Day One on the Juramento River

I got up at 5 this morning for my 7am flight to Salta. Everything went well except for the fact that we hit a good deal of turbulence and they stopped serving breakfast before they got to row 13 (guess who). There's an hour of time change between B.A. and Salta, so I arrived at 8:15 and was met by my host, Alex, and his sidekick. The bought me a quick breakfast at a gas station cafe before we set off on the 2-hour drive to the river. The weather was lovely in Salta but deteriorated as we drove south and east. By the time we got to Alex's house in a very small village it was completely overcast, looking like rian, and the wind was howling. We decide to wait a bit, have lunch and then look-see. I took the opportunity to have a nap, having managed 4 hours sleep last night and not a whole lot more the night before (airplane sleep at that!)

Alex woke me at 12:30 and we had alovely home-made lunch... a local meat pastry with chili sauce, two salads and a roast beef sannie... not fancy but very good. After lunch we loaded up the truck/boat (14' inflatible raft with rowing frame and good casting seats for and aft) and set off for the Juramento about a km from Alex's house. The wind had not let up appreciably...

We launched just below a bridge and set off, the "sport" (me) in the bow seat, Emilio (SP???) on the oars (his english not as good as Alex's but ok) and (??? can't remember his name but let's call him Joe) in the aft seat. The Juramento flows through a broad, very flat valley, averages only about 100-150 feet wide, much less in spots (Cowichan-size), but today had a very swift water flow (the Cow at high water). The brush grows right to the bank and there is a lot of debris in the river. It's not particularly picturesque but any river with agood flow is pretty enough, right? The trick with fishing for golden dorado is to cast right to the bank, do asmall upstream mend and they retrive line in rather long pulls (as opposed to the short retrieves you might do for trout). And it seems to be all about cast, cast, cast... remind anyone of the Miramichi?) And when I say up against the bank, I mean within a foot or two, closer if possible. Great way to lose flies, I can tell you. And these are 4" flies not dissimilar to our coho streamers, just more brightly coloured.

Anyway, before I let this go on too long... and run out of battery life (I'm at a gas staqtion next door to the "hostal" I'm staying at [really what we would call a motel... clean, quite new and with lots of hot water] and on my way 3 blocks of the street to the restaurant owned by the same people)... about one hour in a hooked and landed a 5-6 lb. dorado on my #8 rod. Lots of aerials and a good fight... quite comjparable to a steelhead except probably more time out of the water. They really like to jump. We went ashore for the finaly fight and got some pics (later). It was great to get the stink off so quickly. Not too long thereafter I hooked one that went close to 15 lbs and seemed well hooked until he got a good ways down-river from us and we were hung up on some brush and he jumped and spit the hook. Bit of an adrenaline rush, that one. He jumped 5 or 6 times in the 90 seconds he was hooked. Too much fun! An hour later I hooked and lost another of a similar size. This time I didn't really set the hook well enough and he was only on momentarily. Still the excitement was fun.
That was it for day one. We drifted about 15 km, got off the water just after 6:00pm. Good enough for a half days fishing. Can't wait for tomorrow. Now headed for dinner and then straight hoem to bed.

More good news to follow... I hope... apologies for the ytpos but I'm just too tired to go back and proof this tonight.

Happy trails to all.

Bob