The high water from last week started to drop, but on Sunday it changed colour to very dark brown, probably due to a flood in the tributary “Rio Rubens”, which always goes very coloured if flooded. So Sunday was quite difficult, big flies were needed and because of the, still, high water, fast-sinking leaders came in handy.

From Monday the river started to clear up, and conditions started to look good, except from the, as mentioned in earlier weeks, strange wind directions, mostly from the north or east, which means upstream winds. Anyway the fishing picked up and by Wednesday we already had as many fish as the two previous groups had in their weeks (not accumulated though). Wednesday was probably as good as it gets, and a good number of fish were landed and a few lost. Very strong winds at the end of the week, made it a bit difficult, around 100 km/h, but still fish were caught.

The water level kept dropping during the week and ended app. –10 cm below 0, which means a drop of close to 70 cm in a week. The watercolour at the moment is dark tea-colour and water height, is perfect. 
It was a week of typically running fish, one would bump into a group of fish and then go quiet for a while until they were found again. 

Behind from left to right: Guides – Pollo, Claudio, Juan Manuel, Diego
Mid From left to right:
Mika Manninen, Iilkka Paatero, Esko Tikka, Jukka Saastamoinen, Markku Autio, Erkki Kariola
Kneeling from the left:
Jari Jamalainen, Jari Arffman, Hannu Niileksela, Markus V. Bondsdorf
Lying floating on the ground: Tapio “Hip-Hop” Sorsa

Our “folklore-singing” group from Finland, lead by Tapio Sorsa, enjoyed both the fishing as well as the evenings in the lodge, entertaining with local Finnish hymns, and folksongs. Luckily the language kept most of us from understanding the lyrics, ‘cause as one told me: “They’re all a bit naughty”.
It was a week of good company, good fun and laughs, but not especially good for our wine cellar!!!

The fishing right now, is due to the reasonably high water level and nice temperatures (9-13 C), is mostly done with intermediate or sink-tip lines and bigger flies like Wolly-Bugger’s, Bitch Creek’s or black tubes (see under “Flies for Rio Gallegos”)

At the moment there’s nothing tricky about the fishing, is pretty much cast-strip-cast-strip, simple but effective.
There’s a good number of fish running, so it’s just to go look for ‘em!

No. of rods: 10 (+group leader Tapio Sorsa)

Top-rod: Tapio Sorsa (15)

Biggest fish: Ere Kariola (17½ lbs)

Avg. weight: 9,3 lbs (best so far)