Artist Martin Simpson of New Zealand with Brian’s finished portrait and probably the biggest brown trout he will ever paint!  http://web.me.com/martinsimpson1/Martin_Simpson/Welcome.html

“Brian Yamamoto, of Fairbanks, Alaska, released what may be the largest brown trout ever caught on rod and line, and probably the largest ever with a fly rod.

    On March 14, 2008, Yamamoto was enjoying his last day fishing the Rio Grande in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. He was fishing Maxi’s pool in the evening, caught an 8-pound brown on a Woolly Bugger, and then switched to a #4 Muddler Minnow.

    On his first pass down the pool with the Muddler, the big fish grabbed the fly, made 5 or 6 deep, throbbing head shakes and then jumped clear of the water four times. The immense trout ran to the top and then the bottom of the pool where Yamamoto stood his ground. The trout jumped three more times before guide Jorge Castro slid a net under it.

    The hook-jawed male trout “bottomed out” a 30-pound BogaGrip and was then carefully measured: girth 25 inches; length 46 inches. Based on the formula weight = length x girth2 / 690 the fish weighed 41.66 pounds…

    The current International Game and Fish Association (IGFA) all-tackle record brown trout is a 40-pound, 4-ounce fish from the Little Red River, Arkansas. IGFA fly-rod line class records range from 12 to 35 pounds and all but one of those fish were also taken from the Rio Grande.

    Yamamoto was using a 15-foot Snowbee Spey rod and a 750-grain Rio Skagit line with a 5-foot cheater, 15-foot type 3 sinking tip, and 9-foot 16-pound flurocarbon tapered leader.

    On his last cast the same evening, Yamamoto hooked and landed a 24 pound brown on a 4 inch-long olive Sculpin imitation. He called the trip to Maria Behety Lodge (booked through the Fly Shop at Redding, California) “the trip of a lifetime.”

Travel:         long (four flights and a 2 hour car ride), but not too bad.  Very nice evening in Puerto Varas with the group, with a good seafood dinner and some shopping at the local shops for the family.

Day 0:         threw a few streamers in the Palena just as a warm up, and then guide Nick Lawton pointed us to a nearby stream where we caught some small Rainbows.

Day 1:          with Nick on Lago Rosselot.  Weather alternated between sun and clouds, but this turned out to be the best weather of the week.  We spent the entire day sight fishing (sometimes easier than others due to the sun/clouds) for rising Rainbows in the scum line.  Used a #12 black beetle (w/ yellow spot/post) all day.  Did well, once got used to the feeding pattern and the slow takes. Nick estimated 30 fish, mostly between 16-18″.

Day 2:          Lower Rio Figueroa from the put in to the lake with guide Greg Bricker and another guest (Gert…sp?).   Got a few and missed a few in the morning on the dry/dropper combo of Fat Albert and a large olive nymph (hurless?).  Mainly working seams and back-eddies.  That’s where I got the 25″ Brown, which fought well and made the morning complete (largest trout ever!).  In the afternoon, switched over to olive weighted streamers and did very well, especially since this was the first time I’d ever really fished streamers.  I’d guess I had about 7-10 fish in the boat up to 20″.  More follows than that.  Rained, but not too bad.

Day 3:          Put in on Rio Pico, fished the first pool by the bridge and then the lower Pico (maybe 5-7 fish) on dry/dropper with Kris Kennedy.  After we got out of the initial pool, the wind was really blowing, so fishing was hard.  At one point I asked Kris if it was okay to fish despite the wind.  He said that it was okay but really tough, and I told him that I’d flown 3 days to get there and was going to fish every chance I had.  Got a few fish the rest of the day on R. Figueroa through the Temple canyon, but really didn’t get as many as I’d expected through that beautiful stretch.  Fun to shoot the rapids.  I picked up a few wading at the Temple Camp just because I wasn’t done fishing yet .  Great night at Temple camp…neat place.  John said he had a great day w/ Greg B.

Day 4:     (second day of the overnight float):  Rain was harder today, but enjoyed the day w/ Greg Bricker and my first fishing day with John down the second stretch of the upper Fig.  The guides built a fire to warm up and get dry around midday, and then we did better in the afternoon in the large coves/back-eddies.  Marcel had said that the fishing often doesn’t kick in until midday, and that seemed right again today.  I think we had 3 doubles during the day.

Day 5:        Lago Clara Solar w/ Greg Bricker and Greg Keith (guest).  After a brief view of sun in the morning during the walk in, it got cloudy and then started to rain with some wind.  Started w/ dries (Fat Alberts)…got one for the first hour or two, while shooting casts back among the pads, reeds, trees, and logs.  I switched to a streamer and got a good follow.  Then Greg K. put on a sparkle minnow and got 2 follows in the first 4 casts (I believe he caught the second one).  We both then stayed w/ the sparkle minnow the rest of the day.  Fished hard all afternoon throwing streamers on the 8 wts (300 grain) against the wind along the reed beds and trees.  Greg K. picked up a beautiful 25″ Rainbow at one of the inlet creeks, and then picked up a few more.  My day was slower (1 fish on/lost and 1 follow), until I got the 26″ Rainbow on a streamer (best trout ever…2nd time in the week), again at one of the inlet creeks casting into the shallows along the reed line.  

