Tickling for trout, fishing in El Toyo
Recently our guides took a family expedition camping for two nights into the nearby Andes mountains. This is always a wonderful experience, but recently the guides, on their own initiative, have started fishing in the river where we camp, and including our tourist visitors in the fun.
The method is unusual. Lacking fishing lines and all the expensive equipment, they do what the local country people do: make it from what they can find. The fishing rod was a used beer can, with s string line wound around it and a hook and a piece of bread on the end. With this they caught 4 trout for supper. The other way is ‘tickling’ for trout and catching them in your hands. Sometimes the guides do fishing on day rides as well in the high season.
In the evening they took our clients, including an 11 year old boy, up the steep hill, carrying bits of wire which they used to trap rabbits. Result: rabbit stew for lunch the next day. This kind of activity would not suit vegetarians, but for the rest of the world, if you can get over the city dweller’s reaction, that maybe it is cruel to fish and trap animals rather than buy them off the supermarket shelf, then you can enjoy this real country experience.