My first fish of the trip was this 44-pound behemoth!
La Zona is an area below Salto Grande Dam on the Uruguay River that forms the border between Northern Argentina and Uruguay. It was opened to restricted fishing eight years ago and has become known as the place to catch a world record class-sized golden dorado. Recent reports included some very big fish, but also very low water. Those anglers from the previous weeks were very experienced with this fishery and were using casting rods, where we would be fly-fishing. Whether that is an advantage or disadvantage will soon be realized.
Our experience in fishing for golden dorado in other parts of South America found that this is one of the greatest gamefish one can imagine to catch on a fly. The strikes are intense and leave bathtub-sized holes in the water. When the water is clear, one can often watch a dorado come after and take a well-placed fly. Though they often show aggression for flies, when water is low and clear, these fish can be cunning and spooky and often require a well-placed cast and the perfect retrieve.
As we land in the city of Concordia, we are energized by the prospect to fly-fish for one of the world’s premier gamefish at a place so special that only a few anglers per week can experience the best of the best of dorado fisheries. We hope that all those stories about La Zona and its recently great fishing can hold true for another week. I have a ton of work to do getting ready for tomorrow’s fishing and with no sleep the last 28-hours, but is essential that I pay attention to all the details as best as my tired mind will allow!
Our trip is divided into four days of fishing and each day is split into a morning and an afternoon session. In between we have lunch and a two to three hour siesta. The morning fishing begins at about 8:30 and lasts until 12:00 noon. The evening session begins at about 3:30 and lasts until dark, which is about 7:00 PM. The regulations of La Zona mandate these times and so I ready my focus and mind to fish hard and effectively. Thus, I need to make sure I have been properly prepared before I make my first cast.
Previous dorado experience tells me that I should have several rods ready to cast. The fish will take topwater flies and poppers as well as big streamers just under the surface of the water. However, if the water has deep holes and pockets, the bigger dorados can hold in these areas and this could require fishing with faster sinking flies and lines. In order to cover all my bases without much downtime, I rig three fly rods to be at my disposal if necessary:
Rod one is a 9-weight fast action rod with a Teeny T-200-sink tip line. The sink tip is 24-feet with a floating running line will allow the fly to sink between 12 and 18 inches under the water. To this rod, I tie on a large black and purple streamer that is approximately 10-inches long!
Rod two is a 9-weight fast action rod with a T-300-grain sink line. This is a t-300 style line with a 24-foot sink tip and the running line is floating to prevent snags. I only expect to use this rod if the current becomes too swift or if I come upon deeper holes and pockets that would warrant a deeper presentation. To this rod, I tie on a red and black streamer that again is about 10-inches long. If these dorados are similar to others, the black and red combination will be my go to pattern.
Rod three is an 8-weight fast action rod with a floating line. It has a shooting head that allows me to cast very large flies that are designed to float. To this I attach a titanic fly, which simulates a swimming mouse or frog.
For each of these rods, the tippet runs the same. I tie on 5-6 feet of 30-pound maxima line, stretched several times. I then use an Albright knot to attach a 12-inch piece of 30-pound knot-table wire line. Wire is mandatory with the dorado and that combination of this wire with a relatively short monofilament tippet makes turning over the big streamer flies fairly easy. The extra rods are also insurance in case I break a rod on a fish. Dorados are one of the hardest fighting fish in the world and are known to wreak havoc on fly-fishing equipment. Hopefully I will not have the experience of a broken rod, but better safe than sorry.
In general, all my streamer flies are designed to sink at the same rate at the line. I tie the flies with a sparse amount of Enrico Puglisi material, but do add weight with barbell eyes. I tie a bullet head to help push water, but use a minimum amount of bucktail so the fly does not become too buoyant. Thus, instead of tying a deer trimmed bullet head, I substitute with chenelle. This will wet with water and facilitate sinking. The color of the flies tend to be dominated with black as it will provide a defined profile in dark or turbid waters. I do add color to the interior of the flies and some sparkle flash to simulate scale detail to the flies.
Once my rods are rigged, I make sure my cameras are charged and in perfect working order. After all, the photos are what will make the memories of such a trip last forever. I make sure I have all my flies available along with stripping gloves, extra tippet materials and sunscreen. Now I am ready for the fishing tomorrow morning! I just need a few good hours of sleep!
