When the Spanish conquistadors came to Ecuador, they were in search of gold. The Incas found most of their gold in the headwaters of the Amazon. I recently found gold in the Ecuadorian Amazon… golden dorado.
I’ve spent 25 years on the rivers of Ecuador leading kayak and fishing trips. Three years ago, I decided to find golden dorado. Most dorado fishing occurs in Bolivia or northern Argentina. It just didn’t make sense to me that Ecuador, with such similar topography didn’t also have golden dorado.
As a fly fishing guide, one of the most fun and sometimes challenging aspects of the job is finding new fishing opportunities. It isn’t unusual for my friend and co-guide, Bob Gernandt, and I to float some stretch of river we’ve never seen to develop a new fishing destination. Doing this in another country can be a bit more complicated, especially when you are heading into one of the biggest jungles in the world.
Having a lodge in the cloud forest of the Amazon has allowed me to tap into local knowledge. It also helps to have a partner in-country who knows the lay of the land and can speak the language. Last February, my partner Angel and I spent a month tracking down dorado leads. Angel visited one community after another with photos of golden dorados. The first breakthrough was learning that indigenous communities call the fish by its Ketchua name, Gualo. That led us to a handful of possible rivers to check.
Golden Dorado Help
We were dependent on local river transportation. The indigenous communities have used dugout canoes for centuries to transport people and goods in the roadless jungle. These canoes are 12-meter-long boats carved out of a tree trunk. We were able to check out three different sections of rivers using these narrow and incredibly tippy canoes. The advantage is these boats can negotiate whitewater while pushing upstream with a 40-horse outboard. They are almost impossible to stand in, so they are not the best platform to cast an 8-weight fly rod from. We eventually transported a raft and fishing frame upstream in order to float a section of river.
It didn’t take long to catch several Ecuadorian golden dorado as well as another species of fish call sabalo. Sabalo fry are the favorite food for dorado, so they are likely found together. If the sabalo survive the dorado, they grow into great sport fish. Their shape is similar to a largemouth bass, but they are much more aggressive and hard fighting. The golden dorado prefer rapids and fast water at the washout of rapids, while sabalo like smooth fast water between rapids. It presents an ideal situation for fishing because there’s no down time!
Once you catch a golden dorado, you are hooked for life. These are some of the hardest hitting, hardest fighting, highest jumping fish in the world. I can’t wait to hook into more gold.
By Ken Kastorff
Ken can be contacted at Endless River Adventures, 800-224-7238, endrivadv@cs.com, www.endlessriveradventures.com.
Photo by Pia Waugh/flickr.com