Barry and Cathy Beck Blog

We transferred to Pluma Lodge, further down on the Secure River near the Pluma River. I have so many photos that I want to share but I'm having difficulty figuring out how to put photos in the blog from my ipad. What I thought would be easy is anything but! I will continue to try and hope that I don't have to wait until I get home.

Our guides and Indians loaded up our gear this morning and we took the dug-out canoes back downriver to the grass air strip, they lugged all of our gear up about 30 steps to the strip, and then we  took a 15 minute flight to the second camp, unloaded the gear and walked through the Indian village to the boat landing. New guides and Indians lugged our gear down the same number of steep wood steps to the river, loaded the canoes and took us about 15 minutes upstream to another village. From there they lugged the gear up similar steep steps and at the top we got into an ATV and rode for almost an hour into the jungle. We crossed small streams and stream beds, climbed hills and hung on as we went down the other side, strattled ruts and swatted flies. But the ride was beautiful through the jungle. We saw ancient trees that had to be 40 feet around, all kinds of flowers, plants, and birds. I'm thinking that the cure for a lot of diseases could be in these jungles.

We arrived in Pluma Camp, very much like Assunta. All of the buildings are built high off the land overlooking the Secure River. Pluma is also alive with birds. The rooms are very comfortable and the staff is great here too. We are so impressed with the staff, the guides, the villages, and the fishing. Tomorrow we fish from here.

I'm signing off now in hopes that I can figure out Wordpress! Talk to you again soon.

 

 

 

Well here we are in Bolivia in the middle of the jungle and we have Wifi! Can you believe it? I'm sitting on my mosquito-netted bed listening to the Secure River and the jungle night sounds on the other side of our screened room and writing to you!

I don't have any photos ready but will post some tomorrow night. We're having an incredible week of Golden Dorado fishing. Everyone has caught big Dorado and Paku among other intersting jungle fish. The fishing is pretty unbelievable. The lodge and the meals are incredible, we're living in style.

The Tsimane Indian village is just down river a bit and our boatmen are young men from the village. We watch them kill catfish and Sabalo (a common fish in the river) with their homemade bows and arrows. On the way home in the evening we drop the fish off at the village. The children come running out to see us and to get the fish. It's pretty fascinating.

I'll talk more tomorrow night. See you then.

 

 

 

 




We finished up our week on the Bighorn with more incredible dry fly fishing. The second week we had several mornings of trico fishing. Tricos are very small mayflies. We haven't seen trico hatches like this on the 'Horn for many years. We fished size 20 duns and spinners every morning to rising fish. Marc Bale from the Sage Rod Company joined us for a couple days and it was non-stop for a brief time every morning. We used the new Circa in 4 & 5 weight and it was the perfect rod for this kind of fishing. When the tricos stopped, the tan caddis began. What a week. We found the hatch one morning with Matt McMeans at the Corral and a couple days later with Marc in Sneider's channel. For those of you who know the Bighorn, you know how special this year has been on the river. And, we found that if we used RIO Powerflex 4x tippet, we wouldn't lose any fish.




We talked to a lot of anglers who were using 5x, but with 4x we still had plenty of fish take the fly. We would lose one now and then when they got down in the weeds but the hook pulled out, the leader didn't break.

This week we're off to Bolivia with a Frontiers group where we'll be fishing for Golden Dorado at Tsimane Fishing Lodges, located in the tropical Andes between Peru and Bolivia. What a change it will be to go from 4x and size 20 tricos on 4 & 5 weight rods to size 1/0 and 3/o Tarpon Snakes and Andino Deceivers on a 250 grain RIO Outbound Short and 8 & 9 weight rods!




I think I can safely say the mosquitoes might be bigger than the tricos, but the fishing will be fast and furious. We've got a great group of anglers joining us for what is sure to be an adventure. We'll let you know how it goes!

 

 

We've got a busy year ahead of us. Here is our schedule of Hosted Trips for 2012:

• Jan 15-21 -- Delphi Club, Abaco Bahamas (bonefish)


• Feb 1-18 -- South Island, New Zealand (trout)


• Mar 18-Apr.1 -- Patagonia, Argentina (trout)


• May 19-26 -- Belize River Lodge, Belize (tarpon, etc.)


• June 3-10 -- Boca Paila, Mexico (tarpon, bones, permit)


• June 10-17 -- Isla Holbox, Mexico (tarpon)


• June 23-30 -- Ponoi River, Russia (Atlantic Salmon)


• July 14-21 -- Kulik Lodge, Alaska (trout/salmon)


• Aug 18-25 & 25-Sept. 1 -- Bighorn River, MT (trout)


• Sept. 12-20 & 16-24 -- Tsimane Lodge, Bolivia (dorado)


• Oct. 27-Nov. 3 -- Agua Boa, Brazil (peacock bass)


• Nov. 26-Dec. 3 -- Tres Valles, Argentina (trout)

Detailed information and prices are available on our web site for most of these trips. If you're interested in a destination that is not yet posted, please contact us. We hope to see you in 2012.