Day 1 – The First Morning – After a good nights sleep we set out for Uruguay River at the base of Salto Grande Dam, or La Zona. The river is massive, more than a mile wide, but full of rapids, massive rocks and holes. Our guide Enzo suggested casting a 200-grain sinking line and the largest fly that I could cast. My purple and black streamer, tied on a 5/0 hook is ready to go and I start casting and mending line, to get a natural drift. It was still fairly low light and it is difficult to determine how deep the water is that I am fishing. At the end of the drift, I rapidly strip the fly back to the boat. It took about 15 to 20 casts before I had my first strike and I did make a great hook set into a fish I will remember for the rest of my life. The fish ran hard in the other direction, and then jumped. It was massive. The fish made several runs downriver and we chased it for nearly a mile before it was finally guided into the fish cradle. The massive fish exceeded 40-inches and topped the scales at 45-pounds. It was my biggest freshwater fish ever on a fly!
With a goal to catch a 35-pound dorado on a fly, this was nearly beyond my comprehension as to just how special this place may be! As far as I was concerned my trip was fulfilled a million times over. It took a mere forty minutes to cast, hook and land this beautiful trophy! However, I would soon find out it was far from over.
Over the rest of the day, I landed additional trophies that would have been a lifetime fish anywhere! They included a 23, 8, 16, 12, 8, 10, 31, 16, and 28 pounds! And that does not include the monsters I lost due to broken lines, broken leaders and simply missed strikes. In total, I probably missed twice the fish that I actually landed. And I was only half of the action as my boat partner also had great success! It is simply the most awesome day of fly-fishing I ever had.
A few other photos of giant dorados from the first day of fishing at La Zona
My only problem, I have three more days of this. Fingers on both hands have severe line burns from the searing runs of these fish. I have caught golden dorados at several other places and never have I experienced fish with the strength and endurance of these La Zona fish. It is likely due to the extremely oxygenated water that comes from the dam, and the fish certainly make you earn every inch during the fight! With what happened today, it will be tough to find good sleep with the anticipation on what tomorrow will bring!
Day 2 – Unexpected Super Low Water
As fast as the action of day one proved to be, the next morning proved to be the opposite problem. With the severe drought in this region, the water was at historical low levels. Over the night, the river dropped so low that the boats could not be launched. We had to wait until after lunch when the dam started to generate hydroelectric power, which allows massive quantities of water to run through the turbines. Once we were able to launch, we headed back up to the base of the dam and started fishing.
Like the day before, we would drift flies and strip the fly when it neared the end of the drift. Fishing was a bit slower at times, but we seemed to have clusters of much faster action. Ray, my fishing partner caught his personal best fish on a fly today, as a 40-pound fish took his streamer up close to the dam. The fish took him more than 30-minutes to land and now we were two for two on forty pound golden dorados!
Throughout the afternoon, we fished different sections of the river including channels, current edges and small pockets of water. Dorado were found throughout. We had numerous strikes and misses as well, which was part of the fun of it all. I had my best luck with that 200-grain line, as it appears to sink just enough to be effective. I stayed with the black flies, with the purple and red highlights being consistently effective. Even with a slow day, I still managed several fish in the 20-30 pound range to go along with Ray’s monster 40-pound beast!
Ray’s 40-pound Dorado
Day 3 – Simply Incredible!
The day started slow as it took some time to navigate through the massive boulders that were never visible before. Enzo the long-time guide at La Zona said he never seen the water so low. Carefully he maneuvered the boat up to the deep channels close to the dam where huge schools of dorado were everywhere in the slack water, constantly herding and attacking schools of baitfish. We simply cast into a pod of angry fish and two or three fast strips resulted in a hookup. We caught several fish in the 6-15 pound range before the turbines came on. One turbine raises the water level about 3 feet, which is a huge volume of water considering the dam on this river is 3000 meters long. The fish immediately migrated to the current, which contains higher oxygen levels. We continued to catch fish, but now were drifting with the current and working every pocket, eddy and any water that we suspected of holding fish.
Fishing was consistent, with strikes, misses, and some hookups. I had settled in with the black and red streamer, as it seems to produce well all day ling. As the sun broke through the clouds, fishing intensity increased with even faster action. We decided to make one last downstream drift before lunch and fishing continued to be incredible. I had just landed and released a 15-pound dorado when Enzo told me to keep casting as we were passing through a very good rock-infested riffle. After a half dozen fishless casts and stripping the fly as fast as I possibly could, a beast jumped on the fly. The hook was set several times and the dorado exploded out of the water, looking at least as big as our largest fish so far. The fish ran two hundred yards upstream in about ten seconds and we were forced to pursue the fish with the boat in order to gain line back on the reel. The fish make several more lunges and acrobatic jumps before settling on a last stand with a desire to hold under the boat. I went around the boat several times before he started to tire. With a few more tense moments of wearing the fish down, I was able to guide it into the cradle. It was immense!
Enzo lifted the giant dorado into the boat and immediately weighted it. It topped the scales at 51-pounds, a dream fish that was never expected. We measured it on an IGFA scale, and it read somewhere between 104 and 110 cm, several cm larger than the existing all tackle world record. We took the necessary photographs, a few quick ones of celebration and quickly put the fish back to grow even bigger. As the fish swam away, Enzo informed me that that was the biggest dorado from La Zona to be caught on a fly! Whether or not this becomes a world record, it is the memory of those tense knee-knocking moments that I will never forget. What a way to finish the morning!
