Santa Fe · August to April
A hard mouth, and a fish that goes up
The golden dorado is the reason a good many anglers come to this stretch of the Paraná and pay no attention to the shooting at all. It is heavy-headed and hard-mouthed, with a jaw full of teeth, and it goes into the air the moment it feels the hook. The local name for it is the river tiger, and it is not the sort of nickname a fish gets by accident.
You can take it on the fly or on bait. Both are guided, and the ghillies at Rio Bravo spend the whole season on this water rather than moving between rivers. If you have not fished for it before, the thing they will tell you first is that hooking one is straightforward. Keeping it on is not: a hard mouth and a violent first run account for most of the fish that get away in the first ten seconds.
The dedicated programme is four full days and five nights, at 3,600 US dollars, and it runs August to April. In that package the fishing permit is included; tackle hire, if you want it, is 35 dollars a day.
- Season
- Aug–AprThe dedicated fishing weeks
- Programme
- 4 daysFive nights, $3,600 per rod
- Method
- Fly or baitBoth guided
- Permit
- IncludedIn the dedicated programme
Before the boat
What anglers ask about dorado
August to April. The dedicated fishing programme is four full days and five nights at 3,600 US dollars per rod, and the fishing permit is included in that one. Between May and August the lodge is running duck weeks, with dorado alongside rather than as the main event.
Either, and both are guided. If you have never fished for dorado, say so when you book — it is not a difficult fish to hook, but it is a difficult fish to keep on, and the ghillies will set you up accordingly.
Tackle hire is 35 US dollars a day. Plenty of guests bring their own; plenty do not. Either is fine, but tell us which so the boat is set up before you get on it.
Golden Dorado
In the field
Next
Tell us the month and we will tell you what is on
Give us the week you have and we will come back with what is flying or running, which lodge it means, and what it costs.