From the Juramento to Patagonia

Monday
Last day on the Juramento

We set out for a shorter drift today because I have to catch a plane back to B.A. at 8:15 tonight. We planned to be off the water around 3:00pm, giving me enough time to shower and change before we set out on the drive back to Salta.

Today it was just Emiliano and I and once again the fishing was tough. I hooked and very quickly lost a big fish (8kg) and Emi had one strike but didn’t hook up while I took a break. It was a blistering hot day with not too much wind. Pleasant enough. Dorado a tough to hook; their mouths are very hard, especially as they get older. But they sure are pretty and when they strike, they hit like a ton of bricks… what I would call a violent take… very exciting…

Anyway that was it for golden Dorado… one fish landed, four hooked, 3 of good size… Bob’s your uncle…

Alex picked us up just after 3 and all went according to plan in terms of getting to the airport. But man was I beat… my right arm about to drop off and I’d obviously had way too much sunshine. Flight to B.A. was uneventful except that it was 11:30 by the time we landed and 12:15 by the time I was at the Claridge. Luckily I got a room with a bath because the first thing I had to do was soak my arm, shoulder and hand which had all pretty much seized up. Throwing those big flies all day… and I mean all day with no breaks except for lunch… obviously the guides want you to catch fish, so it’s “cast left, cast right…” nonstop.

Tuesday

With less than 5 hours sleep I was up at 6 this morning to catch a 7:55 flight to Bariloche, followed by a 3+ hour drive up to Junín de los Andes (I thought I was going to San Martin but it turns out the hotel they use is here…the two towns are 30 km apart) The hired a taxi to bring me up and the driver had no English, so I was able to catch a bit of shut-eye. He also never drove more than 80km/hr, which was great during the scenic bits but wore a little thin after awhile. I think it was all about getting the best mileage out of his VW Polo. I got a few photos… as soon as I lifted my camera the driver would slow right down… very helpful… luckily there is very little traffic at this time of year. Amazingly little.

Gustavo met me at the door of the hotel. A very pleasant fellow, 40-ish, big, who works as a fishing guide, rafting guide and sometimes system analyst (which is what he used to do fulltime until he got fed up. Junín is a lovely little town, quite Bavarian in architectural style.

I took half an hour to unpack and then after a quick lunch, we set off for the Malleo River, a 20 minute drive from town. This is a wade-only river. We fished a spectacularly beautiful quarter-km section. I landed six small trout, one brown, perhaps .5kg. And hooked into that many more, so it was an entertaining afternoon. I should have used my #3 rod rather than the #5, though. My major disappointment was that I didn’t take my camera (because we would be wading and I didn’t know how far we’d be from the truck). The weather was terrific, not so hot as up north but sunny and warm, t-shirt weather. And the view. Looking back upstream, the sunshine sparkling on the rippled water, then the typi8cal Patagonian jagged hills, with the snow-capped peak of Lunin, the volcano behind. Incredible… truly postcard stuff.

Home just after 7pm, cleanup and a quick snooze for me, then out to dinner with Gustavo. Very nice. Tomorrow we drift another river, so it’ll likely be along day. Can’t wait!

Wednesday
Rio Collon Cura

Patagonia is definitely trout country... this place is BC 50 or maybe 100 years ago… Today we drifted Rio Collon Cura. We fished 10 hours and I honestly don’t believe we ever had 15 minutes between fish all day... lost count of the totals (hey, who's counting???) but it was amazing... mostly rainbows and a few brown trout... strong, hard fighting fish, at least half on the dry fly... Gustavo put me onto three 2 lbers at 7:45 pm when I thought we had finished and were within 50 m of the pull out … Man, does this guy like to fish, and row a raft…

For those of you who care (Mikey, Gordo, Don, Dave, etc.) the fish went 1lb to almost 5lbs (a beautiful brown taken on a streamer) but most were in the 2 – 3 lb range and hard fighting (river fish, eh). More than half were taken on drys sight-casting… we hard 2 rods hooked up all day and switched constantly depending on river conditions. I fished my #3 dry and the #5 wet… used only one streamer fly all day (actually 2 of the same pattern that Gustavo tied last night… a big wooly, bead-headed fly with white legs… killer… there were several hatches during the course of the day , so we fished small caddis… and it was nearly all casting to sighted fish…

Today was another beautiful day, all sunshine, all the time… and not much breeze… and the scenery spectacular again… this is a very special piece of dirt… and there’s no one here…

If the weather hold, we’ll fish a big lake tomorrow (that is unfishable if it blows) for large rainbows, brookies and browns… and then it’s another great rio on Friday… apparently very clear and technical, so the weakness in my casting abilities may start to show…

Got to go… it’s past midnight and another busy day tomorrow… when you don’t get in ‘til 8:30pm and eat at 10pm, it doesn’t leave a lot for time for blogging… this to explain redundancies, spelling errors, bad grammar and boring shit…