A one-of-a-kind fishery in a distant nook of Patagonia is slowly gaining extra consideration from record-seeking salmon anglers world wide
The enormous king salmon weighed an estimated 66 kilos and was launched again into the Rio Caterina in Argentina. {Photograph} by Tres Amigos Outfitters
There aren’t any crystal balls in relation to fishing information. However we now have a fairly good hunch that the following world-record king salmon will come from a distant, glacial river system within the Argentine province of Santa Cruz. You don’t must take our phrase for it, both. A recent video shared to Instagram exhibits the caliber of world-class fish which might be constantly being caught from this faraway fishery.
The quick clip that Tres Amigos Outfitters shared in early February exhibits angler Fabian Mengo releasing an “absolute beast” of a Chinook (also referred to as a king salmon) that he landed with native information Tomas Biott. They caught the fish from Argentina’s Rio Caterina, a distant headwater stream that flows between two lakes inside Los Glaciares National Park. Tres Amigos is considered one of only some licensed information companies that may fish the river, and most anglers entry it by staying with considered one of these outfitters at Estancia Cristina.
Positioned in an extremely scenic and hard-to-reach nook of Patagonia, it’s actually a one-of-a-kind fishery. And due to movies like this one, it’s slowly gaining extra consideration from record-seeking salmon anglers world wide.
“I feel this place is exclusive,” Biott informed USA Today earlier this month. “Nature is so overwhelming and fish so huge that solely in goals may it’s this manner. Glaciers, lakes, and kings as much as [90 pounds]. Anytime, the world report is about to be damaged.”
Biott was referring to the all-tackle world report king salmon, which weighed greater than 97 kilos and was caught by angler Les Anderson on Alaska’s Kenai River, in accordance with the International Game Fish Association. Anderson’s report has stood since 1985, and though greater fish have reportedly been caught and released since then, it stays of essentially the most coveted fishing information on this planet.
The king salmon in Tres Amigos’ catch-and-release video wasn’t fairly large enough to exchange this report. And since the anglers launched the fish with out getting an authorized weight measurement, it wouldn’t have certified for the IGFA’s all-tackle class anyway. But it surely’s nonetheless one of many greater Chinook we’ve seen in current reminiscence. The salmon measured roughly 46.5 inches in size with a 31.5-inch girth, and Biott estimated its weight round 66 kilos.
What’s even crazier is that Mengo’s Chinook isn’t the largest to come back from the Caterina in recent times. The clothing store’s Instagram page is filled with large king salmon which have been caught and launched there, and Tres Amigos claims that the largest Chinook they’ve landed was near 90 kilos. That fish measured roughly 53 inches lengthy with a 35-inch girth, in accordance with a 2018 post (under). Plugging these numbers into the weight estimator formula that many salmon anglers use ends in a complete weight of roughly 87.7 kilos—or simply 10 kilos shy of the present all-tackle world report.
“Simply assume that this Chinook arrived with possibly 10 p.c or possibly 15 p.c of weight extra,” Tres Amigos wrote within the put up, referring to the quantity of weight most salmon lose throughout their journey upriver to spawn. “On this place there’s a critical likelihood of catching the world-record king salmon anytime.”
Learn Subsequent: Angler Catches Pending World-Record Chinook Salmon in Argentina
The Santa Cruz watershed (which incorporates the Caterina River) is the one place on this planet house to Atlantic-run Chinook salmon. The species is native to the North Pacific Ocean, however a self-sustaining population has flourished here after being launched from U.S. waters. Fisheries biologists now consider that a number of the Santa Cruz run may have additionally originated in Chile, which launched its personal Chinook introduction program utilizing fish shares from the Columbia River Basin within the Seventies.
