With my girlfriends mum being very ill my fishing time has been hugely limited but finally the Rio Grande is in my sights, as the family organise some local fisherman to take me fishing at first light.
A good nights sleep was impossible as my excitement grew, but with tackle at the ready we set off at dawn.
The journey was a task in itself, weaving up & down the mountains on the back of a flat back truck on bumpy dirt tracks wasn't really my idea of fun & after 2 hours I was feeling rather queasy. Add to that the temperature change was phenomenal, after leaving this morning, about 10 degrees, it was now 30 & it's still before 9am.
Thankfully I could see the Rio by now, it's dry season so the river is quite small in comparison with when the rain comes. After another twenty minutes we had arrived & it's even hotter, but my god what a river, deep pools, fast shallow rapids & very clear.
Daniele the fisherman told me it's around 35 degrees now & that's average for their winter, it gets to 45 in the summer, thank god I'm here at the cooler temperatures.
Local knowledge is so important, as it is anywhere new that you fish but here even more so, therefore.....
In a combination of my bad Spanish & hand signals Daniele explained to me the plan...
Catch a small fish quickly & use that as bait. One of his pals set off with a net in the shallow parts up stream & we settled down to fish the deep waters close to the bridge.
I used my medium setup with a small jig head mounted with a small fish shaped jelly, bumping it along the sandy bottom.
The locals used hand lines with around 80lb mono & large hooks with maize as bait, it's amazing they ever catch but I guess with the possiblity of a huge fish, needs must.
The depths varied massively from rapids you could walk across to 20ft deep dark pools.
The water was clear & very fast, even in the deep sections & I had a few plucks on my lure but I think it was just very small fish, nipping at the tail.
The heat was really getting to me & without a fish spotted by anybody my confidence was low, after trying every lure in the box it was time for an early lunch at 11am.
My fishing buddy explained that the fishing was better at 3 or 4pm as it cooled down.
We walked the mile or so back to the truck & found a tree for some well needed shade, I was drenched in sweat & miserable at the lack of fish, even the net boys had blanked.
The lads cooked up lunch on an open fire, potatoes, boiled eggs & dried beef, all served up in my cap & eaten with my hands as plates & cutlery is too much hassle.
Different to what I'm used to
A particularly dry but never the less very tasty lunch I washed it all down with litres upon litres of water & we all relaxed under the tree.
The Bolivians then set out a large tarpaulin in the shade of the truck & slept for a while, the wind cooled us down & I sat & went through all my tackle as I was unable to sleep in the heat.
As we chilled out, I showed my fellow fishing buddies some pictures from my phone of a few descent fish I've had lately & they just refused to believe it's possible to catch such fish on rod & line. But I'm sure I gained their confidence though, that I know what I'm doing if nothing else.
At 2.30pm we set out again, back to the deep spot as I roved about with a small diving Rapala clacking rap as I thought the noisiness of this lure would attract the surrounding bigger fish.
After an hour of thrashing the water to a foam, making many casts in every fishy looking area, I saw a good sized fish follow my lure into the shallow margins & then turned away, hard to say what it was as it all happened so quickly but pretty sure it was a golden dorado of around 8 to 10lb, maybe bigger, at last a sign of life. As I cast again in the deep margins he must have taken the lure on the drop & I was in at last, the rod hooped over to the maximum & the tight drag screamed off.
This dorado's power is incredible, it feels much stronger than anything in England I've hooked.
After taking 40 or 50 yards of braid I just about turned him, he then zoomed off to the left taking yet more line & heading for deepest water when next I feel a vicious head shake & the rod wobbles like crazy in my hand, then for some unknown reason he was off.
Gutted wasn't the word, I wanted to cry..........
What a catch that could have been !
As I reeled in the lure it became apparent what the problem was, one of the hooks from the treble had slightly straightened out.
But thinking back the power of this fish was just not comparable with are uk species these lures are normally used for.
As I trudged back to the other lads to explain my misfortunes I really wanted to just go home & forget the day.
Unbelievably one of the chaps had looked over, just at the time I was playing the dorado & taken a picture on his old Nokia phone, poor quality but here it is below.
But finally some good news, the net boys had come up trumps, a Sabalo of 2lb.
A filter feeding fish that's not possible to catch on a hook with the shape of his weird mouth.
My South American pals explained to me they gut the fish & use the entrails on the hook & catch Bagre.
I think the translation is simply catfish, so I'll get back to on the proper name.
Either way this gave me renewed hope.
I didn't fancy the mile or more walk to my big tackle box as I just had my small one with a few lures in it & my big fish gear.
I took a savage gear paddle tailed eel & took off the rubber part to give room for the stinky bait & also the 30g jig head would sink it nicely to the bottom.
They mounted the guts on the hook & secured it with a small elastic band.
We all cast out as the sun disappeared over the mountain tops. This instantly helped because it became 10 or 15 degrees cooler & bearable at last, but the Mosquitos had woken up & now driving me crazy as I was getting bitten just about everywhere.
I put the rod down & tightened the line, quivertip style & loosened off the drag as I went to take a pee.
The bait must have been in the water a few minutes & typically the drag ticked away as I was ten yards away, my back was turned with my piece in hand.
I tucked the old fella away as quickly as I could & grabbed the rod, tightened the drag & struck to just make sure the hook had a good hold this time.
A jagged & slow fight ends quickly & I have my first fish on the bank at long last.
It's a Bagre, only just under 2lb but I've not blanked when it was on the cards.
Unhooking this catfish was difficult as the the dorsal & pectoral fins had large spines, inevitably I got spiked as wrestled him & it bled quite at bit, but It wasn't to painful.
Another of the fisherman remarked
"Amazing, the Gringo caught a fish" which did make me smile.
The locals don't let me put it back as it's apparently tasty, I'd have preferred to release him but that's the way out here.
Hook rebaited with a very smelly intestine i cast out, I'm sure because I could cast two or three times the distance of the Bolivian handlines it had helped me get more bites.
Five minutes later I'm in again & it's a carbon copy of the first one in size & fight, after a hard day a bend in ur rod of any kind is most welcome.
I ask the locals how big do the Bagre get here ???
"Muy grande" woz his response so it was all the incentive I needed for the big rod to be set up.
Very much stepped up pike floating tactics was my plan as I'd found a few big snags earlier in the day.
A big chunk of Sabalo mounted on heavy treble trace casted out into the weir-pool so it kept it moving in a circular motion, in the flow to cover more ground & hopefully find a hungry lump.
With an hour or so before we has to leave I was desperate to catch something else but it wasn't to be, the fish bait didn't attract any interest & the other rod was quiet too.
With fish now topping everywhere & a few good sized ones rolling, it was with a heavy heart I knew we had to leave before darkness fell.
I've got now doubt we would have caught something decent had we stayed longer but it wasn't to be this time & to beat the locals was a good feeling.
I'm sure I'll have nightmares about that dorado for quite a while but hey you can't win them all !
I knew I wouldn't have time to fish here again this trip so the long & bumpy journey home was a bitter pill to swallow.
We were heading back to Santa Cruz in a day or two where I had a few more fish based options so hopefully this wasn't the last fish Bolivia had to offer me & I'll be writing part 4 & 5 very soon, fingers crossed.
