THE FIRST EMAIL arrived on July 14. “Reaching out to pass along some fresh ‘industry happenings’ from the heart of Bolivia’s golden dorado region,” it began. “I figured the Drake might be interested in looking into it.”
The “happenings” had occurred nearly two months earlier, on May 25, when the Angling Frontiers (AF) lodge owned by Bolivian-born and Dallas-based outfitters Patrick Taendler and Federico Marancenbaum was burned to the ground in the Bolivian jungle. One might assume that this initial email, along with the stream of texts, in-person probing, and inquisitive phone calls that followed it, would’ve all been asking the same two-part question: Who did this, and why? But the question many were asking was far more specific: Was AF’s torched lodge the work, directly or indirectly, of competing outfitter Marcelo Perez, owner of Untamed Angling (UA), and the man known to be Angling Frontiers’ sole adversary in the fight to sell pricey South America flyfishing trips?
“This seems like the unfortunate climax to a long history of sabotages between Bolivia’s two dorado operators,” the email continued. “With the ‘hearsay’ culprit in this case being Untamed Angling. And now, UA has an unchallenged monopoly in the country.”
Flyfishing-community chatter about the incident tapered off for a few weeks in mid-summer. But speculation exploded again on Sept. 5, when Angling Frontiers made an accusatory Instagram post showing photos of its burnt lodge along the Maniqui River,