My 51 pound dorado
The evening of day three produced many nice fish as well. We caught several, but my mind was still reeling from the beast from before lunch and I was now more focused on filming this incredible place. I got many shots of the explosive takes, jumps, and underwater video as the fish approached the boat. From this point forward it is all gravy! Tomorrow, we plan to focus on topwater flies to see if we can get some of these monsters to eat on the surface!
Release of 51 pound dorado
Day Four – the final stretch. In two and a half days of fishing, we can hardly imagine a better place to be on earth! With so many big fish caught, many big fish lost, and many big fish that we simply failed to connect on the strike, where else can one be so content, yet tense as the next strike might be a fish that exceeds 55 or even 60 pounds. There is no doubt that a dorado of this size does swim in these waters!
It is still low-light when we start casting, and once again I stick with my black and red streamer pattern that has been so productive this trip. I land a juvenile six-pound dorado and keep on casting. The next strike is solid and I stick the fly deep into another big dorado. The fish acts like the other big fish, long bull dogging runs and boils on the surface the size of a pickup truck. After ten minutes, the fish comes to the cradle and it is a 38-pound dorado. The fish has brilliantly orange-colored fins and is stunningly colored. Not only are these on of the top end gamefish in the world, but certainly one of the most beautiful.
My 38 pound dorado
We take a few photos and release the fish and then try a run on the far side of the dam but have no success. We decide to fish some narrow channels below some gigantic piles of rock with titanic flies, floating designs that act like a giant popper. The first cast yields a take of a 30-pound dorado, but I do not successfully stick the fish. I keep casting and persistence lands me several fish in the teens. As the day progresses, we continue to pick up fish on the surface, an exhilarating site to see a 20-35-pound fish come all the way out of the water to kill this irritable fly! We continue to produce fish to the last minute of the trip, with Ray finishing off the trip with a 33-pound monster. My god what a trip!
Reflections
Looking back we did not catch the massive numbers of fish, but had we landed all the fish we hooked, we would have. Still, every half day saw between 8 and 12 fish landed per person with an average weight of nearly 16 pounds. Considering many of these fish were over thirty pounds, there may not be a better place on earth to catch a monster dorado on a fly! I have fished Tsimane three times and it is certainly one of the most incredible places on earth, when mixing the marvels and beauty of nature along with big dorados. But big at Tsimane is 25 to 30 pounds. La Zona is a step above this when size is the driving factor with the golden dorado.
My fly arsenal
The dorados fighting ability is also incredibly strong at La Zona. Those fish do not give an inch during the entire battle and even with a 30-pound tippet, some fish popped this line like sewing thread. It is likely due to the water passing through the dam where it is a couple of degrees cooler and higher in oxygen content. Combined, they give these big fish a high level of endurance. A La Zona dorado is a thoroughbred marathoner!
As with all trips, we did some things right and some not so good. Here, we had the right flies and that was key to our success. While the natural baitfish are small, 4-6 inches in length, and have a black and white profile, I chose to go much bigger and brighter. I wanted my flies to stand out from the natural pack. I understood the waters of La Zona were higher in turbidity and a fly with a black profile will be more easily detected than a light colored fly. Throughout the trip, Black with some red or black with some purple worked. I also added some reflecting material such as red or black flashabou. I kept the flies streamlined so they could cast easily, but did make sure the head was a bullet shape to push water.
I also added weight to the flies to keep them sub-surface, even when stripping as fast as was possible. The flies were composed of EP fibers, using the entire length of the fiber in the fly. If the flies were too long to cast, they can easily be trimmed. Most importantly was the hooks. I used the new Eagle Claw Trokar hooks in size 5/0 to 7/0. They are extremely sharp, extremely heavy and strong. I never lost a fish to a broken or bent hook!
The other thing that worked well was focus and pre-trip preparation. With only four days of fishing available, chances could be limited and when that big fish bites, one needs to be on top of the strike. If one can survive that first blistering run, chances are good that the fish can be landed. It is just being able to deal with the all out mayhem when that monster first gets on the line and that is the ultimate challenge of these fish! We fished extremely hard during each session and never quit casting until the final fish was boated. When one travels this far and is able to cast a line to such an incredible species of fish, it would be crazy to waste time! For those who go, take time to prepare, practice casting before you embark and fish hard and with focus when you get there. La Zona proved to us several times over that the next strike can yield a life best fish on the fly!
To those who go, I wish you the best of luck and may you have many tight lines, blistering runs, and ultimately memories of a lifetime!
