Patagonia Trout Fishing - Alumine: a River full of surprises

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The beginnings of 2007 found me floating the Alumine River with my friend Fernando Romero and our guide and friend Diego Buzzurro. We were not fishing an area of green worms but don´t ask me why, that morning was full of them. Trouts became very selective and we ended up fishing 3-pound beautiful rainbow trouts.

Fishing with green worm flies is thrilling… You just need to make sure the fly does not sink. If you can make it happen, it is definitely a catch since trouts bite as soon as the fly touches the surface.

There weren´t any more green worms during the afternoon so I decided to tie a white stimulator on a #10 hook and 5x tippet. We were fishing in a flat now, right by a long run which our guide Diego pointed as being a brown trout area, exactly what I was looking for. I decided to cast towards the run, an extraordinary cast I thought, and so it happened… I raise the rod and feel the pressure. “This is a big one!”, I yelled. Suddenly, the trout takes all the line plus 5 or 6 backing meters. Diego started rowing towards the opposite shore and yells “Do not let it get into the run because it will break the line!”. I immediately tensioned the rod and was able to stop it but I could bring it only a few meters closer when, a few seconds after, the trout managed to get back into the run. When Diego saw this, he immediately jumped off the boat and ran downwards with his arms up, like if he were losing all his chickens haha! He managed to change the trout’s direction upstream and asked me not to stop in the flat since the tippet was too thin. When the trout saw the boat it went back to the run but I managed to bring it back with huge efforts. Diego had the net ready, he grabbed the brown and we could finally breath in.

After the pictures we calculated its weight in around 8 pounds! I grabbed my whiskey flask and made a toast, dedicating this great catch to our dear fishing partner Juan Alonso who is no longer with us and would have died for that Brown.

Cheers to the Alumine River, cheers to my fishing partners and cheers to my guide Diego for so many incredible moments that will last forever in my mind.

Marcelo Schilman, Patagonia fishing, January 2007.

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