A new season is starting soon!

When i got back from Argentina i found my self in a complete different world. You can't imagine how much snow we have here in Terrace BC. I will post some pictures later this week that can tell you the story about our local conditions. It will be very interesting to see what is going to happen this year with the run off in May and June! If we got warm weather followed by rain Terrace might be in trouble. But before that will happen we first will fish for our winter and spring run steelhead! One of the most difficult fish to get on the fly. It is for manny anglers the ultimate trophy. A spring run steelhead on the fly! But before we start guiding for steelhead we will go to Cuba first to target Tarpon, bonefish and Permit. My favourite of the 3 will be tarpon. Can't wait to hook one.

Fishing the dry fly in perfect conditions. To bad it was the last evening of our trip.
A very fresh 16 pound hen i landed in the last 5 minutes of the final evening. A perfect ending from a great week of fishing.
Ken with the Biggest fish of the week a 24 pound buck! A a great guy with a great fish!

Rio grande 5

Hot fresh hen! Jumping is standard for all fresh fish you hook on the Rio Grande!
David with his personal best a 22 pound hen!
The lodge. A cozy warm place a real treat to end a good day of fishing.

Next week i will post more pictures!

rio grande 4

Magic hour on the Rio Grande!
Despedita Lodge: Home away from home. Great host and guides.
Keith with his biggest one a 23 pound buck.
Ken With his personal best a 22 pound hen!

A short summary about our trip to the Rio Grande

After 40 hours of flying i finally made it to Buenos Aires. It is a very impressive city with lts of history and nice weather. The temperatures are around 34c during the day time. That night we have to get up t 3 am to take our early morning flight to the Rio Grande. Seeing the town Rio Grande from the air it looks fairly big! and it suppose to host over 100,000 citizens!

When i left the plane i noticed the wind right away it is just howling and blowing like i have never seen before! The temperatures are very cold and one day it is just 2c during day time. And with the wind/ chill factor it is almost not possible to fish.

The lodge is great! Very comfortable with great staff and food. I just wish they had served more steak! And we had numerous of the best wines you can think off! The owner Danny a real Argentina guy is a great guy and it was very pleasant to have him on the dinner table to share some of his great stories and the big fish being landed in history and off course the one that got away! The fishing is straight forward, if you have fished for steelhead or Atlantic salmon you have already a edge! But the sea trout are way more picky!! So it is important to change your flies a lot! You are fishing over the fish and it is just like grayling fishing. When they have seen it or know it is fake. They will not take it! So to enforce a bit you have to twitch, retrieve and switch flies! We had very low water conditions, in fact it was the lowest time in history! So all the regular flies could stay in the fly boxes and we had to go extreme small! I fished mostly size 14 to 16!! The problem using small hooks is that when you hook a 16 pound fish it will just bend out by the hook set! So when you manage to keep it on most fish where lost while jumping! The tiny hooks are just to weak to hold these heavy strong fish. So we lost a lot of fish this way. It was also mandatory to fish long leader up to 15 feet to avoid the trout being spooked! The guides where great. But now they have very difficult conditions they have not seen or dealt before i noticed they did not really know what to do or how to fish it. So after a lot of trying and switching flies we found the right combination. In that week we landed over 80 fish with 7 angers what is good considering the difficult conditions. We several fish over the magic 20 pound mark! So every body was more then happy!

My favourite day was the last evening. There was almost no wind so this was the perfect opportunity to fish a dry fly! I used a chernobel Ant and i let it skate on the surface. After a couple casts i a big sea trout came up and ate it! I did not gave it enough slack to set the hook and i lost this fish. MAn what a adrenaline rush to see a big sea trout eat my dry fly! A couple cast later i missed a other one and rose one more to the dry fly! I wish i had the chance of doing this a whole lot more this week. But it all depends on the wind! In the corner of my eye i see a fish role on the surface and a casted upstream to this fish. The only way was to dead drift this fly to get it by the fish. The fish came up and ate my dead drifted dry fly!!! Unbelievable!! It was not a monster maybe 6 pounds but who cares about the size when you get a sea trout on a dead drifted dry fly! This was the high light of my week together with my 22 pound fresh hen i took on the 3 day of my stay. You can only fish the rio grande if you stay at one of the lodges. Yes it is expensive! But if you know how much money it cost to run a operation like this and to manage the river how these lodges are doing it it is a good price for a fantastic week of fishing! All the lodges are working together to rest the pools and rotate. So everyone will catch sea trout! We have the best week on the rio grande with Despadita lodge! If you are interested in a week fishing with me or by your self drop me a email to get you in a fantastic wee of fishing! Where can you catch 20 pound sea trout in this world! Il bet not more then 3 rivers on this planet where this kind of fishing is possible. I will post more pictures soon!

Rio Grande 3

A 17 pound buck that ripped some line of my reel.
Ken is releasing one of his manny sea trout that week. He is a great fisherman and a nice fishing friend to have!
A rare sight on the Ri grande this week. A beautiful sun set with hardly any wind. Fishing will be good tonight!
A super fresh 16 pound hen that jumped over 10 times to try to loose my fly!

More Rio Grande

Every sea trout is carefully weighted! So there is no guessing or discussion about it. The Average size on the Rio Grande is very impressive! Most fish weigh between 12 and 16 pounds.
The release of a smaller sea trout. It is always a joy to see these blast back in to the river.
I nice 16 pound buck in his spawning colours!

Rio Grande Pics

Where the Rio Grande is famous for big Sea trout and a LOT of wind. It is just tough to keep standing! I have never experienced so much wind like Tierra del fuego!I nice 18 pound buck landed during day time on a size 16!
My personal best a super fresh 22 pound hen that kept me busy for quite some time. I am very happy with this fish. A great start of this season.