Rio Irigoyen: Journey to the End of the World

Nothing is ever certain in fly fishing, that’s for sure. Is there any other form of angling that is at the mercy of Mother Nature as much as ours? I’m not sure there is, especially when it comes to fishing for migratory salmonids. As such, there’s always a degree of apprehension before a long-haul fishing trip, particularly as this one involved a journey of 14,000km or nearly 9,000 miles from our home base in London.

By JONATHON MUIR, TRAVEL AND MARKETING ASSISTANT AT FARLOWS AND FARLOWS TRAVEL

Destination: the aptly named World’s End Lodge on Tierra del Fuego’s secretive Rio Irigoyen.

Tierra del Fuego needs no introduction as a world-class fly fishing destination. Its huge runs of trophy sea trout have been attracting anglers from all over the world for decades, all hoping to hook into the fish of a lifetime. There were rivers however that, at least for me, had slipped under the radar unnoticed. One such river was the Rio Irigoyen. When the chance arose for my good fishing buddy John and I to make the long journey south in March 2019 on a Farlows Travel exploratory trip, we grabbed the opportunity and committed to the adventure.

After an overnight flight from London to Buenos Aires, we shuffled off the plane blurry-eyed straight into the Argentine heat and hustle-and-bustle of the country’s capital. It feels quite strange when the first stage of your trip takes you to a humid, sub-tropical climate, considering your luggage is packed full with down jackets, fleeces, base layers, and even gloves. After making our way by taxi through the Buenos Aires traffic, we arrived at our hotel in Recoleta, dumped our bags and headed straight back out, not wanting to waste a single moment. We spent the rest of the day sight-seeing, visiting the Casa Rosada, the spectacular Recoleta Cemetery, (I never thought cemeteries could be spectacular until I saw this one!), and travelled through tropical thunderstorms to Palermo for the obligatory steak dinner. It was tempting to sit there sipping Malbec into the early hours, but we had an early flight to catch the next morning and, hopefully, some sea trout too. The next morning, we were back at the airport boarding our flight down to Ushuaia, the southernmost city on planet earth. As we came down through the clouds past snow-capped peaks, the feeling of anticipation was building. It felt almost as if a fishing trip was about to start, but oh no my friend, you’re going to the end of the world! Don’t think you’re there just yet…

We were met in arrivals by one of the World’s End Lodge fishing guides, Toby, and settled into the pickup truck for the 5-hour car journey ahead, passing through dramatic mountain scenery before this gave way to the vast expanse of Tierra del Fuego - the Land of Fire. ‘How’s the fishing been?’ I asked. Toby replied, ‘The river is full of fish amigo, BIG fish.’ That was enough for now… Eventually, we arrived at the lodge and were greeted by our first sunset over the Rio Irigoyen and what a sight it was! Every fly fisher will know the feeling I describe when you first get a glimpse of a new river. What lies beneath the surface? What is lurking in its pools? Will I do battle with the sea trout of a lifetime?

The Irigoyen is a narrow river which winds its way through deep, dense forest, helping to mitigate the effects of the strong winds which the area can be known for.

As I drifted off to sleep to the distant sounds of wild cattle and horses, I wondered whether we would find the answers to these questions in the days that lay ahead. The Rio Irigoyen is best described as ‘intimate’ and is perfectly suited to fishing with a single-handed fly rod such as a 9’ 8wt or 10’ 7wt. Unlike its famous cousins, the Rio Grande and Rio Gallegos, the Irigoyen is a narrow river which winds its way through deep, dense forest, helping to mitigate the effects of the strong winds which the area can be known for.

We awoke the next day with an enormous sense of anticipation and set out on foot from the lodge to see what this place was all about.

This forest was unlike anything I’d ever seen, notably because many of the trees near the lower end of the river were dead, taking on an eerie bone-like appearance to match the many horns and skulls of deceased wild cattle and horses which are scattered around the place. According to head guide Diego Castillo, a huge, devastating storm had swept through the area in the mid 1990s, uprooting a large part of the forest giving its trees this unique sun-bleached appearance. However, as is often the case in nature, with death comes life.

The many logs, fallen trees and exposed roots found their way into the river, creating amazing runs, pools and fish-holding structure, contributing to the incredible numbers of Irigoyen sea trout we see today. We awoke the next day with an enormous sense of anticipation and set out on foot from the lodge to see what this place was all about.

Casting floating fly lines with heavy, aggressive front tapers to carry our sink tips and weighted flies out into the stream, we made our way through the first pool and immediately started pulling fish. It’s probably true to say that our excitement got the better of us and we failed to set the hook properly in the first couple of hours. It was time to calm down, concentrate, breath in some fresh South Atlantic air and make the next hits count.

We headed upriver to a new spot and that’s when we first came face-toface with our prey. My buddy, John, quickly made amends for our failure to hook-up in the first pool and put four incredible fish on the bank that afternoon: sea trout of 8lbs, 9lbs, 10lbs and 14lbs. John had broken his sea trout PB three times in the space of about an hour. Not to be completely outdone, I followed down behind him and was rewarded with a beautiful fish of about 7lbs, fresh off the tide and gleaming chrome. This is what we came all this way for, we were already living the sea trout dream!

For the rest of the week we gradually became more and more tuned-in to the soul of the Irigoyen. Our casting accuracy improved, we began to read the water more efficiently and our hook-up ratio continued to rise. There was hardly a pool we fished all week where we didn’t at least pull a fish. Bursting with a sense of growing confidence, we each went on to land a couple of fish every session, with the fish continuing to average an astonishing 8-9lbs, with the chance of a double-figure fish around every bend.

