The weather is definitely not acting like normal this year, nearly an entire week with easterly winds (upstream), must be close to a record, but not one to be remembered. Upstream winds is generally the worst wind you can get no matter where in the world you’re fishing for running fish.
But this week we had the “veterans” back on the riverbank, after been fishing the river for close to 7 years, they know how to deal with these, from time to time, quite tricky fish.

This time a very determined David Kleeman showed up with a box full of dry-flies, convinced that this was the right medicine, if not, it didn’t matter as long as he had the pleasure of just seeing one fish take come to the surface, because as he said: “There’s only one way to catch these fish, and that’s on the dry-fly” Easy for him to say after starting the week positioning himself as top rod (on conventional flies and lines that was?????). He managed to get a fish on the dry, and after some negotiation with the guide, they agreed on 11 lbs.

From behind left to right:
Guides: Juan Manuel, Diego, Pollo, Claudio
Middle: Derek Taylor, Diana Baxter, David “Dry-Fly” Kleeman
Front: Martin Watson, Chris Strickland, Michael Baker, Richard Bright.

This group starts the week betting on things like who’ll get most or biggest fish etc, this year Chris Strickland won the title “Incident of the week”, since he decided to take a closer look into the pool now the water had risen, if he saw any fish while he was down there, he kept as a secret.All in all a good week conditions considered, it definitely gave both Richard and Derek an opportunity to pick up a bit on their casting, while Diana mainly changed rod every session to try some of the new rods and reels. Martin has an easier way around that problem, according to the others, he just buys the new thing and then try it out…..

The water level started out –10 cm below 0 level, but rose during the week to 0 due to some rain, but we woke up to a bit of a surprise Friday morning, where the river had risen by more than ½ a meter (20 inch’s) and changed colour from light tea to mud brown, not the easiest conditions but looks promising for the following weeks, (seems like the “Baker Flood” is no longer a Scottish phenomenon).
Water temperature was all week between 10 and 16 degrees C, which is alright.

Number of rods:    7
Top-rod: Martin Watson  (11 fish)

Biggest-fish: Michael Baker 16½ lbs

Average size: 8,6 lbs