far out fishing
the travel blog for faroutfishingtrips.com (and other spiffy fishing stories)
Archive for Argentina Fishing
January 23, 2010 at 12:50 am · Filed under Argentina Fishing
oh, my god. 3 months without a post. that’s blog blasphemy. excuses, excuses. i’ve been wrapped up in personal stuff, not to mention lots of extraneous non-fishing travel, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, freezing my butt off in the northern hemisphere during November. then slowly dying in Buenos Aires with nothing going on but drinking and spending money. need to get back outside.
well, needless to say, i’m back in Patagonia, now. hosting a bunch of groups at our place with the Northern Patagonia Fishing Club! holy crap, the weather is nice and the fishing fantastic (more on that later!).
went out with my good friend and guide Javier Herrera to explore a crazy little creek. spent a few days backpacking to fishless water, but found a little gem of a creek. caught a few 22-inch browns and spooked some even bigger. here are some photos of the area and me with a chunky 18-incher. lot of new zealand-style fishing here. if you can stand long enough to cast, the horseflies were ridiculous. you’d be lucky not to inhale one while breathing, they were so thick. but isn’t there always some kind of catch with all good things??? (photos by Joey Lin and Javier Herrera, 2010). cheers!
April 4, 2009 at 6:56 pm · Filed under Argentina Fishing
hey, guys. i wanted to share some photos from 2 weeks ago. Bert Horn and Cole Eslyn came down to fish for Dorados in Yahapé and the upper Rio Paraná for about 10 days. Here are some Dorados from La Zona, below Salto Grande on the Rio Uruguay, fishing with Enzo. These are 33 and 24 pounds respectively. Lots of fish were caught near the rocks in shallow water with poppers. Argentina is still experiencing drought conditions all over…hopefully this ends soon! (photo’s by Cole Eslyn and Bert Horn, respectively).
on another note, i’m on my way this monday to spend 2 weeks in the Bahamas. first i’m going to Bair’s Lodge for a week, then going out to check out their sister lodge in Abaco, which will be opening on April 19th! i’ll be sure and post from there, so stay tuned! cheers - Joey
January 6, 2009 at 8:16 pm · Filed under Argentina Fishing
ok, guys. the other day i went with some friends and their family to the Rio Aluminé. they were doing some rafting and we stuck around to roast a goat. meanwhile, i took off down the river looking for some rising trout. found one in the shade. crappy light as it was quite windy and the fish was swiming in and out of the shade. i got some quite good photos of this fish rising and slurping down spinners that were floating by, but i like this one best for some reason. just has a weird mood to it and i like it. later next week, i’ll post the rising trout photos. © Joey Lin 2009, cheers!
December 23, 2008 at 7:33 pm · Filed under Argentina Fishing
hey, guys…been a while. i took a break from hectic office work here in Buenos Aires and went to Patagonia to visit some friends this past week. right now we are in the beginning of the fishing season here in Argentina, so there’s a lot of paperwork and preparation. for everyone out there who’s wondering, we have good water levels this year in Patagonia, at least up north in the Aluminé area. maybe a bit below average, but more water than last year for sure.
i spent a couple of days with my good friend Javier Herrera (guide for Northern Patagonia Fishing Club) up in the Aluminé region, checking out a couple pieces of water that almost never get fished. one of them is mostly spring fed. 19″-22″ rainbows, and fat…with the occasional lunker brown. no small fish and not a lot of fish in general, maybe 1-2 in each good pool, but we caught them all on dry flies with easy casting. it was kind of a crappy day with clouds and a lot of wind. the other spot here in the photos wasn’t such great fishing, but stunningly beautiful scenery in a deep canyon with araucaria’s (prehistoric pine) everywhere. all in all it was a hell of a way to get the season started. there’ll be much more to come in the weeks ahead, i’ll try and post as often as possible. cheers. joey (photos © Joey lin 2008, except the one of me taken by Javier!).
May 20, 2008 at 1:58 am · Filed under Argentina Fishing
hey, everyone. been a while since i posted. we’re pretty much out of fishing season here, so i’m doing a lot of work in Buenos Aires for the upcoming fishing season.
had some visitors this week. my good friends Frank Butler and Ken Korth who came with some other friends from San Antonio to visit and do some hunting for dove, perdiz and ducks. last week we went to Frank’s ranch in Tucuman, in northwestern Argentina. the rainy season had ended and it had been quite cold recently, but we decided to take a day and go fish for Dorado after a ridiculous day of dove shooting the previous day.
it was a super long-ass day. 2.5 hour drive to get to the town of Las Lajitas, then 45 minutes on dirt roads into private property to access the Rio Dorado. then quite a bit of hiking. the Rio Dorado is a gorgeous stream that runs into the Rio Bermejo. we met up with Sebastian Zavila, a guide from Salta who runs a company called Fly Fishing Salta.
we had perfect weather and decent flows. air temperature was in the mid 70’s all day, not a cloud in the sky, and the river was running about 100 cfs. fishing was a bit slow and the Dorado were not particularly active, but we did manage to hook some fish. all in all, Frank and i hooked about 7-8 fish in the 2-3 pound range. here’s a photo of Sebastian with a 5-pounder i caught. i jumped a fish of 8-10 pounds, and Frank lost a monster fish of 12-14 pounds…all in water that was no deeper than 3-5 feet in most places that held fish. amazing quality of fish in a tiny river this small. but, this was one of the most slippery rivers i’d ever waded in, was like walking on 1000 bars of wet soap. and the biting flies destroyed me. still itching almost a week later from all the bug bites. cheers. joey. photos © Joey Lin 2008
May 2, 2008 at 12:33 am · Filed under Argentina Fishing
hey, guys. i’m stuck here in Buenos Aires, fall is upon us and the fishing season is winding down here in Argentina. my business partner, who helps run Yahapé Fly Fishing, ran up to Corrientes to fish with my buddies Ramiro Badessich and Ricardo “Pinti” Pinto, guides for that operation up there on the upper Rio Paraná. this is a photo from yesterday. it was really cold, as a strong front passed thru, so fishing was slow as far as numbers, but they were moving really big fish.
