown leaped out of the water and nailed in. All told we landed about 8 fish in this short beat including this brown.

We spent the night at Ted Turner's ranch...2400 acres of beautiful desert like ranch land! The next day back out and, with no wind, we fished the main river in the drift boat. We caught fish all day long, and, again, John caught both the first and largest fish. The large one was in a pool that had ignored six of my attempts, John caught him on the first cast, a beauty at 22".

That night again at the lodge, and when we were trading fishing stories we learned how lucky we had been. Indeed, most people that fish the Limay see very few fish and the Traful, being famous, is often fished but with no luck. In fact Ale had been there with a client who caught one fish in three days. The Malleo was known for only small fish, and the Collon about 20 fish is counted as a good day....we doubled that.

It was a great trip, and I want to go back....but not sure it will be as good again. We were berry, berry lucky.

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Photos

First fish
Mauro's boat in the foreground, I am working the first rainbow.

Fish in Three Continents
North America, Europe, and now South America

The Hut
We were promised a hut, here it is!

brown secuence
Wow!!!! Glad I did not go relax and drink wine.

The Traful
First fish of the day!

John's Brown
The Rio Traful

George's salmon
On Rio Traful

Rio Malleo
The rainbow we ambushed

Rio Colla cura
John gets the first fish again!

Chernoble Ants work
Brown taken on the world's ugliest fly