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 first of hopefully several Trail Talk entries on Jim DuFresne’s search of the world-class fly fishing in Argentina.

My right knee aches.

Yesterday I ran six miles, pushing it at the end, knowing that my right knee would throb that night and I would be sore today. I am but there is no denying it and nothing I can do to prevent it.

Jim DuFresne

I’m getting older.

Day by day, year by year, I get a little older, a little stiffer. I lose a little more flexibility along with little more hair. I have a little bit less energy at night, my pace is a little more slower when I hike. I no longer spring out of bed in the morning. I crawl out and then spend the first moments of every day rubbing my shoulders, stretching my neck, cracking my knuckles.

When asked my age I say mid-50s but the reality is I’m marching towards 60 and to emphasize that point my eye doctor recently told me I needed cataract surgery.

I’m trying to slow the aging process or at least ease into it. I work out six days a week, religiously, more so then when I was younger when skipping a few days or even a week or two was no big deal. Now it is.

Once while in the stream bath at my gym a pair of butt-naked 70ers sitting next to me said “boy, you better start lifting weights. At our age it’s the only way to slow down muscle loss.” I looked at them, I looked at what naturally happens when you’re closer to 100 than 50, and began a weight-lifting program the next day.

Two years ago I enrolled in a yoga class after my daughter urged me to take up the exercise as a way to improve my flexibility and balance. I walked in and it was 30 women and me. Most of them older and all of them far more flexible.

I unrolled my matt in the rear cornered of the studio and while they moved fluidly from one position to the other, I grunted and struggled with my warrior one and downward-facing dogs. I’m barrel chested, a former high school heavyweight wrestler, so my happy baby pose looks like anything but a gleeful infant in a crib. But I show up twice a week, like I do for my six-month cleaning at the dentist. It’s not something I particularly look forward to, it’s something I need to do.

I’m not trying to turn back the clock or even prevent the inevitable. Someday I’ll be sitting in lounge chair, maybe on the edge of a pool in a warm weather state like Florida, reminiscing with somebody about where I’ve been and what I did.

It will come soon enough. Until then I want to squeeze in a few more adventures.

A month after my daughter left for Argentina to take a job in Buenos Aires, I read a magazine article about the fabulous fly fishing in the Patagonia region of the country. Then I met somebody at a Trout Unlimited meeting who was going down there to fish and at that point it became something I needed to do because, at this point of my life,  I can.

I still have enough energy to fish for long hours and enough strength in my legs to stand in a strong current and cast towards raising trout on the other side of the river. I can still  tie on a No. 18 fly, threading a 6X tippet through the small eye of the hook. Okay, I need reading glasses but I can still do it.

I still have the stamina to fly halfway around the world and the patience to endure airport security. I still have a daughter, fluent in Spanish, living in Buenos Aires who could help me arrange transportation across this incredible long country and book me a bed in a fishing lodge for when I get there. Who knows how long she’ll be there.

Most of all, I still have the desire to do it. The fact that I’ll be traveling alone with a very limited use of the language I view as a challenge, not an ordeal. The thought of watching a 22-inch brown trout rise to my fly and then run hard with it, still excites me.

I’ve yet to begin the first leg of this journey and already I’ve learned a powerful lesson; my sense adventure is far more enduring than my physical abilities.

Long after that right knee is shot, I’ll still want to climb a mountain.