The past 24 hours had been a circus of movement. In Ecuador, remoteness is not measured by distance, but by time and terrain. We were six hours from the road, nine hours from a highway and 17 hours from home. One sprained ankle or heavy rain doubled that time. This was up there with the deepest dives I had taken into this part of the Amazon. Time, and particularly nightfall in the wilder-ness, serves as a reset. The absence of technology and stark reality of being in the troposphere give clarity, a visceral escape from modern existence, which can be ruined by the wrong company. Thankfully, this motley crew was as comfortable in the rancho as it was in the suburbs of Quito. As we lay down for the night the southern sky came alive with lightning. Thunder sounded in the distance. The gaps in the roof looked bigger, glow-ing with every flash. The fire had been doused but smoke and warmth wafted through the floorboards. The sound of the rain woke me before the drips from holes in the roof. It was a wet night. All I could think about was the river. It would be another hour and a half to get there in the morning and it was likely to be completely blown out. We awoke in the predawn to clear skies. Getting up was a relief, but I was still exhausted. Somehow the fire was still warm and we had a flame for boil-ing water in minutes. We strung up everything we could to dry. Calvo and I were headed to the river, the rest of the guys were going to walk the perimeter of the property. Ninet y minutes of slipper y leaves and snot-like mud brought us to the river and it was in perfect con-dition—low, clear enough to work to my advantage and strewn with boulders and pocket water. It was beautiful. A blanket of vegetation covered the steep canyon walls. Trees and vines looked like the spires and gargoyles of a natural baroque cathedral. Calvo walked right up to the edge of a pool and I bayed at him to come back. Dorado are fantastically aggres-sive, but spooky as hell. I sat on a rock in a meditative state for a few min-utes, cigarette acting like incense and the river noise like a chant. Manifesting. Then I stood up and got into position for a cast into a large pool. My first cast was sloppy, about two yards shy of the target and collapsed. I stripped like hell to get tension and started my water haul and then came a flash. A fish whacked the fly without coming tight, but it was a welcome sign. Collected yet jittery, my second cast was perfect—right across the current seam where I could get the action I wanted. Nothing. Three more casts. More nothing. I shifted position. With no room for a proper backcast, the next presentation only went halfway across the pool, a little up current from where I’d aimed before. Two fish attacked, the smaller fish getting the eat. I was tight to a dorado in a section of river that had never been fished with a fly before. Calvo was smiling. He had never seen anyone flyfish and had never seen a fish of any size come out of this river. I then realized that I hadn’t shown him or explained anything about my camera, but he was a quick study and soon I had him making pictures of the fish and the fishing. A while later I heard a voice. Calvo was nowhere to be seen. He had been a good distance behind me. The voice again. Still no Calvo. I reeled up and started to walk back upriver, a little uneasy. For a moment, the remoteness of my situation became oppressive, until Tapio and Calvo appeared from behind a boulder. Tapio wore combat fatigues and had the rifle slung around his shoulder. Hearing I’d caught fish brought a smile to his face. During our climb the day before he had caught the scent of jabali—wild boar—and pursued them for a few hours until he lost the light and made camp in the jungle. No boar for dinner, but he said he found plenty of fruit. He was interested in the fishing, particularly the releasing. Calvo, on the other hand, looked at me like I’d run over the family pet when I released the first fish. We’d only made it 300 yards downriver when the clouds started to look like they had plans. Working back upstream, I focused on the big pools where I could get a good cast and retrieve up current. I brought a few more fish to hand and laid eyes on a real one trying to eat a 15-inch fish I had on the line—probably close to 30 inches, 9 or 10 pounds. I sent an extra 10 casts into that pool, but no dice. At the confluence of the creek and the river we sat for a quick meal. My exploratory 3.5 hours of fishing had yielded 10 fish to hand and a look at a big one—not too bad, all things considered. • LEFT • The permeable roof of the rancho, with the warming hearth working its wonders underneath. THE FLYFISH JOURNAL 073
The Flyfish Journal The Flyfish Journal 15.3: Page 73
