Argentina Fishing Trip

Being the 8th largest country in the world, Argentina offers an incredible diversity of angling options. This is in part what makes deciding where to fish in a limited amount of time such a difficult proposition. Imagine coming to the US for the first time & only having 3 weeks to experience the best of what our country has to offer. Do you target trout, steelhead, tarpon, redfish, salmon, bass or some combination of the above? And where? When? With which guides? The possibilities are mind-boggling.

Argentina challenges us with  a similar dilemma (if you call too many fishing options a dilemma). For the sake of brevity, there are essentially 3 target species found within Argentina, and they inhabit different corners of the country:

• In the north, Dorado occupy the Rio de la Plata basin, and are unique to this watershed.  Dorado is arguably one of the best freshwater flyrod species on earth, though they remain relatively unknown to many foreign anglers.
• In northern/central Patagonia, multitudes of pristine rivers & lakes provide habitat for robust populations of brown, rainbow and brook trout. This is the most popular destination among visiting anglers.
• In southern Patagonia & Tierra del Fuego, the world’s best runs of sea trout (i.e. anadromous brown trout), draw anglers from around the globe to brave the elements for a chance at 20 + pounders.

To experience all of these fisheries would be much like fishing for tarpon in Florida, steelhead in Alaska, and trout in Montana all in one fell swoop. It’s the ultimate fishing itinerary, and requires a minimum of 3 weeks to pull it off without cutting yourself short in any one destination. Trips like this are my favorite to plan because they are a non-stop, whirlwind fishing adventure hard to top. I had the pleasure of doing exactly that for Trent & Ken from Anchorage, Alaska.   One week & Patagonia, another in Tierra del Fuego, and a few days of Dorado fishing to top it off. Here are some pictures they just sent me of their trip:

Team Alaska on the Rio Grande

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Another Pig Brown from Patagonia

Bill, one of our clients from Colorado, caught his fish of a lifetime recently on a float trip down the Limay river. In a short 2 weeks, he covered the best Alumine, Junin & Bariloche. This fish was just icing on the cake. Way to go Bill!

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Huge Patagonia Brown Trout

This is NOT a sea run brown trout. Incredible.

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Rio Grande Tierra del Fuego #3

Some more pics from the Rio Grande:

Calvin w/ yet another fresh sea trout

Trent w/ another 19 pounder

Our intrepid guide, Ale

Guanaco

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Big Fish Patagonia el Libro

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Rio Grande Fishing Report, Tierra del Fuego March 12 – 17

Villa Maria lodge’s Fishing report :

Week: 12^th to 19^th of March:

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

This week we have welcomed a group composed of 4 anglers, two austrians, Mr Andreas Bachler and Mr Gerard Hoerl, one american and old friend Mr Jim Monguillo and Mr Hugh Chesternon from UK.

We had another good week at Villa Maria altough the fishing was tough. Anglers and guides worked very hard to find the fish  due to the difficult conditions. In terms of numbers we hooked 73 fish and landed 46 fish! The size of the fish keep on improving, this week we had an average weight of  10 pounds. The fishing was very irregular, some good sesions followed by some very poor ones. But despite the difficult conditions, we managed to catch three 24 pounders, one 26  and one 26,5 pounders!! And 4 of this huge fish were caught in the last session of the week, on Thursday evening, what a way to finish the week guys! Best award for the hard work anglers that fished with us this week. Well done guys!

We fished mostly with skaggit lines with type 8 tip or15 feet of T14 and teeny 300 in the single hand rods, depending on the water temperature, fish mood and the pools. We had a couple of morning with very cold water, 5 degree celsius! And the water was never warmer than 10 degrees. So we followed the rule of cold water conditions: to fish deep and slow. The most successful flies were the tube flies like the collie dog or sunray shadow, leeches and rubber legs.

All  the big fish we caught this week were very fresh, that means that there are still some big fresh fish coimng into the river. We also hooked and lost some really big fish, the huge monsters are waking up and everything can happen the following weeks….

By Alejandro Bianchetti

Fishing Manager

Villa Maria Lodge.

In terms of numbers:

46 fish caught for 6 rods;

Average fish per rod: 1,92

The best day we landed 13 fish with 4 rods.

Biggest fish: 26,5 pounds caught by Gerard Hoerl

6 fish over 20 pounds, and 7 over 15 pounds;

The average weight was 10,05 pounds;

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