A good luck often invites yet another. On my next cast I managed to land another dorado of similar size, to end the day with a perfect icing on the cake.

Well, in fact, we could have gone on for some more - if only we had enough air to breathe without inhaling those mossies!!

The evening yielded an unforgettable experience in many ways, captured in a memorial photo on the right, with a dorado and a camera happy mosquito.



to Upper Corrientes 4

The heavy blow almost knocked the rod off of my hands. But that impact on the other hand must've helped to give a good hook up.

Now he started a frantic charge upstream, and his aerial shilouette with the twilight west as its backdrop, made quite a show for all of us.

Rushed by some five thousand mosquitoes I released the fish forgetting to measure him. But he probably have weighed no less than 7 pounds. A stunning fish anyway.

There he is, an ancient looking fish called Tararira. They live in warm shallow waters often carpeted with thick lilypads, and happily attack whatever drops onto them.

The fly that received the greatest popularity was this - a piece of rubber on a bare hook. It's the enticing sound this killer fly creates that puts Tararira on fire. It worked by far better than any other (more artful) fly. But I hesitate to tell those innocent Tarariras, that what they thought to be a chunky bug was in fact a piece of rubber cut from Peto's tattered sandals.

To the opposite of yesterday, today we got blessed with a sublime sunset.

Minutes after the sun finally disappeared, a battalion of mosquitoes began hatching all at once. Minnows and other small fish cannot miss this all-U-can-eat banquet, while bigger fish were also lured to the party grabbing at their worthy meals here and there. Hoping the replay of the grand bonanza we enjoyed in the evening of Day1, we decided to do some hours' over time.

The air was soon saturated with mosquitoes. We put on the jackets, pants, gloves, socks and plenty of bug spray all over ourselves.

Looking downstream, occasional powerful splashes were observed on the otherwise calm surface - Dorados in action.

In such situation there's no need to let the fly sink. I picked up my 8wt rod loaded with an intermediate line, and cast toward the other bank so my black muddler would swing back across the current creating wakes. Soon enough, there came a BANG!!

We got into the boat again in the evening to nail down some more Dorados.

Though the water temperature still stayed at 27c, the air has noticeably cooled down. As we traveled down in the river we could spot many Yacare, Argentinean Caimans, happily sunbathing on the banks.

Day 3.

The storm did not leave even a single piece of cloud behind.

Having landed some nice dorados each already, we decided to try our luck with a different fish that live in small lagoons scattered around in the estancia.