As a lifelong trout angler, I’ve all the time discovered it fascinating how the identical stretch of water will fish utterly in a different way at sure occasions of the day. It shouldn’t be shocking, contemplating how environmental elements like mild and temperature change the habits of trout because the day goes on, however I’m usually blown away at how any given run might sound utterly devoid of fish within the morning, after which loaded with aggressive trout because the solar dips behind the mountains.
In fact, that’s the lesson, proper? Gentle and temperature. They play outsized roles in how trout transfer all through their environments and the way they method meals and the trouble to search out it.
Empty at midday, full at nightfall
A couple of years again, whereas fly fishing in Patagonia, I used to be reminded of the connection between water temperature and light-weight, and the way each conspire to primarily plan a trout’s day for them.
Fly fishing the rivers round San Martin de los Andes in Argentina isn’t a boring process — well-known waters just like the Chimehuin and the Collon Cura completely burst with trophy trout. However the equally well-known Rio Malleo, greater than any of the traditional Argentine trout waters, is a river with a number of personalities. In its higher reaches, it’s a creek-freak’s paradise because it flows out of Lago Tromen alongside the border with Chile. There, shrouded by stunning araucaria timber, the freestone stream provides some unimaginable sight-casting to very respectable browns and rainbows within the boundaries of Lanin Nationwide Park.
Additional downstream, because it leaves the mountains, the Malleo move throughout lush pasture land — brilliant inexperienced meadows the place cattle develop fats and blissful. Nonetheless farther downstream, the river dives right into a steppe-country canyon that jogs my memory of Colorado’s Arkansas River.
We began that first full morning on the Malleo with a “walk-and-stalk” alongside a meadow attain of the river. I’m not going to lie — it seemed completely fabulous. It seemed like a brown-trout paradise. It boasts chilly, clear water that slices via the pasture grass. The verdant meadows pump massive terrestrials into the river when the caddis aren’t flitting round over cutbanks — any trout angler value their salt would like to forged over this stream.
And issues began out fairly properly — we caught just a few good fish instantly. However, because the solar received increased within the sky, issues slowed down. As we reached the top of our beat, fishing was downright gradual. We’d gone an hour with no nibble. Our information, Peter, urged we load up within the truck and take a look at a brand new spot.
The center stretch of Rio Malleo (photograph: Chad Shmukler).
So he took us up the river, into Lanin Nationwide Park, the place the topography is markedly completely different. There, within the shadow of the Lanin Volcano, the river has extra … character. It’s a rocky bushwhack to the water, and shadows and shade come into play. It didn’t take lengthy earlier than we fell into a cushty routine. One in all us would stroll alongside the rim of the bluff overlooking the water whereas the opposite would stroll alongside the river’s edge. With a spotter up excessive, we recognized a number of beefy browns holding near cowl — often proper on the sting of a shade line the place they had been protected from overhead threats, like raptors. A fairly positioned forged was often all it took to get some curiosity.
We did this for just a few hours and loved a lunch unfold that’s distinctly Patagonian — we shared a bottle of pink wine, fortunately devoured schnitzel sandwiches and wolfed down a recent salad. Then we wandered again all the way down to the river for some extra spot-and-point angling.
Then, because the solar began to dip, Peter led us again to the truck and we drove again down, arriving on the similar beat that left us feeling a bit defeated earlier that day.
“Again for extra, huh?” I joked.
Peter grinned, after which replied, knowingly.
“Right here, it’s all in regards to the mild,” he stated. The solar was about to dip over the Andes, and the cooler night temperatures spurred a noticeable caddis hatch. The seemingly indecisive bugs bounced randomly alongside the river’s edge, and, as we received nearer, we observed some fairly critical heads rising to the hapless bugs once they spent an excessive amount of time on the river’s floor.
The very same stretch of river couldn’t have seemed extra completely different when in comparison with once we final noticed it flowing below the intense, late-summer solar earlier that day. Then, it appeared apparently, devoid of trout. Now, our arms shook with each splashy rise as we hurriedly equipped.
