In 2004, I took my first solo, international trip to Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia, to fish for sea-run brown and rainbow trout on the Rio Grande River. At the time, I was a financially constrained, post-collegiate individual. I quickly learned that fishing access in Argentina was only possible if you paid thousands of dollars to stay at large, private estancias (similar to Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming or A-A), catering to wealthy foreigners who wanted to fish.
I thought that couldn’t be right. Surely, there would be local public access for ordinary people to fish, just like in every other country in the world (presumably). However, I couldn’t find any information online, and even inquiries on the TripAdvisor web forums (lol TripAdvisor) yielded no results. Nonetheless, I ventured forth to figure it out upon arrival, and what an adventure it turned out to be! It involved, among other things, an abandoned, post-apocalyptic hostel, a ghost ship named DESDEMONA, a run-in with authorities, and help from local children. Eventually, I did locate local public fishing access and caught some truly enormous trout on salmon flies.
I updated my TripAdvisor question with the fact that I figured it all out: there was public access, and I caught big fish. Since 2004, I have received dozens of messages from people searching Google for public access in Tierra del Fuego, who found my post and sought my help in finding these spots. One of those people was Richard, a Scot who found me on Instagram. He embarked on his own Patagonian adventure and was successful. He didn’t need much help from me, just some affirmation of his line of thinking.
Subsequently, Richard was kind enough to include me in his salmon fishing adventure in northern Scotland this past summer. I was on Skye, and he would be fishing in Helmsdale, Scotland, a couple of hours away, while I was there. It was a remarkable coincidence that one of the two annual salmon runs in this river occurred while I was able to fish on it — so I did.
Richard generously lent me a rod, waders, tippet, and flies (I don’t travel with fishing gear since my trip to New Zealand circa 2007) and even gave me some coaching on his preferred techniques for salmon fly fishing. Richard had plenty of success fishing on the Helmsdale — I was just happy to be there, even though I didn’t catch anything.
It was quite an experience, salmon fishing with a Scotsman on a famous river in Scotland. Thank you so much for the opportunity and your generosity, Richard. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I left the flies and tippet in the pocket of those waders you lent me.
