Tsimane Secure Lodge Hosted Trip Report - June 11th - 19th

Tsimane Secure Lodge Hosted Trip Report – June 11th – 19th:

We made it! Two years of trying times, COVID pandemic, cancellations and rebooking we made it on our hosted a trip to Tsimane Bolivia on the Secure River Lodge for Golden Dorado, the first for WorldCast Anglers. With a motley crew ready for just about anything, we started our trip flying direct from Jackson to Houston, overnighting in case of any COVID testing problems, then next day a 5 hour trip to Panama City, then another to Santa Cuz, Bolivia. Our Untamed Angling representative meet us there, we loaded the gear and headed to Los Tajibos Hotel, a nice 5 star hotel, restaurant, pool and bar. The next day our UA rep Zoltan meet us at the hotel and gave us our really only bad news of the trip, that we wouldn’t be able to fly to the lodge in the morning due to rain. But by the afternoon, the clouds had lifted and we were able to make it into camp on a 2 hour domestic flight. Normally, we would have arrived around noon, meet the guides, put our gear together and head to the home pool, a short boat ride upriver and fish the front and bottom of a decent rapid. Because of 6 days of rain and the delay of getting to camp, we meet the Argentine guides for the week Franco, Lucas and Gabriel; great guides, very knowledgeable of the Chimane Indian culture and our translators!

Day 1: High water and off color but noticeably dropping from the rains. Our weather the whole trip was nice and sunny. One boat went to the middle River, the other down to the lower Secure. The lower river guys, Ben and Tim had a tough day bumping flies into every log jam they could with big flies and heavy lines. Andy and I had little better success, Andy on the second cast, right on the bank caught a nice adult dorado! Great start, then later in the day after several hits but no solid sticks I caught my first dorado and close to the biggest for me, a 15 lber on a huge black NYAP popper!

Day 2: After a solid dinner, some nice wine and breakfast the crew went out to fish the upper Secure River, where the water was cooler with much better clarity. The crew were able to catch dorado above and below rapids, at the confluences of smaller rivers and some of the tail outs where you could sight fish! The technique is to slowly move upriver pushing the bait, sabalo upriver and when they come rushing back, an adult dorado or hopefully more rush in and a feeding frenzy can happen, which did on occasions and did for Ben and Tim catching fish from 10-15 lbs!

Day 3-4: The Marriot overnight, Secure lodge offers an overnight from the main camp and we were the first ones of the season to be able to do so! The Chimane natives are excellent waterman, one in the stern running the motor and the other with a pole waving with a hand to guide us through rapids up the river. For our camp experience, we fished our way up to camp the first day then the second day fishing above camp. Upriver the water is clearer and skinny, with several side channels. We would leapfrog the runs, Andy was able to catch a very nice 10 lb dorado on a feeding frenzy with several other fish trying to eat the fly his fish ate and I was unable to seal the double deal with the frenzy. Later on the afternoon, Ben and Tim doubled up on dorado on a frenzy, the guides and the Chimane and all were smiling! Other species, like Pacu and Yatoranas were casted to and caught, as well! The Pacu being the jungle permit and the Yatorana being the their piranha type fish, bigger fish but not as aggressive. Bigger resident dorado were seen in the 20 lb range, however not landed. Either trying to eat a smaller one on the line or just not hooked well, the biggest we saw just wouldn’t stay hooked!

Day 5: We switched gears after the overnight, one boat went back to the lower Secure river and Ben and I went to the Ashahana river, a smaller feeder creek. We climbed, scooted and sneaked in to some very cool places to see Pacu and dorado hidden behind rocks, close to banks. The water was very cool and fish not very active. We did catch dorado and the scenery was very impressive with many different bird sightings as well as some big cat tracks. The boys that went to the lower river did well with the water clearing warming and more new fish coming upstream, both landing some of their biggest fish of the week!

Day 6: The crew swapped stretches, Ben and going to the lower river and Andy and Tim hitting another small feeder river to sight fish. On the lower river, many smaller dorado caught in water resembling section 4 of the South Fork, with one big Yatorana caught by Ben! A stellar photo opportunity by Lucas, our guide caught a pic of a jumping dorado several feet from the camera closed our lower river experience and enjoying a few cold Pacena beers for the run back up river.

That was our week of fishing the golden dorado! Great weather and plenty of fish! The next morning with flew back to Santa Cruz and headed back to the states to tell our fishing stories!

Untamed Angling is the only outfitter working within the Tsimane National Ingenious Park with 3 different lodges; Pluma on the on confluence of the Pluma and Secure, which hosts 8 anglers, Agua Negro, hosts 4 anglers for a remote smaller experience fishing in for big fish in small rivers and the Secure lodge. If your interested in fishing for golden dorado in Bolivia, Untamed Angling has the program dialed and is now working with WorldCast Anglers. Please contact WorldCast Anglers for more information on the the next trip to Bolivia, we are planning another one! Be sure to stay updated on the WorldCast Anglers Hosted Destination Offerings!