On Saturday, February 6, the weather forecast was for temperatures to rise above 35 degrees Centigrade (about 95 degrees Fahrenheit). It was also the beginning of Carnaval, a nearly week-long, nation-wide celebration. Imagine Mardi Gras in every town and city of the country. In short, it was time to flee the metropolitan region.
A friend picked me up in mid-afternoon and took me to spend the night at his family’s house in Garibaldi, in the mountains of Rio Grande to Sul. At 3:00 AM, we set out with another friend in his van. Around 8:00 AM, we arrived at this place.
It’s a working ranch with a bed-and-breakfast, behind which there is a river.
In the river on and under the rocks there are some of these
and these.
We left whatever did not pertain to fishing in the house and headed for the river, where I spent some time doing this.
In the meanwhile, my fishing partner Dilvo was further upstream, using one of these
quads that he builds from Brazilian-grown mandake bamboo, and doing this.
In other words, I was getting skunked, as though it were the first time in my life. By using my 0 / 1-weight rod rigged with a # 14 soft-hackle on a dropper and a # 10 bead-headed pancora crab imitation on the point, a trout finally came to the surface, only to “miss” or, more probably, reject the fly as it swung to the surface. A little while later, a fish got hooked, only to become a long-distance release in short order. Upon checking my flies, my suspicions were confirmed. One of the flies (the pancora) had gotten snagged up on the bottom just a few minutes before that, and the point was broken off the hook. It was just as pointless to keep fishing with that fly, so another was tried, to no avail.
That afternoon, at least for me, was even worse. My friends persuaded me to use longer, heavier tackle to deal with the big, heavily weighted flies that were needed in those conditions. The river was a little high, but not too discolored, from recent rains. I fished until dusk, even preparing for some surface action, but no hatch came off. Meanwhile, Dilvo, who was already quite familiar with the water, caught some more nice rainbows. Chalk one up to local knowledge.
The next morning we headed upstream to another ranch, where the water had reportedly never been fished with flies. The stream at that point is narrower and brushier, but the water is fast with some rapids and deeper pools and runs, so I went with a 6 ½ foot glass-graphite composite rod for a 4/5 line, actually rigged up with a 5-weight DT. There I was actually able to do this.
The total was two nice ‘bows caught and released, as well as a smaller one of about 10” and one that broke the 5X tippet.
Meanwhile, Dilvo fished upstream and caught some more. He made it about a kilometer further up than I did, and there are reportedly a few more kilometers of river above that before getting to the source of the river, where two tributaries come together to form it. That is all water yet to be explored by fly-fishermen.
In the afternoon we got into the van and went a few kilometers downstream to this.
My afternoon was spent fishing the mostly slow water above the falls with an 8-foot bamboo (Garrison taper) for a 5-weight. At the end of the fast water one fish was hooked and broken off. Dilvo, of course, was upstream in the faster, brushier water, catching and releasing a few more.
On Tuesday morning we fished the fast, brushy water behind the house, where we each caught and released a few between 8 and 10 inches long. Then in the afternoon it was time to head for home. It had been very nice getting to know this fishery, which is being developed by the Brazilian Fly-fishing Association (ABPM, or Associação Brasileira de Pesca com Mosca) in conjunction with some local authorities and landowners. There are some streams, like the Rio Crioulas, where the rule is flies only, catch and release. There are other streams where fishermen use whatever means possible to take as many as they can. Hopefully the ideas of conservation will become more widespread and the resources will be preserved. Whatever may happen in the future, where we fished a good time was had by all. Special thanks to Mr. Edevar Zorrer, who mostly abstained from fishing and did the camera work.
Obviously, due to using some gear heavier than 3-weight, this is in Off-topic Discussion.