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continued from Itinerary Day 8: The Gualjaina on La Elvira Estancia Read about our experiences last December by George Anderson
Our next stop was the Gualjaina
river, a medium sized stream that meanders through a wide valley to the
East of Cholila. A long drive on a dirt road took us to the Estancia
La Elvira, where we would stay and have private and exclusive access to
25k of the best part of the Gualjaina.
We soon found out that big flies like hoppers and muddlers drove there fish crazy! Mid-morning action was red hot on hopper patterns and this held up most of the day. The water clarity was off a bit from recent rain so with the 4 feet of visibility, small streamers like the bead head wooly buggers were deadly. This stream like many others we
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This Estancia lies
about eight miles below the Arroyo Pescado, one of Patagonia's most famous
spring creeks. Our host, Fredrico had recently completed a wonderful fisherman's
cottage for the anglers of Esquel Outfitters, and we were honored to be
the first guests. Many more bottles of vintage Argentine red were consumed
on our two nights there.
A mid-afternoon spinner fall
brought up lots of big fish, and I enjoyed picking off one nice fish after
another in the tail of one of the slower pools. I had perhaps fifteen
nice fish cruising and rising in front of me. The rainbows and browns
were wary in the bright sun, but not at all leader shy. Larger fish
here were in the 16-18 inch class but the Gualjaina was just chock full
of smaller fish, mostly in the 12-15 inch range. 
would fish had rather large populations of pancora
crabs, which are much like our crayfish. So olive/ brown crayfish imitations
and larger dark rubber leg nymphs were deadly. Large rubber leg hoppers
were especially effective when twitched across the water. I found
that the good old standby Muddler minnow was about as deadly as anything
in my box. I'd just slap a small split shot on the head to get it
down into the deeper runs. The Gualjaina trout would pounce on this
stuff like it was going to be their last meal! 
On our last night at La Elvira , our host Fredrico treated us to an "Asado", where his gauchos roasted a freshly killed lamb for us over the open fire. Talk about pigging out! After a long day of fishing, we didn't begin dinner until nearly 11PM, which we've learned is pretty much customary at this time of year in Argentina. Plate after plate of roasted lamb was served at the big table with Fredrico and his Gauchos. Fredrico entertained us with stories of his twenty five trips across across the US in search of champion Hertford Bull semen, which he exported to Argentina. By 1 AM we were still stuffing our faces with the succulent lamb and Fredrico's finest red wines. 
