Fly Fish Patagonia

Rio Grande, Argentina

There he goes again, plucking fish right and left out of the river! Dave took a trip out on the Rio Grande outside of Trevelin, Argentina. The Rio Grande is a massive watershed made up of many bodies of water that eventually flow into Chile, where this river changes names to Futaleufu. He successfully caught TONS of fish. All I know is that when he came home, his arm was tired from casting and he had about 50 shots of a gorgeous day fishing with many fish-in-hand pictures and smiles all over the place. I´ll just post the pictures and let Dave tell the story.

After trying to figure out how to cast a fly into the storied waters of Patagonia on my own  I  finally broke down and hired a guide. It turns out that without flies, waders, boots, or any other relavent equipment besides a fly rod and no private transportation finding the waters edge with a chance of catching a fish is difficult. The guide service I chose typically does lodge trips for mostly retired Americans coming to stay in their lodge for a week or two and then back to the states without experiencing any other part of the country or arranging any of the travel on their own. Needless to say the group was a little suprised when they received my email inquiring about a one day fishing trip and that I would be in their town in two days.

The trip turned out great and I caught about 30 trout about half of which we could see before making the cast and about half we saw right before they swallowed a streamer I was stripping through likely holes. As you can see from the pictures the fish were all very plump and healthy. If we had only captured a picture of the biggest fish of the day... A brown trout that attacked my streamer and that I successfully got to the side of the boat. For some reason the guide decided he wanted to get the boat to the side for a really good picture without first netting the behemouth. The hooked popped out right before he parked the boat. This thing must have been about 23 inches and pushing 5 lbs. I guess this wouldn´t be a fishing story without a tale about ¨the one that got away¨. Enjoy the pics: