
Weather: Overcast with periods of sun
Water Conditions: Marsh is on the lower side with just a bit of stained water
Fly Fishing Equipment: 5 and 6wts with 250 and 350 sinking lines
Fishing Report
Morning Session
Tom and I left the dock at 7:30am and headed out to the Corrientes River with Nicalous. We hit several of the deeper holes looking for some of the bigger dorado. We used strickly sinking lines (250-300 grain) with about 5 feet of leader and wire tippet with flies in the 3-4inch range. Anything with black in it is a great fly and the hot fly of the morning seesion was a red spun deer hair head with black feathers out the rear. I jumped two fish all morning, while Tom jumped three and landed two, one being of the top of the season coming in at 7lbs. Tom caught it fishing a deep drop off casting from a point. The fishing was not fast and furious, but if you want to hunt big fish you have to be willing to not get the numbers of fish with the hopes of landing a big one.
We came in from fishing at our regular scheudled time around noon. We had lunch at 12:30 with a meat apitizer followed my the main couse of pork barbacue.
We then took a siesta until about 4pm. I do not think I have totally adjusted to the time zone change yet. When we get up at 6am it is 3am at home and after about the first hour of being awake I need a good hit of caffine to keep rolling. By the time we get back in the morning and I get some grub in my stomach I am out like a light for a few hours.
Afternoon Session
Tom and I left the dock around 5pm and headed out with Felipe. Felipe is the son of a very famous Argentine fly fishermen named Marcelo Morlaes. The Morales family started Buenos Aries Fly Fishing Shop many many years ago and to this day Marcile guides guests in the Patagonia area. Felipe has been fishing since he can even remember and at nineteen is clearly already an excellent fly angler who has a keen sense where to find fish and can cast bank to bank with little problem.
It was not long after we make our first stop on the river that we were hooked up with a golden dorado. The highlight of the evening was finding some dorado on a sand bar and sight casting to them. I made a cast and put the fly about 2 feet of the dorado’s nose; as soon as the fly hit the bottom the dorado jumped on the fly like a mad man and I was hooked up. It was a nice 4-5lb fish, three jumps and he came off. I made another cast to the bar, let the fly sink and started to strip, two strips and whack, another golden dorado hooked up. This one was a little bigger. Determined to get a picture I put a lot of pressure on him and dragged him up to the beach. Filepe made his way down to get the fish and as it was flogging around the fly came out and he quickly to our dimay, but to his delight, found his way back to the water. Tom was snapping some shots and did catch a shot or two of the fish that Filepe estimated to be a little over 5lbs. No picture, but the memory of sight casting to golden dorado will remain for ever.
We caught several more fish into the eventing casting to pushes and jumps that you could see in the shallow banks. We also would cast out into the current, let the fly sink and swing back to the edge of the bank of the river that all seem to have deep drop offs. I would liken the fishing when fishing the river banks to fishing for striped bass along edges of islands in places like Crisfield where you hit the bank with in 3 inches and out comes a fish. it might also be compared to fishing steamers for large trout along river banks.
The smaller 1-5lb dorado do not scream drag like a bonefish or albacore does, but they do put on an exciting arobatic show that gets your heart pumping.
We returned for evening around 9pm just about out of sunlight. We had some ordorvies and drinks and got ready for dinner. The evening dinner started off with pumpkin nut soup and was followed by a beef based rosatto dor the main course and a maheto sorbe desert.
Evening Session
For the evening session we headed about after dinner around 10:30pm to catch a few golden dorado. Felipe said earlier in the day that we could catch them with out a rod and reel and with out evening touching them. He promised we would catch at five fish. We loaded up the boat in the pitch dark and Noel (the Pira Lodge Fishing Director) took the bow and turned on a minuture Max Million spotlight and shined it in the water. With about 30 seconds we have our first fish in the boat, it literally jumped in the boat. As we motored through the channel towards the marsh you could literally see hundreds of fish swimming in the water and ever minute or so one would go airborne towards the boat. They literally launch themselves into the air and often times you had to watch yourself from getting hit in the head. Another really cool thing was seeing the literally hundreds if not thosuands of birds that could get up as we made our way through the marsh. When Noel shined the light in the air it was birds as far as you could see. There there are the camones or crocadiles as we call them back home that are all over the marsh. The March is really an amazing place to see a varity of wildlife. We traveled around looking at the wildlife for about an hour and then made our way back to the dock and got ready for bed. After answering some emails and things I manged to to make it to bed around 2am to get a few hours in before our 6am wake up call where we will do it again.
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