Itá Ibaté, first visit of the year
In spite of the dam, we did it
We made our first visit to Itá Ibaté this
year, invited as usual by "Puerto Paradise" Cabins; we arrived during the
afternoon, we were received by Daniel and Francisco, and our motorboat was
already in the water with its guide, so we greeted, went down to the river,
loaded the tackle and went out to try to fish.
The day was VERY hot, the River was pretty
high, the same as at Itatí, more than one meter above its normal level, we put
some lures on our line and as usual, the first attempt was at the Punta Gallino
rock, there was a good number of motorboats although it was Monday; the other
motorboats of Puerto Paradise were fishing with Brazilian tourists and there were
some motorboats from Posadas that go on Monday, because “supposedly” there are
less fishermen on Mondays.
I wish to explain why the title says “In spite of the dam”. Years ago the river
used to go up and down according to the seasons of the year and these variations
were generally gradual. With the construction of the dam this changed
substantially; now the water flow is managed by the dam according to the
requirements of energy or to the need of depth in the navigation channel
according to the requirements of the large cargo ships that go up and down the
river; therefore these sudden changes out of the laws of Nature mean that at
Ituzaingó (where the dam is) the river goes up or down a lot in a few hours;
this also affects Itá Ibaté in a lower extent. This is why one goes to fish and
asks candidly what the level of the river will be for such a date. Who knows
that? No one does. It is impossible to know what ship is going to pass or how
much energy will be required at that time. So you just have to prepare the
tackle and go. I may tell you that a few days after our visit the level of the
river fell more than two meters, so there is no doubt that fishing conditions
were not the same. The important thing is to receive a good service, board good
motorboats, eat well and then you will fish what you had to fish, or nothing,
but you still enjoyed it…
Talking again about our fishing, we passed a number of times,
with no bite, we moved to another scenario and came back to Gallino; in the
evening Patricia had her first bite, it seemed a small surubí, but when we
loaded it on the motorboat it happened to be a beautiful armado, hooked by the
tail; some minutes later Patricia had another bite, another frustration, a fat
armado; it was already late to we went to the cabin to have a drink, have dinner
and sleep, because Daniel would wake us at 5.30 a.m.. Fishing had been poor
today; the Brazilian tourists had caught a surubi and a couple of medium dorados.
Early next morning we went to the mouth of the "Viratingaí"
stream (I believe the spelling is correct) that is upstream from the town, some
40 minutes by motorboat. Although we arrived early, there were already some
motorboats fishing with bait, we put eels and moraine eels on our hooks (at Itá
Ibaté, since nearly always we fish with lures, moraine eels are small, difficult
to get and expensive, since who sells them has to wait until fishermen use bait
to be able to sell them, and must assume to cost of the fish that die until
then, that in Summer is pretty high).
We only had one bite at the mouth of the stream and I missed
it for trying to hook the fish too soon; our guide decided to continue
downstream to other fishing areas, we were fishing casting towards the shore,
waited some minutes and then repeated the cast) letting the bait drift with the
boat); suddenly Patricia had a bite and immediately an energetic medium
dorado (salminus maxillosus) was hooked, after fighting, running towards the
protection of the coast branches and jumping many times, we loaded him on the
boat for the photos.
We returned to the previous routine, waiting for the next
bite; this time it was my turn, also fishing with effect, I had a sudden bite…
no jump; this made me think in a "Pirá Pará" or stripped surubi, but what was on
my hook was a nice medium Pacú (Colossoms Mitreie), that had taken a moraine eel
in an 8/0 hook, really very aggressive in its attack.
After this catch we continued fishing for a while, in the mouth of a
stream I had a bite of a Pirá Pará, it was pretty big, but I was not able to
stop its run and it sought refuge in the coast branches; I was not able to get
him out of there; I tried as much as I could but the line cut, it was 11.00
a.m., the sun and heat were bothering, so we made a strategic move back to the
shore, we installed ourselves in the roofed courtyard and enjoyed a cool beer
while we waited for the chef to prepare the rib eye steaks that were the day’s
menu, since fishing had been quite better than the previous day and a number of
the tourists had obtained a good catch.
We enjoyed the tasty rib eye steaks with different salads and we went to sleep
for a while, in order to go out fishing again at 5 p.m.
Half an hour before the foreseen time, at 4.30 p.m. we
returned to the river, now we were going to fish with bait at Punta Gallino,
since the trip to the streams would shorten the afternoon too much, we put the
eels, this is quite a long drop, so we would not be able to pass many times
before the sunset; in the second or third passing I had a bite, I let the line
run out and hooked, it seemed that I had the fish, but apparently the surubí
opened its mouth and spit the bait, it had not swallowed it, it had only pressed
it between its jaws.
At the sunset Patricia had another bite, she let the line
run out so that the fish could even swallow the leader, and she pulled
vigorously with the rod: about three to five seconds passed and a magnificent
dorado jumped with majesty out of the water, to fall in the mist of a foam
shower, it was really far away, more than three hundred feet from the motor
boat, so I was not able to take good photos, since once it was near it was
exhausted due to its fight for liberty, that it obtained after posing kindly for
the photos.
It was pretty late, so we concluded our fishing day, returned happy to the
shore; although we did not capture any surubí, fishing was very good considering
the river conditions we faced.
I finally want to remember, as always, that you should not
consult in advance the river condition, nor the fishing conditions, since both
change in a matter of hours; just decide to pass some days of relax trying to
fish, and enjoying a good service.
To date and many months after the fishing seminaries organized by the
Tourism Department of Argentina and the Federal Investments Bureau, absolutely
nothing has been done to protect the fishing resources, and if we add the
thousands of fishermen that come from Brazil to our own fishermen, urgent steps
must be taken so that Fishing Tourism may be sustained in the long term.
We wish to thank our friends Daniel and Federico from "Puerto
Paradise"
cabins, that are always available when we carry out our fishing evaluations.
We would like to thank Robert Ingledew (spanishtechnicaltranslations@yahoo.com)
who translated the original text to English
Quisiéramos darle las gracias a Roberto Ingledew (spanishtechnicaltranslations@yahoo.com)
quien tradujo el texto original a Inglés
Services:
Cabañas "Puerto Paradise"
