Villa Maria Lodge Week 8: Feb 21-27, 2020

Week eight at Villa Maria Lodge is in the books with another group of old and new friends. 

Continuing the usual patterns of the 2020 season, this week started with tough conditions due to higher flows coming down from the upstream reaches of the Rio Grande. Our anglers stayed motivated and kept at it, and we still landed good fish in the 15-18 lb range.

Tough conditions became a “theme” of the week. When the water level stabilized, the wind started to blow at its strongest. Similar to last week, we had some of those “typical” Rio Grande days where the wind blew at 90 km/h (60mph). It might sound unrealistic, but usually in these conditions the worst is not the casting, but the water clarity due to debris and coarse sediment that is stirred up by the waves. After losing a handful of quality size fish, Jamie finally hit the sweet spot in an afternoon session during which he landed 4 very nice fish, capping his day off  with a fresh 16 lb buck.

Ian and James, a father and son pair, were enjoying each other’s company on the river. Both enjoying a solid week with a good amount of mid-teen fish. James’ highlight of the week was landing a beautiful 20 lb male and a couple of healthy 18 pounders. Congrats James!

Ashwin, a first time Rio Grande visitor, got tuned into the fishing during the week. Unfortunately he had numerous heartbreaking losses of big fish, but still kept his morale high and did a fantastic job landing several fish and vastly improving his technique. 

Dimitry had a consistent week and came back for our last tapas night with pictures of a beautiful, fresh 18-pound female from his last session of the trip.

Dictated by the conditions during the week, we used mostly sink tip skagit heads and other heavy tips that helped us cast the larger leeches and big-silhouette rubber legs close to our targets.

Alejandro Martello. Villa Maria Lodge Head Guide.