A letter from Rio Manso (part Two)

Day 3:

Oh no! I was woken up by the sound of rain drops bouncing off the window. When I opened the curtain in the room, I see strong wind and rain pouring down. Patty looked gloomy as she stood next to me. We go down to the living room and greeted by Javier with somewhat awkward smile. He approached us with very sincere manner and said fishing might not be all that good but ready to depart as soon as we are ready. After a quick bite to eat, we were off to the upper portion of Rio Manso. It is going to be a drift trip down on the Manso river. I’m sure the heavy rain from last night will add some fun to the ride but wasn’t sure about the fishing condition. Javier suggested sinking line for me and streamer on floating line for Patty. Immediately, I found that it is extremely difficult to cast in strong wind with the heavy sinking line which I wasn’t accustom to. Patty pretty much gave up on casting for she was not equipped to deal with such condition. Fortunately, the weather started to clear up soon after we drifted down the river. As soon as the weather cleared a little bit, I get a hit with a 14 inches rainbow. Because of the strong current, the fish felt a lot stronger and feistier for its size. Immediately after the first fish, I get another hit with yet another small rainbow. And then as if it was planned, the biting stopped completely. At times, it couldn’t be any more accurate in terms of presentation to the fish but they just ignored everything we threw at them.



We pulled into the flat graveled area to have a picnic. Javier setup the picnic table with a really good Argentinean wine and started to grille very tasty steaks for lunch. After lunch, Javier strolled off to a stream which feeds into the river and hurriedly came back whispering to get my attention with his hand gesturing a huge fish. Two of us very cautiously approached the mouth of the inlet and found a huge brown trout floating behind a rock about 10 feet away from us ready to take on any fish or flies floating down the stream. Javier whispered in my ears that it is closed 30 inches. Javier carefully instructed me to crouch down and get ready to do very gentle roll cast. At this point, my heart is pounding uncontrollably and thinking “Don’t mess up. Do Not Mess UP!” I cast the fly and it lands approx 15 inches away from the fish to the side. It did get the fish’s attention but not enough to go after the fly. “Cast again but in front of him not to the side” I told myself “Oh sure I meant to cast the fly to the side of fish…” As I pulled awkwardly positioned fly out of the water, I made too much of disturbance and then BOOM the fish was gone. “Puta madre” Javier whimpered in disgust. Too add insult to my humiliation, my lovely wife Patty made a statement “I can’t believe you did that”. I went back to the picnic table and finished the really good Argentinean wine. Managed to catch two more fish after that but I couldn’t get rid of that brown off my head. Humiliated but good day of fishing.