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

BarrettArgentina, Patagonia, Sea trout, tierra del fuego

Villa Maria lodge’s Fishing report :

Week: 12th to 19th 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;