Traful river Anecdotes, by Jorge Trucco

Ernie Schwibert called it "The River of the Spirits" and dedicated a whole chapter to it in his book "Remembrances of Rivers Past". That's what the Traful is, the river of the spirits.

Years ago, on my first visit to Arroyo Verde I didn't know the river well or the names of its pools. I went fishing with friends who were novice fly-fishermen and to whom I was supposed to show the basics of fly-fishing. It was a great day of fishing; I caught two browns in the 5 to 6 pound range and a landlocked Atlantic salmon about the same size, together with various 18 to 20 inch rainbows. That evening at 9:00pm I found myself fishing below the rapids and we decided that it was too late and we should head back to camp.

On the way we walked by what I later learned was called the "horse shoe pool". I stood there and stared at it as I told my friend Coco Bullrich "you know, a pool like this one needs to be fished late, like right now".

"Go ahead and fish it!" he said. I explained that that was just theoretical; I had already taken my rod apart and had my reel in my vest's pocket. But he insisted, "If this is the time to fish it, fish it! Rig it up and fish it!" After rigging up I looked in my fly-box remembering that about a week before, over new year's eve, a friend of mine's Raúl Sammartino had caught a 15 lb brown at the boca of the Chimehuín on a Mickey Finn streamer fly.

I looked for a Mickey Finn, but the only thing I could find that came close to it was a "strawberry blonde" streamer fly that I had tied some time before but never actually tried..

I didn't give it much thought; I grabbed the strawberry blonde and tied it on to my 8 lb. tippet. I made a short cast to test the water nearby, just in case there was something right where it didn't seem to be the real hot spot, and I saw a huge boil and my line went tight.

The brown trout never jumped, he fought deep and took me a long way's downstream to the head of the rapids where he stayed stuck for about 30 minutes. I prayed so that the fish wouldn't go in the rapids, that would have been the end of the adventure.

By 10pm the big brown started giving up little by little and after several attempts I was able to beach him. It was the biggest trout I'd ever caught back then, a 16 lb. Brown from the Traful.