Bolivia

Sorry this took so long after the click bait post in the “what’s catching you fish” thread. I have a lot of excuses, but this is going to be too long already. I met my brother in law, Jim, in the Santa Cruz, Bolivia airport the morning of 22 August. The trip was mostly about fishing for golden dorado at Pluma Lodge. Jim and I decided to add a week on the front end. The trip consisted of a night in Santa Cruz at a very nice hotel with beautiful grounds.






, 3 nights at Refugio Los Volcanes, 3 back at Los Tajibos, 7 nights at Pluma Lodge and one more night at Los Tajibos before flying home.

Santa Cruz doesn’t offer many tourist attractions. It does have nice restaurants at incredibly low prices (ribeye for $22), and we were told by some young German guys a very fun night life - probably not for a couple guys in their 50s. Two places we visited and enjoyed were Jardin Botanico Municipal Santa Cruz the day before heading to Pluma and Biocentro Güembé our last day in Santa Cruz.

Refugio Los Volcanes far exceeded expectations. Refugio is an eco lodge in the middle of the cloud forest near Amboro National Park west of Santa Cruz.



It isn’t easy to get there,



but once you are there, it has to be one of the most peaceful places on the planet.

 

[CanoeGuy]

I first learned of kanekalon on a east cape Baja trip in 2020 - our guide liked it for his roosterfish flies. I use it on my LBM jig. I would say the stiffness is:

craft fur < nayat < kanekalon < bucktail

Not all brands of wig hair are the same stiffness though. I bought one pack that is much stiffer and is impossible to hollow tie.

Most of the flies I tied and fished were nayat with a bucktail base in the tail and a strung fuzzy fiber head to reduce fouling. These are on a a 3/0 Kona BGH hook. The guides thought they were too small, but they hooked fish well. I think the short shank made them look smaller to the eye.





The fish loved them, but the durability would have been much better with kanekalon. Durability is a big deal because the frenzies don't last long and trying to change flies during one is tough due to shaking hands! Some only lasted 3 or 4 fish. One failed because the tail slid down the bend of the hook. I started putting super glue on the shank before the bucktail about 1/2 way through tying. I did it to keep the tail from rotating during tying, but it likely helped the tail sliding down failure too.

Another style was a bucktail/flash/nayat/saddle hackle tail with a marabou (sometimes) and strung fuzzy fiber head. Jim fished these more than I did, but the chartreuse and black one below (no marabou) caught a lot of fish for me in the muddy water on the Sucure. The bucktail is 100% gone. There is some nayat left. It originally had 8 or 9 hackle feathers and a lot bigger head. The saddle hackles ended up being more robust than I thought they would be. I wish I had tied more unweighted flies of this style. The guides most common request when looking at my flies was "do you have anything bigger." The nayat flies were 5 to 6 inches and this hackle tail fly was 6. I had one yellow and black one I fished on day 3 that was about 8 inches. Caught a couple on that too. I also wish I had tied more unweighted black over red or purple - only had 2 unweighted ones thinking we would be fishing more light colored unweighted flies and the dark ones would be weighted. Only fished weighted flies in one spot. These are the three flies I fished on day 2. The one with no tail lost everything to the last fish on the last Secure feeding frenzy. You can see putting some good glue on the head would help too. I used Loon UV Flow on the heads and only had this one head fail. I had 2 guides tell me the one that lost its tail would be a good pacu fly .

 

[Brute]

Cool! Now we can add yet another fly tying material source - hair boutiques/shops (and exact retribution for the pheasant tail & hackle shortage of a few years

I first learned of kanekalon on a east cape Baja trip in 2020 - our guide liked it for his roosterfish flies. I use it on my LBM jig. I would say the stiffness is:

craft fur < nayat < kanekalon < bucktail

Not all brands of wig hair are the same stiffness though. I bought one pack that is much stiffer and is impossible to hollow tie.

Most of the flies I tied and fished were nayat with a bucktail base in the tail and a strung fuzzy fiber head to reduce fouling. These are on a a 3/0 Kona BGH hook. The guides thought they were too small, but they hooked fish well. I think the short shaft made them look smaller to the eye.

View attachment 193305

View attachment 193306

The fish loved them, but the durability would have been much better with kanekalon. Durability is a big deal because the frenzies don't last long and trying to change flies during one is tough due to shaking hands! Some only lasted 3 or 4 fish. One failed because the tail slid down the bend of the hook. I started putting super glue on the shank before the bucktail about 1/2 way through tying. I did it to keep the tail from rotating during tying, but it likely helped the tail sliding down failure too.

Another style was a bucktail/flash/nayat/saddle hackle tail with a marabou (sometimes) and strung fuzzy fiber head. Jim fished these more than I did, but the chartreuse and black one below (no marabou) caught a lot of fish for me in the muddy water on the Sucure. The bucktail is 100% gone. There is some nayat left. It originally had 8 or 9 hackle feathers and a lot bigger head. The saddle hackles ended up being more robust than I thought they would be. I wish I had tied more unweighted flies of this style. The guides most common request when looking at my flies was "do you have anything bigger." The nayat flies were 5 to 6 inches and this hackle tail fly was 6. I had one yellow and black one I fished on day 3 that was about 8 inches. Caught a couple on that too. I also wish I had tied more unweighted black over red or purple - only had 2 unweighted ones thinking we would be fishing more light colored unweighted flies and the dark ones would be weighted. Only fished weighted flies in one spot. These are the three flies I fished on day 2. The one with no tail lost everything to the last fish on the last Secure feeding frenzy. You can see putting some good glue on the head would help too. I used Loon UV Flow on the heads and only had this one head fail. I had 2 guides tell me the one that lost its tail would be a good pacu fly .

View attachment 193311

Good info…thanks. Dorado are on my list…maybe next year

 

[CanoeGuy]

Good info…thanks. Dorado are on my list…maybe next year

I think they are almost full for next year already. If you are serious, I would get on it.