Rio Grande Fishing Report, January 19 – 26, 2013
Es. Maria Behety & La Villa, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
Estancia Maria Behety
River conditions: The river level is low and dropping a little every day. Water is perfectly clear. Water temperature between 71°F the first two days this week and dropped to 45°F the last two days.
Sunday and Monday the temperature went up to 83°F, on Friday the temperature dropped to 40°F.
Lines: Skagit lines with 10´, 12´and 15´ of T-14 and T-17. Intermediate and slow sinking tips worked well in some pools as well as skating flies on floating lines; Bombers or Sunray Shadows did the best…
Flies: The best flies were nymphs: tdf prince, EMB’s, prince nymph, red tail and other small nymphs. For the last hour of the day big leeches, intruders or tube flies worked well.
Average weight of the fish this week was 8,3 pounds. 16 fish over 15 pounds were landed. Notable catches wasa 20.5 pound fish landed by Jualian Strutt and a 21 pounder landed by Doug Limburn. Our top rod was Dave Parkes with 33 fish landed for the week!
Muchos Saludos,
Federico Molinolo, Head guide Maria Behety Lodge
La Villa Maria Behety
This week we had three new guests for La Villa, Rudd C., Steve L. and DarwinI all from the U.S.A. They joined Alf B., Roger Y. and Keith C., who were already at the lodge.
The week started with an unusual heat wave of two days. The temperature reached 26 degrees Celsius and as the week progressed the air temperature decreased to the mild/cool and usual temperatures.
No precipitation took place so the river level dropped on a constant basis, a little every day. The water temperature went from warm 20C to cool 8C on Friday. The fishing was slow the first two days, probably due to the weather, but as conditions improved, so did the fishing.
The tactics were similar to last week. In most pools sinking tips and nymphs were very successful, and occasionally, floating lines with tubes and dries, gave us the joy of seeing sea trout smashing the water surface. Almost all the fish were fresh, only a few were turned.
This week, fourteen fish were over 15 pounds and the average weight was 9.57.
Roger Y. not only got the biggest fish this week (a fresh 22lbs), he also was the top rod with 26 fish in the net.
Best Regards,
Federico Zimmermann, Head Guide. La Villa de Maria Behety