Trail Talk

After a flight halfway down the world and another halfway across Argentina, an all-night bus ride and jaunts on subways and taxis, after dreaming and planning about this day for over six months, there I was—finally—standing on the banks of the Rio Malleo in the foothills of the Andes.

The river was roughly the width of the Au Sable’s Holy Water stretch near Grayling and just as clear. But it was slightly deeper, possessed a much stronger current and its bottom was composed of round, slippery rocks and small boulders. I immediately regretted not bringing a wading staff. I stepped into it gingerly and cautiously moved toward the center of the river with my guide, Marco, urging me on from behind with what little English he knew.

Jim DuFresne

On my first cast I was still getting organized when a trout took the No. 14 parachute Adams, a dry fly Marco selected and tied on for me. I totally missed the fish. On my third cast I was ready and after setting the hook watched with amazement as the trout leaped out of the water repeatedly and then ran with surprising power before I could reel it in to Marco who was standing guard with a net.

It was 12-inch rainbow, a beautiful fish with a bright pink splash of color along its sides. A 12-inch trout is a nice fish on Au Sable. A 12-inch trout is a great fish for me on the Au Sable. But before I could get my camera out Marco had removed the hook and slipped the trout back into the river, saying three consecutive words of English for the first time that day.

“Call your momma,” he said as the fish darted off.

A 12-inch trout was not a great fish to Marco.

Up to then, my only experience with guides was as part of a driftboat float, targeting steelhead. I had never had a guide for wading until Marco showed up at 11 a.m. my first day in Junin de los Andes, a small town in the Patagonia region. He was supposed to pick me up at 10 a.m. and that’s when I learned everything runs an hour late in Argentina.

We drove north of town, to within 20 miles of the Chile border, to a stretch of the upper Rio Malleo that Marco obviously knew well. The river was part of the country’s famed Lakes District. Preserved high in the Andes within Lanin National Park were a dozen huge lakes whose rivers descended towards Junin de los Andes.

They were rivers with cold, clear water and filled with rainbows and browns. Every one of them was designated flies-only and catch-and-release, the reason this small town is known as the fly fishing capital of Argentina.

Within the first hour there I hooked and released a dozen rainbows. I also managed to snag my fly a half dozen times in a branch which wasn’t easy, considering the lack of trees along most of the bank. At first it was embarrassing. Marco would rush over and retrieve the fly and untangle my tippet or replaced it. He also insisted on untangling my wind knots and, with a steady breeze throughout the day, some were ugly.

Jim DuFresne with a brown trout from a river in Argentina's Lakes District.

Often our conversation in the beginning was little more than me saying “sorry” for another wind knot and Marco replying “no problem, no problem.” But after a while my embarrassment eased up. Having somebody untangle your tippet was nice.

Other times he would say “mend” which I knew well but was struggling to do in the wind. Or “coast too close” which I quickly realized meant he wanted me further from the bank or else the trout I was casting to might spot me.

I spent seven hours that first day slowly working the pools and runs with him a couple yards behind me, watching intently. When my cast was a poor one, he’d quickly say “again.” When I nailed a particular hole he’d say “good cast” and eventually hearing a complement was almost as satisfying as catching a 12-inch rainbow.

When we broke for lunch, Marco set up a small folding table and chairs on the bank of the river and covered it with plates of crusty bread, thin pieces of chilled beef that had been coated and cooked like chicken-fried steak and marinated potatoes. We washed everything down with cans of ice cold beer that been sitting in the river.

For as little as we knew of each other’s language it was amazing how much we conversed.  I learned he was 30 years old and his wife was expecting her first child. He once attended a university near Buenos Aires but hated the sprawling city so much he returned to Junin de los Andes within a year, vowing never to leave the Patagonia again.

He learned this was my first trip to Argentina and possibly the only chance I’d ever have to fish his rivers.

By early evening the wind had eased up and we were working well as a team.  I had found my rhythm, casting steadily and needing only one or two false casts to re-position the fly and lengthen my line. From behind I heard a constant “good cast…good cast…good cast” as I caught and Marco released numerous trout in the 12-14 inch range and an occasional 15-16 inch fish.

When we came to a tree that fallen into the river we both instinctively knew there was probably a trout in the patch of quiet water it created. I managed to drop that fly right against the tree so it could float across the smooth surface. From behind I heard “best cast.”

 I smiled and might have turned to say something to Marco but almost immediately a dark, elongated shadow darted from underneath the fallen tree and slurped in that fly. I set the hook and it ran hard downstream.

The fish never broke the surface but one point I was within a few feet of my backing. I patiently work line back, only to watch the trout take it out again at will. At times it sat so still on the bottom of the river I thought the hook was snagged on a submerged log.

Then it would run again.

