After spending a week at Casa de Campo, our next stop was fly fishing at Trocoman house with SET Fly Fishing. It wasn’t the original plan…we were scheduled to stay at Rakin Lodge (although we know it as Codihue), a new SET lodge approximately two hours away by car. We were looking forward to fly fishing new water of the Rio Codihue and had added four days to the trip to experience fairly untouched waters. But on Wednesday night, our guide Birdy asked Dancingtrout if we’d be interested taking the helicopter to Trocoman House because the head guide, Danny, had called and said the green willow worms were still around with fish rising to them. She quickly came to me with the information and my only response was “can we spend the night?”
It turned out the answer was yes we could spend the night. We still had two days of fly fishing the Rio Alumine ahead of us, but we were excited at the opportunity to ride in the helicopter again and fish the Rio Trocoman. How many times does someone send a helicopter to take you fly fishing?
The Trocoman is a special river to us and we would take any opportunity to fish it. We’ve created wonderful memories on the upper section and have seen big fish around Trocoman House.
We experienced the willow worm hatch back in 2023 during our first Argentina trip with SET. The willow worm is an interesting insect because it begins with an egg on a leaf, develops into a larva which feed on the leaves, builds a cocoon, and hatches as a sawfly adult which I think is similar to a size 16 tan caddis.
When the wind blows (which it does in Patagonia!), green willow worms fall into the water and guess what happens?
The fish go crazy…big fish! (This is from 2023)
Here is a favorite Trocoman trout I caught last year, although it ate a beetle, but this shows another big trout and why we love the river.
We planned our trip last year to Chochoy Mallin with the intention of hitting the willow worm “hatch” on the Trocoman, but the weather was cooler with higher water and we were too early for willow worms. That isn’t to say fishing was bad. We had a memorable trip.
Receiving Danny’s comment about willow worms raised our expectations and reinforced our hope we might have some great fishing.
What is special about Trocoman House?
It’s located in a beautiful, rustic setting along the Rio Trocoman with poplar trees providing shade. While it is off-the-grid, guests enjoy the solar panels for electricity, Wi-Fi, and a wood fired cook stove and separate wood fired hot water heater. To say it is remote is an understatement. Many of the amenities were hauled in by horseback and supplemented with helicopter as it drops off guests to fish around the house or stay for a night or two.
To get a sense of how remote it is, when leaving the river the following day, we drove for an hour on the estancia before arriving at the road. The first 20 minutes or so was in low gear 4-wheel drive on a barely visible track tires had made the previous day with Danny and Franco driving in to meet us. They drove from Chochoy Mallin to guide us.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We fished the last two days from Casa de Campo on the Rio Alumine and then Daniel, our host, drove us to a grassy field above their lodge so we could meet the helicopter. It was a beautiful setting.
While flying the 50 minutes enroute to Trocoman House, I recognized Trolope Creek and Agrio Waterfall we had seen in previous years.
Looking out the window as we flew, I remembered why I enjoy riding in the helicopter and the spectacular views.
We arrived at Trocoman House with Danny and Franco greeting us when the helicopter landed.
The river was just as I remembered it in front of the house and the water level looked perfect.
The plan was to have a quick lunch and fish the river the afternoon and the following morning before a four hour drive to Rakin Lodge to fish the Codihue for two days.
We walked downstream with the hopes of finding rising trout and it didn’t take long to locate them. Seeing this first Rainbow rising reinforced our decision to say “yes” to Danny’s offer of fishing around Trocoman House.
Like many rivers in Argentina, fishing isn’t easy because the fish are holding under trees and bushes to feed on insects. This makes casting difficult if not impossible without hooking branches…especially using a hinged, dry/dropper combination!
The next image was taken by our guide Franco capturing the willow worms climbing down the tree.
Danny and I waded into the river and slowly walked upstream into a good casting position.
It wasn’t long before I hooked up. Well, not all the fish were big! Here is the first fish I landed.
Here is a short reel of an actively feeding trout taken by Franco Orellano, our SET Fly Fishing guide. Remember I said how difficult if not impossible it was casting to these fish?
But I was able to manage a few good casts and hooked several.
Of course, the biggest fish broke off! We could see it return to its hold with a bright, fluorescent green willow worm in the mouth.
Willow worm imitations weren’t the only flies working. Fish ate a Parachute Pheasant Tail too.
The next morning, we headed out again looking for rising trout. It wasn’t long before Dancingtrout found one. She missed it the first time, but cast to the same spot and the fish rose again!
What a beautiful Rainbow!
Walking farther downstream, we tried out luck on the opposite bank around overhanging trees.
The fish were there, but a little smaller than we were looking for.
We had only planned to fish the morning, so decided it was time to walk upstream to another fishable area.
It wasn’t long before Danny and Franco spotted fish. I missed the first one and moved farther up the river to this area. The first thing you should notice are all the branches hanging over the water. I added the red “X” to show where the fish were holding in the slow-moving water. Talk about an impossible cast!
Here is another spot a few yards farther and I got a lucky cast under the branches and a fish rose and ate my fly.
I’ll remember this fish.
A lot of times I choose to stop fishing after landing a nice trout, and this is one of those days. Plus we had a four hour drive to the lodge. I thought it was time to go.
But walking back to Trocoman House, they spotted another trout working the water. Dancingtrout and I both said we were done and encouraged Danny to use the rod with the pink reel. To our surprise, he said “yes”! He hooked up on the first cast.
And landed this beauty. Notice Franco holding the Winston rod with a pink reel? Both of them laughed.
Back at the house, we removed our waders and boots, packed up all our gear in the Fishpond roller bag and Johnny strapped it to one of the horses for the short trip up the mountain to Danny’s truck.
As we hiked up the mountain, I took a couple pictures to remember our extra day on the Rio Trocoman.
Enjoy…go fish!
