The process of planning a great fishing trip starts with doing research on the area, the time of year, and the abundance of the species you are after. Along those lines, we felt you might enjoy some background on the state of the golden dorado fishery in northern Argentina which, we’re delighted to report, is a story with a happy ending. There are a lot of dorado in the rivers now and reason for great optimism of exceptional dorado fishing in late 2024 and 2025.
If you know about this part of the world, you may know that Argentina was mired in a “La Niña” weather pattern that starved the country of rain through much of 2022 and into 2023. Fortunately, this has been followed by an “El Niño” jet stream which brings more consistent rain, a lot of rain. Now, nobody likes to fish in the rain, so at this point you are probably asking, what is the big deal? Well, this abundant rain has recharged all the freshwater reservoirs including the big daddy of all reservoirs, the Iberá Wetlands, which is the second largest wetland in the world, (eclipsed only by the Pantanal in Brazil) and covers an area of over 7,000 square miles. So, long story short, there is a lot of water in the vast area of the Iberia marshland that provides warm, shallow water spawning habitat to literally hundreds of different species of forage fish as well as to the dorado.
The Corriente River, the main artery that flows out from the heart of the Iberá has this season brought a huge migration of schools of many kinds of small fish which provide forage for the dorado. In this late-middle portion of the season, lots of and lots of dorado are being caught. The water and fishing conditions have been largely perfect too, and there are many, many, fish currently in the two to ten pound range. Action has been fast and near the surface since lots of dorado fishing is on floating lines with light gear.
Back to the planning. If you are thinking about ticking off a bucket list dorado trip, this is a good time to start planning for a trip later this year or into in 2025. The great marshes of Argentina have always fished in a cyclical fashion with the coming and going of the rains. All those two to ten pounder fish drawn in by recent rains will be five to 14 pounders next year, the perfect size for ripping into your backing and banging your knuckles on the reel handle. There are far bigger fish in the system as well. True 20lb+ fish are caught with some regularity, and on any manner of fly tackle. Hook one of these fish and you’ll find yourself in a prolonged, aerobatic and chaotic fight.
We are anticipating a year where great numbers of fish will keep running into this vast marshland and the thousands of fish already established will develop and grow in a very healthy way.