Finally after 10 minutes, the fish tired and I was able to work it in close enough for Marco to scoop it up with his net. It was a 22-inch brown trout and for a minute or two we both just stood there gazed down at the fish.

It only the third time I had ever caught a trout 20 inches or larger on a fly and I suspect Marco sensed this was a personal trophy for me.

He smiled and said “day awesome, huh Jim?”

I laughed at hearing another unexpected word of English and there was only one thing I could say.

“Day awesome, Marco. Day awesome.”

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports from Jim DuFresne, the main contributor at MichiganTrailMaps.com, who is traveling in Argentina. Due to technical problems in South America this entry of Trail Talk is a week late getting posted.

I was on a roll on my journey halfway around the world to catch a trout. 

I arrived at O´Hara Airport in Chicago in snow and freezing rain but my plane still departed, on time no less, for New York. We landed at JFK Airport ahead of schedule under blue skies and dry conditions. In Buenos Aires, my duffle bag was the first piece of luggage to appear on the carousel and at customs they just waved me through.

Jim DuFresne

Thirty two hours after leaving Chicago, I was sitting down with my daughter at a small outdoor cafe in the northwest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, waiting for our dinner of milanesa, basically a piece of beef that has been pounded thin and then cooked with cheese, mushrooms, bacon and other toppings. It’s the ultimate meat lover´s pizza in a land known for its fine beef.

At the sidewalk café, in the cool of the evening, we were mapping the next leg of my journey to Junin de los Andes, a small town in the heart of the Patagonia´s Lakes District, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and only 30 miles from the Chile border. It is the self proclaimed “fly fishing capital” of Argentina, a place where all the street signs are adorned with leaping trout. It is almost 1,000 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and I was going to reach it by a combination of planes, taxis and an all-night bus ride.

 My daughter lives and works in Buenos Aires and is fluent in Spanish. But she wasn´t going to be at my side like she was at the restaurant ordering milanesa. So in my notebook I asked her to write “where is the bus station?”

Donde esta el terminal de omnibus?

“You realize they are going to give you the answer in Spanish,” she said after translating the phrase.

“And I won’t be able to understand a word of it.”

So Jessica wrote Necesito ir al terminal de omnibus?

It translates into “I need to go to the bus station” and I practiced it with a slight accent of desperation.

I really wished I had paid more attention to Mrs. Gonzales, my high school Spanish teacher, because it’s always better to know the language for the place you’re trying to reach. But still it’s amazing how far you can traveled armed with only the Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrase Book and a determination to get there.

Flagging a taxi and then getting him to take me to Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, as opposed to the international one. Following the other passengers when they changed our gate and then again when they changed our planes, not knowing why I was boarding a bus and being driven across two runways. Asking somebody where the banos was.

In the next 15 hours, all my conversations began with hola and ended with mucho gracias. In between, there was a lot of sign language, pointing and an occasional word of English or Spanish. Argentina is not like Mexico where, due to its relationship and proximity to the U.S., everybody in the travel industry seems to know a few key words of English.

Here I was on my own.

After arriving in Neuquen, I had to find my way to the bus station in the middle of this mid-size city. I walked out to the line of taxis and to the first one said “bus station.” He looked confused. So I opened my notebook and butchered the phrase Jessica wrote down. Now he was even more confused.

So I showed him the notebook, hoping that all those nights I spent harping on my daughter when she was in third grade about the importance of good penmanship would pay off 20 years later. It did.

“Ah! Si, al terminal de omnibus!”

A river and the Andes Mountains in Argentina.

Off we went. When he kept asking me the same question during the ride and it included donde, I gave him the only thing I could think of, Junin de los Andes. It was obviously the right answer and later I realized he just wanted to know which platform of the bus station to drop me off.

But at the time I thought we were actually having a conversation so I said “Going fishing.” He didn’t understand the English but he clearly understood the wave of my arm as if I was casting a fly rod.

“Ah, ir de pesca.”

“Going to catch peces.”

“Si, si,” he said with a big smile.

I was on a roll so I topped off the conversation with  Peces Grandes!, saying it as if I was super-sizing my burrito at Taco Bell.

At that he laughed and was still smiling when he pulled into the bus station. He dropped me off where the buses for Junin de los Andes depart and when handing me my duffle bag said something I’m pretty sure meant good luck catching that big fish.

Early the next morning, after a seven-hour bus ride that stopped at a dozen small towns throughout the night, I arrived at a beautiful log lodge on the outskirts of Junin de los Andes with mountains on the horizon taking on a pink glow of the sunrise. Above the door was a large carving of a rainbow trout.

When an older gentleman answered the doorbell and in broken English said “welcome to Rio Dorado Lodge,” I almost hugged him, realizing, once again, the journey is always half the adventure.