Pinti says the best time for big fish this time of year is right when the weather starts getting cold, but before winter sets in. this fish is somewhere in the 18+ pound range. they hooked a few other fish in the 20+ pound range as well. if you want to book a trip, call me or email me at joey@faroutfishingtrips.com and i’ll hook you up. photo © Sebastian Casado ‘08. see ya.
April 19, 2008 at 4:04 pm · Filed under Argentina Fishing
ok, so the second half of my trip. i left Irigoyen and headed for Rio Grande where i had to meet up with some clients of mine that flew in. this was Bennett Dorrance and some friends, all super nice guys. we had originally booked Kau Tapen Lodge, but because of schedule conflicts, had to move to Toon Ken Lodge further up river. again, the fishing was a bit slow, the water was 1 degree celsius, and i was stuck guideless to fish the river. but this was a business trip for me to visit Toon Ken (haven’t been since they rebuilt the lodge a few years ago), and to visit some guide friends over at Kau Tapen.
there were some fish caught in the 3 days the group was there, but not many by either lodge in this particular week. some rain had brought some fresh fish into the lower river, but not too many up where we were. Bob Anderson got a 15 pounder and a 12 pounder, and the rest of the guys caught some smaller resident fish. i didn’t do so well. the photos are of the upper Rio Grande. there’s my friend Barrett Mattison with a 16 pound sea trout (hen) caught by an Argentine client. the sheep photo is on the Estancia San Julio on the way back to Toon Ken. i couldn’t decide which photo i liked best, so i put up this version. but CLICK HERE to see an alternate version. i like them both.
food and lodging were excellent at Toon Ken. the highlight of the trip for me was going with the group to Ushuaia (where Bennett had to park the plane), and eating centolla (king crab) and taking the flight back to Buenos Aires. Bennett was kind enough to invite me on his Dessault Falcon, an impressive private jet. never been on a private plane like this one. was the smoothest plane ride i’ve ever been on. was amazing how quickly and easily it climbed to 43,000 feet, our cruising altitude. photos © Joey Lin 2008, cheers!
April 14, 2008 at 6:41 pm · Filed under Argentina Fishing
so i just got back from Tierra del Fuego. for those of you who don’t know, it’s the island tip of South America. was headed down for a couple of reasons. one was to check out my friends’ new fishing operation for sea run brown trout on the Irigoyen.
this was a spectacular location, not the typical imagery of sea trout fishing on the Rio Grande. it’s a small river that meanders through forests. there are beavers and dead fall all over the river, which makes for quite an interesting setting to catch these monster fish (they were consistently catching them up to 24 pounds this past season). i got really lazy and didn’t take too many photos of the river itself.
the trip to get there was particularly brutal. we had a flight delay, then a 3.5 hour full flight to Ushuaia (southern most city in the world, jumping off point to Antarctica), then about a 5 hour car ride to the lodge on a private estancia in the middle of nowhere.
fishing was not so great since it was early April and the fish were just in the middle of the spawn. the water was also super cold, like 1 degree celsius during the day. i happened to be there for only a few days to check out the lodge/logistics and was with a group of 4 guests i didn’t know, so i really wasn’t left with much water to play in. anyway, here are a few photos from the area before i headed off to Rio Grande with a group of mine. more details on that later. photos © Joey Lin, 2008.
April 5, 2008 at 2:15 pm · Filed under Argentina Fishing
guys, this is a quick post. it’s been about 3 weeks since we went on our exploratory fishing trip. i shot this photo of my sandals in the river. these are made by Keen, and supposedly are made for water, but i use them here in the city in Buenos Aires and in the water when i wet-wade.
let me tell you, i love these sandals/shoes, but they absolutely suck on wet rock. wish they would make them with 5-10 sticky rubber or something. my last day of exploring, i took a nasty fall in the river and landed sideways, busting my knee and my ribs. 3 weeks later, my ribs still hurt when i cough or sneeze. it’s getting better, but i think i might have cracked something.
anyway, i like the photo, so i thought i’d share it. photo © Joey Lin 2008
April 2, 2008 at 6:01 pm · Filed under Argentina Fishing
ok, this isn’t really from this past week, more like 10 days ago. this is another creek that we had always known about, but never fished it. not much really to say about this creek, except that it had great pool-run structure. lots of healthy fat rainbows in the 18-20 inch range with a few 22 inchers. the bigger fish were holding in very shallow water (1-2 feet), and mixed in were some really big browns in the 3-5+ pound range. i went with Katy and Garrett. this was to be our last day of exploratory fishing before Garrett had to head back to Chile.
the big browns were particularly difficult, as almost nobody goes up here where we were fishing. this is truly New Zealand style fishing. a lot of the day was spent sight fishing to these fish. the browns would spook if you looked at them too long, even when we were fully hidden. big wild browns just have a 6th sense, that’s what makes fishing for them so much fun. for the most part of the day, we were fishing small to medium size dry flies (caddis or an attractor mayfly in about #14 average size). i had quite a bit of success trailing a #18-#20 pheasant tail nymph about 12 inches off of a small dry, some big fish were taking it, including this brown pictured here. photos © Joey Lin and Garrett Sullivan 2008.
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