Land of el dorado

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ESQUINA, Corrientes, Argentina -- This small town, built along the east bank of the mighty Parana River, is about as long as the river is wide.

This is wide country, where the sky dominates the flat land and low hills that stretch forever; at times the other side of the river seems to go to infinity. The twin spires of the Church of St. Rita are the only things that can be called tall. The local casino is not remarkable but adds a bit of color at night.

Clouds can be great dollops of whipped cream, cotton-white against sky as blue as on the Argentine flag. At times, the clouds are low and soggy, making the Parana look murky. A storm with a lightning and thunder show can shatter the night.

By day, the freshwater dorado can shatter the water as anglers try to reel in this fish known as the "tiger of the river."

The dorado is the Salminus maxillosus -- Salminus because of its similarity to trout and salmon, and maxillosus because of its large jaw. The dorado is as golden as its name; sometimes its tail and fins are orange, almost red. It is a prized game fish and draws anglers here to test their skill and luck.

The dorado's teeth and jaw are so powerful that steel leads must be used; otherwise it could chew through a line and swim out of sight. The dorado can be more than a yard long and often weighs 40 pounds, sometimes more than 50. In the Esquina area, they generally are from about 9 to 15 pounds.

Other game fish include mandube, manguruyu, pati and palometas. Anglers can use the conventional bait casting or can employ fly-casting from a boat or the shore.

Big fish need plenty of water, and the dorado finds that in the Parana and its tributaries. The Parana is the second-largest drainage basin in South America -- after the Amazon -- with a watershed of more than 1 million square miles. Its 2,485-mile route from its source in Brazil and through Paraguay and Argentina makes the Parana the 13th-longest in the world.

Esquina is in the heart of Litoral, the northeastern corner of Argentina and one of the country's six geographical regions -- besides Corrientes, the Litoral provinces are Missiones, Entre Rios, Santa Fe, Chaco and Formosa. The Litoral wraps around the southern half of Paraguay and also borders on Brazil and Uruguay. It is very hot in summer -- when the Northern Hemisphere is having winter -- and at all times of the year, much of it is wet and swampy. Winters are cold but brief; summers are, yes, tropical.

The provinces of Corrientes, its northern neighbor, Missionies, and, to the south, Entre Rios, are also known as the Argentine Mesopotamia because they are the "land between rivers," in this instance between the Parana and the Uruguay.