Dorado Fishing near Salta, Argentina
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
