By: Robert Thomas
I grip the front brake of my motorcycle and slam my foot onto the pedal for the rear brake. F***k you, stupid mother f****r. I vehemently scream at the driver of the black ford that went left, just so he could turn right (in front of me) without signalling or checking his mirrors. Not a good start to the day.
With the city and its inhabitants in my rear view mirrors I flow around nice, tight corners, elevating up the mountains of the Cordillera Blanca. This is a famous range of mountains in central Peru with many peaks over 5000M in elevation and almost all of them sporting oversized glaciers somewhere along their slopes. Even the iconic mountain featured in the Paramount Pictures marketing is found in this range. Alas, I am not going to hike or take photos or mountaineer like the majority of people who visit this area; I’m out to fish.
I drive up and up and up until the only way to go is either left or right. I choose right and in a few kilometres I start following a nice, clear stream in the middle of a grassy meadow. I take the road to the very end, trying to get as far from civilization as possible. I park the bike and start heading towards the river when I notice a man coming out of a small, stone hut who must have heard me arrive. The man comes out and I’m quick to realize this gentleman is quite peculiar – not only does he live in a stone hut over 4000M above sea level, but he does so without any legs. We have a quick discussion about the area and why I am there when he informs me that this particular river was never stocked with trout and that I would have to look further north in the mountain range to find my prize. So, off I go.
As I head further north I stop at a trailhead for a lake, deciding that maybe river fishing won’t be in the cards today. As I free myself from the clunky motorcycle gear and gather my belongings a park ranger comes to strike up a conversation and ask about my bike. He asks the usual questions; “how big is the motor?”, “how fast does it go?”, “how much does it cost?”. I do the same; “are there fish here?”, “how big do they get?”, “what do they eat?”. After our nice conversation I bid the ranger farewell and start walking to the trailhead when he stops me and says, “no hay trucha en el lago” – no trout in the lake. Frustrated and with the sun getting ever higher, I put my gear on and head further north.
Another 25-30ks north and I come across another river. This river has plenty of water, but is descending too rapidly to hold fish. I find a collection of people washing their rugs and carpets in the cold, (used to be) clean water. Again, I strike up a conversation, trying to gain some local insight. I ask if there are trout in the river and the group responds, “más arriba” – further up river. They ensure me that where the water settles upstream I can find myself wild Peruvian rainbow trout. Finally, the game is on.
Moments later I am scrambling over a big rock fence and ignoring the sign indicating the need for a professional guide in this area and head up the trail at a quick pace. After a few hundred meters, I find myself sweating and panting like an overworked show pony, 4000+ meters above sea level is no joke. Five kilometres into the hike and I am standing on an elevated ridge looking down on a slender, thread of a river in the distance. I wrestle with myself internally if this is the point in which the river settles down and I can find fish. Finally, I decide to burn some calories and head down to check out the river.
The water was indeed more tranquil in this spot, but I was struggling to spot fish. So, I built up my rod, tied on some fresh 5lb. tippet and attached a small, black hare’s ear nymph to the end. Cast number one was nothing to write home about, it had been a few weeks since I had fished last and the line and fly landed in a big pile in the middle of the small stream. As I pulled the line back in to cast, I felt the very familiar tug, tug, tug sensation of a little mouth chewing on the fly on the end of my line. I missed that fish but the veil of uncertainty had been lifted, fish are here.
It didn’t take long before an eager little trout took my offering and I was on the board. With purple-blue vertical bars, haphazard black spots and a dashing red stripe down the middle, she wasn’t big but boy was she pretty. I worked the fast water and deeper sections of this little stretch with much success, catching four trout in a little over a half an hour.
As I ascended the river further, I came to a big pool, almost a pond, that formed as the water built up to pass through a bottleneck. The water was clear and calm and I spooked more than a few fish near where the water would exit the pond. For this stretch I changed my tactics and tied on a small, size 18 dry fly. The fly is simple, black hackle wrapped around a hook with a piece of orange foam on top for me to see it. I cast it out gently with nice extension from fly line to fly and let the offering sit on top of the motionless water. After what seemed like an hour but was more likely a minute, a fishy little opportunist raced from the weeds below and sucked up the fly – con gusto (with pleasure).
All told, I landed eight fish that day and ingested some soul food, taking in the stunning scenery, meeting the locals and living the dream of Peruvian Trout in the High Andes.