It was day three when we headed down to a pool called Arbolito or ‘Little Tree’, one of the most productive holding pools on the river and only a short walk from the lodge. John cast his rubber-legged Prince Nymph perfectly past a log jam and suddenly all hell broke loose. ‘Big one!’ shouted our guide Nehuen Perez, as we ran down the pool to catch up with it. The fish broke the surface and we caught our first look at it; a gleaming silver bar and every bit of 16- 17lbs. Just as John nearly had the fish beached in the shallows, the hook

pulled loose and the fish was gone. We sat there in silence for a few moments dreaming of what might have been. That’s fishing. ‘Let’s rest the pool. We’ll come back tomorrow’, said Nehuen, as we trekked upriver to fish a different spot. It was my turn to go first and, taking inspiration from John’s fly choice, I tied on a Prince Nymph and swung it through a likely looking lie. Bang! Instantly, a fish was on! The aggression of Irigoyen sea trout can’t be understated.

This time, it all came good and Nehuen pounced on the monster trout, all 18lbs of it.

There are no ‘slow draws’ or ‘nips at the fly’ here. These fish mean business and hit every fly with pure anger, jacked-up on protein from their months spent feeding in the wild Atlantic Ocean. I brought the fish to shore, a chunk of around 10lbs, and Nehuen aptly referred to it as the ‘rugby ball’. The condition of these sea trout was astounding, each one a prime specimen of pure muscle. We snapped a few photos and sent her on her way, landing a couple more smaller fish before making our way back to the lodge. Despite another great day, we couldn’t shake that lost fish from our minds. Still, tomorrow was another day. Shortly after sunrise on day four we were back at Arbolito ready for round two.

Out came the Prince Nymph and into the river it went. If flies had feelings, this one had every right to be terrified. John’s line went tight as it swung through the same lie and it was ‘fishon!’ again. After a dogged fight and several runs up and down the pool, I watched from a distance as John brought the fish into the shallows. That’s when we truly got a sense of how big this fish was. This time, it all came good and Nehuen pounced on the monster trout, all 18lbs of it. Neither John nor myself had ever seen a trout this big in our lives and we sat there gobsmacked while Nehuen took some measurements, all the while keeping the huge fish calm and wet at the edge of the water. We hugged, we high-fived, we took some glory shots and released the fish back into the Irigoyen to pass on its genes.

That’s why you travel to the end of the world, that was what we came all this way for. For my buddy, John, it was the sea trout of a lifetime and sweet, sweet redemption for the previous day’s lost fish. Mission accomplished. Over the next couple of days, we continued to land fish consistently and each night was capped off with the clinking of wine glasses and another round of celebrations.

Head guide Diego asked us before our penultimate day, ‘Shall we go on an adventure tomorrow? We can take the ATV and check out the upper pools. It’s a long way to go but no one has fished there for weeks.’ The answer was of course ‘yes’. The next afternoon, after fishing some of the pools closest to the lodge we jumped in the pickup and journeyed as far as we could get through the forest before Diego revealed his ATV, stashed away in a small shed, waiting for its next mission. We clambered aboard for the bumpy 1-hour journey upstream, aiming for the upper limits of the vast estancia.

We reached our destination just before sunset, that magical time of day when everything starts to feel just right. John quickly pulled out a 13-pounder in the first spot, another sea trout of a lifetime by most standards, but by now one of the many double-figure fish he had chalked-up during the week. It was now my turn for a big one… As the light started to fade, I slowly figure-of-eighted my fly through a deep channel running along the far bank, before my line was ripped from my hands and the reel started screaming.

This was it: This was my ‘big one’ and I knew it straight away. I bent hard into the fish, trying to exert as much control as I could, but this fish had other ideas. Eventually the fish began to tire and, as I pulled it towards the bank, Diego calmly grabbed hold of its tail. ‘What a fish, amigo!’. I’ll never forget that moment for the rest of my life. In those spilt seconds I was overcome with emotions, above all feeling an enormous sense of gratitude to be lucky enough to experience this incredible, remote, wild part of our world with such great people. I held my prize in my hands, a 15lb lump of Argentine sea trout, before she powered off back into the river.

By the time the celebrations were over it was dark. We climbed aboard the ATV for the long journey back to the lodge, head torches guiding us through the eerie blackness towards our reward - several much-needed ice-cold beers.

Our trip to World’s End Lodge was quite simply phenomenal. Aside from the wonderful fishing, Diego and his team of guides are first-class, the food, drink and lodge hospitality is utterly fantastic and it is a total privilege to experience the nature and environment that surrounds you. I’m not sure there’s much in this life that can beat an openair asado of wild, organic beef and a fine glass of red after a morning catching double-figure sea trout, all the while surrounded by Tierra del Fuego’s amazing wildlife. After a final night of wine and celebrations, it was time to say our goodbyes and head home, back to reality. Sea trout PBs had been smashed and new lifelong fishing friendships were made. We journeyed home totally exhausted, not quite sure how we would describe this experience to our friends. A couple of weeks after we returned to London, I dropped Diego an email. ‘Book us in for next year, we’re coming back.’

For more information and to find out how you can plan a trip to World’s End Lodge visit:

www.farlowstravel.com or contact info@farlowstravel.com