Skate the fly
You’ll be able to name it the “magic hour,” or the “golden hour.” No matter you want. And, on a meadow river just like the Malleo, as day slowly turns to nightfall, each descriptions work. Frequent sense would have us tying on caddis patterns, however Peter shook his head and handed me a brilliant pink Fats Albert. Measurement 6.
“This isn’t a caddis,” I stated merely.
“No,” he replied. “It’s not.”
We walked slowly to the river, my eyes glued to the floor that appeared to actually boil with enthusiastic rises from plus-sized trout. Peter positioned us upstream of a swift little run the place, with what was left of the solar at our backs and blocked by a line of willows, he merely instructed me to forged the obnoxious foam bug on the far financial institution.
“Put it proper on the sting and let it journey,” he stated. “Don’t mend. Let it skate.”
Through the years, I’ve gone from politely disagreeing with guides to simply following their recommendations as in the event that they had been edicts. I checked out Peter with what I’m positive was a quizzical countenance after which, realizing that he lives right here and fishes this river a hell of much more than I do, I simply nodded my head.
Seconds later, after the large Fats Albert landed with a heavy “splat” on the water proper in entrance of the bar financial institution, a large head the scale of my fist broke the floor and sucked the fly in. Had I needed to fix, it wouldn’t have mattered. I by no means had the possibility.
A trophy Rio Malleo brown trout (photograph: Chad Shmukler).
“Holy …” I muttered below my breath. I bear in mind earlier within the day, fishing that very same cutbank from a downstream place, I couldn’t purchase an increase. Now, I had a beast on my chief and I barely needed to get the fly moist.
And so it went. And, ultimately, the fish stopped hammering the now chewed-up bug when it landed and as a substitute, took to following it on its method downstream, usually leaving a tell-tale v-shaped wake behind them because the fly caught the present … and started to skate.
And that’s when the most important brown trout of the day completely assaulted the fly.
“They hate once they assume meals is about to get away,” Peter stated, slyly, a smile crossing his face as he dropped the Fats Albert right into a dry shake bottle for perhaps the third time. “Simply maintain doing it. We’ve the right mild.”
Put up-mortem
Effectively after darkish and again on the estancia the place we stayed that night, one other impossibly scrumptious bottle of malbec earlier than me, I had a second to sort of do a “autopsy” on the day’s fishing. The gradual begin to the day, because the solar rose excessive within the azure Patagonian sky, instantly made sense. From above, the fish had been susceptible. And, with warming water, their penchant for staying deep additionally made sense.
Then, as we moved up the river the place the tall monkey-puzzle timber and rocky bluffs supplied shadows and canopy, the fish had been much less cautious and extra apt to maneuver for meals. Shade supplied safety — a spot to lie in anticipate the following mouthful of meals to float by.
Lastly, again on the insanely productive stretch of river that flows via the ranchlands of Patagonia, the Malleo’s trout threw warning to the wind because the low mild supplied them the boldness they wanted to recklessly feed. And, as Peter demonstrated with the gaudy bug he tied to my tippet, that very same low mild allowed the aggressively feeding trout to see solely the silhouette of the fly.
Contemplating the “magic hour” mild and the dipping water temperatures because the solar slipped beneath the horizon, it was pretty straightforward to see how essentially the most aggressive browns within the river had been keen to provide chase to a fly that wreaked havoc on the floor.
These had been elementary classes that the majority fly anglers be taught, again and again, throughout their time on the water. Gentle and temperature matter. Gentle angles both present trout with shaded safety or they rob them of it. And, in excessive summer season, cooler temperatures spur feeding exercise.
And that is true regardless of the place you fish — Patagonia or in any other case. Now, the fish might not be as beefy as they’re on an Argentine cattle ranch, however the algebra doesn’t change with the hemisphere. Trout are trout. Understanding how mild and temperature work, collectively or towards each other, is only one factor each trout angler must be taught.
