Despedida Lodge: Red's Fly Shop Hosted Week Yields a 30lb Behemoth

We spent 2 weeks at the end of March at Estancia Despedida fishing for sea run brown trout in Tierra Del Fuego (the very Southern tip of South America). This was my 4th trip to Estancia Despedida on the Rio Grande, and it was one of my best! For those not familiar with this fishery and area, we are fishing Rio Grande for brown trout that are born in the river, then migrate to the ocean where they grow large and return as adults to spawn. There are only a few places in the world where brown trout exhibit this behavior consistently, and the Rio Grande is exceptional both in terms of the number and size of fish that return each year. Despedida lodge is ideally located on perhaps the most prolific spawning zone on the entire river, so even fish that arrived early and went far upstream tend to settle back into this zone as they stage to spawn in the late season.  A good steelhead run on some of our Pacific NW rivers may end up around 3,000-5,000 fish returning in a season. TheRio Grande sees an annual return of 55,000-82,000 fish annually! Space is generally limited, as Despedida takes only 6 guests each week. Here’s the daily breakdown of how things shaped up for our 2025 week:

Day 1: Looking at the weather forecast, we were anticipating this being the worst day of the week. Winds were forecast to blow up to 38 mph, and we got every bit of that and more. My philosophy is if you’re going to have tough weather, it’s always best to have it at the beginning of the week instead of the end. We refer to Day 1 as “the Shakeout day” – you get your gear setup and get familiar with the river and current environment, as well as the guide staff and their terminology and techniques (some of which may be brand new to you), so usually it’s not your most productive day of the week. The wind certainly did not disappoint, but everyone in the group landed multiple fish with some that fished the best pools on the rotation nearing double digits for landed fish. The fish in Rio Grande are big – averaging around 15lbs each, so it doesn’t take many to feel like you had a phenomenal day of fishing. We fished the lower section of Despedida’s water on day 1, which included the pool called Arturo, which is perhaps the best most famous pool on the entire river.   

Day 2: The strong winds continued through this day! That said, everyone was more comfortable adapting to the nuances of fishing Rio Grande. The river has changed a fair bit since I was there last, and what I noticed is that many of the pools were “smaller”. They were still plenty big enough to accommodate two anglers but didn’t seem to enable as much freedom to step through the run and hook fish throughout. The “bucket” was where fish were going to be hooked, and those zones were absolutely stuffed with big fish. Once again, a couple of pools here were the best producers, and anglers on the rotation to fish those did well. The first fish breaking the 20lb mark was landed this day as well as a 21lber. A statement that was made at dinner was “I’ve now landed a season’s worth of GOOD steelhead in just 2 days!” 

Day 3: We were back to the lower river again on this day. The wind died down, and it was amazing to be able to “read” the current seams and see the ledges without the whitecaps blowing upstream. Fishing was much better for everyone, and the sessions spent in the best pools on the river were as good it as it gets! The 21lber was still holding as big fish of the week, and that was important, as we had all kicked in some cash on a bet giving the angler landing the big fish of the week would receive an Able brown trout reel! Lots of speculation was starting on where that mark would end up. I told them I was certain that the mark would be broken numerous times in the days ahead.   

Day 4: Back to the upper section, which includes several miles of the tributary stream Rio Menendez. Rio Menendez is the only significant tributary of the Rio Grande, and it becomes very important for this late season window, as the trout begin moving into the sections where they will eventually spawn. This stream offers some amazing holding water, with deep slots along cut banks that the large male Brown trout seem to like. Fishing it on a calm sunny day was a downright pleasure, and numerous fish over 20lbs were landed including specimens that went 22, 22, and 24 lbs. The nice thing about the Rio Menendez was that anglers had a lot more freedom to move from one bend to the next, which kept the guide running in between to net fish.

Day 5: Our final day on the lower river. I landed a beautiful 21lb buck in Arturo. Several other large fish landed on this day, including some absolute chromers that looked more like a salmon than a brown trout. By this time, everyone was pretty well dialed-in on techniques and flies, as well as the potential that each beat holds. Photos of fish in the 12 - 18 b range were not even necessary anymore, as you’d caught fish like that earlier in the week. Everyone was hunting for the big fish!  

Week 2 was very similar to week 1, with the exception that we did not have the two days of nuclear winds! We may have landed a few more 20+lb fish this week, including spectacular specimens that went 26 and 30 lbs! I caught the 30lber in the run called Arturo on RIO’s Prince of Power in chartreuse, size 14 fishing 10’ of T11 on a switch rod. I landed that fish on my last evening of fishing with about 2 hours of daylight left, and reeled up and went to the truck to have a beer afterwards. The thought crossed my mind that I don’t need to make another cast at that point, but as I sat there enjoying the evening colors, it occurred to me that I am sitting at the end of the world on the most prolific run on the entire river at prime time. Needless to say, I grabbed my rod and headed back out to fish! That was truly an epic session of fishing, as I landed 14 fish in total.

Fishing on the Rio Grande in Tierra Del Fuego is not a traditional spey fishing trip. I prefer to spey cast, and I did that most of the week (although I did cast a single hander with a dry fly skater for a couple evenings and hooked and boiled several nice fish doing that). My setup was a SAGE 6119 switch rod with a RIO Skagit Max Power and 10’ of T-11. The guides made it clear that they preferred a single hand rod with light mono running line and 15-20’ of straight sinking line in a combination of sink rates. They had rods setup to do that, and that certainly proved effective, too! The bottom line is, regardless of the technique you're using, they key is getting your fly to sink in the bucket and be under tension so that you feel a fish take the fly. The bites are not like a steelhead grab that rips the rod out of your hand.  It’s more or less, the fly just stopping as the fish bites it, at which time you need to set the hook. Given the sheer size of these fish, it is imperative that you are fishing flies with very strong hooks. Our best flies were chartreuse, olive, peacock, and purple nymphs in the size 12 and 14 (although we did fish even smaller patterns). We had flies custom tied for our trip that are now part of our standard Tierra del Fuego offering. RIO updated the Prince of Power to include 2x strong hooks that hold up to the fish and clumps (pieces or eroded bank that contain very strong hooks that the big seas runs love to sit behind). We fished both weighted and unweighted nymphs using 1X and 0X fluorocarbon tippet. Fly selection absolutely matters, which was reinforced several times throughout the week when casting and swinging through the bucket for multiple casts, I’d change flies and hook one on the next cast.

By Steve Joyce
Red's Fly Shop - Guide & Partner
Find out more: Meet Steve Joyce