Struck Gold

Wednesday, October 26th: Esquina > Santa Elena, Argentina

• It was day #2 of fishing. We got up and went to breakfast at the posada around 6:30 AM for a quick bite that consisted of mostly sweet breakfast breads and pastries. After waiting out the thunderstorm into the late morning, we met our guides at the launch and picked up on our rotation – Matt with Gustavo and Lis & Tim together for the morning. The wind was picking up, so we alternated between flies and bait casters, and eventually resorted to live bait. Matt landed a 16-pound dorado and Tim landed an 8-pounder. After a few close calls, we were questioning the guides’ netting techniques – Toco casted a lure around and on top of Tim’s line after seeing a big dorado follow.

• We stopped for lunch and ate in the boats – tortas (or basically giant empanadas) with cheese & corn and ham & cheese inside. For dessert, we had a caramelized papaya that was unrecognizable from the raw fruit, topped with a firm sweet cream. After lunch we rotated again – Tim went with Gustavo and Liz & Matt together. Because of the wind, we started using live bait – “morenas” or moray eels. Liz caught one before the wind really picked up and we drove to the Corrientes River in search of some protection and shifted to bottom bouncing / drifting. The guides were getting anxious to get off the water, so we gave it a fair shake and called it a day.

•  We met Gustavo and followed him for 1.5 hours to Santa Elena in the dark. Midway through the drive, we realized we didn’t have Entre Rios province fishing licenses, but Gustavo didn’t seem worried about it.

• We arrived at Bahia Rosales and unpacked our bags in the apartment, which had two bedrooms in the basement, two small bathrooms and a kitchen. We dined together in our apartment and had “escabeche” (a pickled medley of vegetables in oil) beef samosas, steak with sweet potatoes and beets and ice cream.

• Accommodations: Bahia Rosales, Santa Elena, Argentina