Day 6:     R. Rosselot (where it flows parallel to the R. Palena, just downstream of the little Golden Gate Bridge):  fished with John and Kris.  Rain all day and probably our slowest day.  Fished every color of streamers in the box and got 2-3 each between me and John.  Since the river was up and it was cold, we blamed the slow day on the weather, as opposed to anything else (like our fishing).  Got 2 in the afternoon by stripping really aggressively, so maybe we needed more of that to move them, given the high water.  

You can tell that the fishing was really good despite the rain.  The weather did trouble the water some because the rivers got high, but we were able to keep fishing and there are lots of options (lakes, tributaries that people could go to).  I imagine it’d only be better with better weather (which they say it usually is).  The rods I stuck w/ all week were 5 wt floating line for dries/droppers and 8 wt sinking line for streamers.  The Simms coat was key, as was an attitude to not care about the rain.   No doubt that Marcel and Carolina run a tremendous lodge and that the guides were world-class.  Thanks for your help setting it up.

Great time,

Steve White

Two weeks ago our friend Ashton Breitkreutz, fishing Isla Holbox on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, landed this great tarpon on the fly.  CONGRATULATIONS Aston, great catch and great smile!

Guide: Angel (day 5)

Fish: 100 lbs (100-120 estimated); Hooked @ 7:35 am…landed at 8:05 am

Fly: Holsenbeck’s™ Black Death Tarpon Bunny Size 5/0

This Top Ten English IPA or India Pale Ales is from America’s Best and Top Ten and from the results of the 2009 US Open Beer Championship.

1. Full Sail IPA, Full Sail Brewing – Oregon
2. Rocky Mountain IPA, Fort Collins Brewing – Colorado
3. Healdsburg’s India Pale Ale, Healdsburg’s Beer Company – California

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Fly Fishing in Bhutan

My wife, Corrine has wanted to trek through Bhutan ever since her first low-budget backpack around the world trip she took in her 20’s. Although her style is no longer “starving student class” her continued interest in traveling through this mountainous kingdom led to us planning a trip there in April.

I’d heard of some fishing in Bhutan, something about the British bringing brown trout over from the rivers they stocked in Kashmir. I had also heard that these trout swim virtually untouched as Bhutan is a devoutly Buddhist country and a believer would never consider killing another living thing. Finally, when Corrine said that the proper permits were obtained to schedule four days of fishing into our 17 day adventure I knew I was as lucky as a 23 year old guy who discovers his Miss Hawaiian Tropic girlfriend also owns a liquor store!

 We packed light so I brought one 9 ft 5 piece 5 wt. rod and reel, a floating line with a couple of leaders and tippet spools and a box of assorted nymphs and dry flies. The plan was to fish in Tevas and rolled up pants if I needed to get into the water. The rivers I fished were all freestones flowing out of the Himalayas. Clear, cold and reminiscent of the Upper Sacramento or McCloud Rivers of Northern California.

 You’re probably wondering when I’m going to talk about the actual fishing. I’ll get to it but it’s just that there was so much more to my Bhutan fishing experience than the actual catching…

 Little suspention bridges I crossed were covered in prayer flags, some with fresh picked rhodedendrons laid on each end to honor the river gods. If I was near a village or farm I would often gather an enterage as I walked along the river as they had rarely seen an anglo tourst and had never seen a flyfisherman. I sometimes stopped and gave a casting lesson or a tour through my flybox after which we turned over rocks together trying to “match the hatch”. Oh, and while I’m on that topic a good 80% of the aquatic insects I found were small baetis, with a few cased caddis and an occasional stonefly. A Mercer micro mayfly was the hot ticket usually trailed off the bend of a tungsten bead wire price all hung off of a stimulator type dry or indicator. Ninety percent of the fish took the small mayfly.

 The brown trout were healthy, quite chubby and fought with numerous jumps and strong runs. The average fish was 14”-16” with my largest in the 18” range. The locals were very puzzled by the whole “catch and release thing.” Their main source of meat is dried fish and beef from India and once I got the message that it’s perfectly fine for a Bhuddist to accept an animal that someone else had killed I culled an occasional fish which was accepted with a bow and a sprint back to their home.

 Is Bhutan a destination type fishing location, a place to go and focus on trout fishing? No. Is it a significant cultural experience with breathtaking scenery and a population relatively uninfluenced by the outside world where a guy can also catch a few really fun fish along the way? Absolutely!

 To get a little Buddhist about it, the joy was found in the journey itself – Fish on Grasshopper…    

 Rich

To follow the Egdorf’s 09 Season, check out their daughters blog at: http://riplps.wordpress.com

Our good friend Pete Laskier just returned from the Hoodoo River out of Cold Bay, Alaska.  Pete hammered the Chinooks and has already booked a week for 2010. If you want to swing fish for super bright kings on a beautiful river in the bush of Alaska with no other lodges around, Hoodoo is the place. Check out Hoodoo @ http://www.flyfishingtravel.com/alaska/hoodoo.html