Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/787068
172 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S Editor's Note: The author always welcomes and appreciates your comments, questions, and input. Please keep in touch at Mike@ AltizerJournal.com. my new pen from the Hotel Melia in Buenos Aries is hard at work, and I think about how small and insignificant and altogether blessed I am. n and facing into the current before lifting him ever so briefly to the surface for one last photograph. I finally slipped my hands from beneath him, and together Mark and I watched as he slowly and purposefully angled back into the depths. And now I can't help wondering what that old trout is doing tonight as I stare out the window of this dimly lit plane bearing me north beneath the stars seven miles above the dark Amazon forest, with Patagonia rapidly receding somewhere far to the south. In my mind, I can see him hunting there among the rocks and runs and riffles of that starless stream, he and Lanín patiently awaiting the still-distant dawn as the Malleo flows timelessly through the night. Tomorrow I'll set foot back in my home hemisphere, and soon I'll be fishing the Watauga above Sycamore Shoals. In June I'll be dining on salsa and fajitas and guacamole out on the white veranda overlooking the historic Plaza in Santa Fe, and come October I'll be stalking the great Huron Forest in northern Michigan with my old recurve bow for that big autumn whitetail that continues to elude me. But for now my little pocket journal sits open and receptive here in my lap, The author still thinks fondly about this old rainbow, his last trout in Patagonia, as it goes about its business back in the Rio Malleo. iF yOU WaNt tO GO In addition to their own superbly appointed and artfully staffed lodge at Tres Rios Casa de Campo, Lucas Rodriguez and Mark Lewis of Traful River Outfitters have carefully cultivated many longstanding relationships with some of Patagonia's finest fishing and hunting lodges, like the Olsen family's Hosteria San Huberto (olsenfamily.com.ar). Lucas and Mark are perfectly positioned to personally custom-tailor world-class fly fishing adventures, big game hunts, wingshooting excursions, and wildlife-and-photographic outings anywhere in Patagonia, whether for individuals, couples, or groups. For your own "experience of a lifetime," visit www.TresRiosCasaDeCampo.com, at www.TrafulRiverOutfitters.com, or at www.PatagoniaHunts.com. Or email them at t.r.outfitters@smandes.com.ar. Gear test You come to Patagonia not only to fish, but to learn all you can from some of the finest trout fishermen in the world. So one morning on the Malleo, I asked Mark Lewis, "If you could have told me before I got here what fly rod to bring, what would you have recommended?" His emphatic response was, "The one you have right there in your hand!" It was my time-proven Sage "ONE" 9-foot 5-weight. For decades I have relied on Sage fly rods (sageflyfish.com), along with my Tibor and Billy Pate fly reels (tiborreel.com), my trusted Simms waders (simmsfishing.com), my Vicious Vision polarized sunglasses (vicious-vision.com), and the flies and fishing packs from Umpqua Feather Merchants (umpqua.com) that I always use. For this experience of a lifetime, I could afford nothing less.