REP YOUR WATER - Escape to Chile

Garrison Doctor of Rep Your Water is back again this week with another dispatch from a faraway place that we can't get to right now.

Need more?  Circle back to Garrison's dispatches from Pyramid Lake, Bolivia and Jurassic Lake

Garrison wrote...  "The region of Chile around the small town of Coyhaique in central Patagonia is known by many travelling anglers as one of the richest and most diverse trout fishing destinations in the world. My partner in life and business Corinne and I visited our good friend Francisco, Pancho, at his small family owned and operated lodge called Chile Trout Lodge. The lodge sits on the banks of Lago Frio, a great rainbow trout fishery, and is surrounded by Patagonian peaks. Southern Lapwings call from the marshes, Chilean Flamingos feed slowly through the shoreline lagoons and Andean Condors soar overhead when the wind is right. The food, staff, and accommodations are top notch, but let's be honest, the fishing is what we came for...

The really incredible thing about planning a week or even 15 days of fishing in this area of Chile is that you will only scratch the surface of the accessible fisheries. You can be floating through the temperate rain forest in a misty rain on a turquoise, glacial fed river one day and casting dry flies in a spring creek in wide open grasslands the next with everything in-between in the days that follow.

The rivers in the area are incredible and many of them are well renowned: the Simpson, Baker and Paloma to mention a few, are incredible fisheries, but the lake fishing opportunities are also world class. When we visited the area it was early spring and different shades of purple lupine coated the valleys and shorelines. It was also rainy on and off and many of the rivers in the valley were a bit higher than ideal, so we spent most of our time on lakes and the shorter stretches of river that connect some of them.

We spent a few days at a lake that we affectionately refer to as "Secret Lake #17". I am sure it has a name, but I could not tell you what it is. We zeroed in on this particular lake as it has a great compromise of size and action. In other words there are lakes in the area where the average size of the fish is much larger but you just don't get as many shots. There are also lakes where you will get many more shots, but the average size does not compare. An added bonus was that for whatever reason this fishery is dominated by Brown Trout. We are talking, thick, clean, wild, spotted up, specimen Brown Trout...

Sight fishing from a boat over shallow "flats" of weed beds for these predatory browns is not unlike saltwater fishing from a skiff. They are not heavily pressured fish, but they are wild and wary, and the water is gin-clear, so your cast has to be pretty on point.  Watching a 5-8 pound brown turn and attack a well placed streamer through such clean water is something to behold. As we drifted over a flat looking for cruisers I spotted a suspicious dark shape 50 feet out. I launched a cast and watched the big brown turn, follow and eat. I strip set and felt a sharp tick but did not stay tight to the fish. Pancho threw me some well deserved choice guide words as we watched the huge brown spook off. I took a second to get my mind right, organized my running line and turned back to the water. Not two minutes later, another stud moved up a little weed bed trench. I got the fly well out in front of him, waited for him to close and then started a short, fast, strip retrieve. He charged it, ate, I strip-set right as he turned and nothing! He turned back after it, flashed the white of his mouth and ate again, I set again, still nothing. He spooked off of the boat and was gone. At this point there was a lot of back and forth in the boat as to what the f&*ck I was doing up front. I then did what I should have done after the first fish ate and did not come tight, I checked my fly. Sure enough there was nothing left of the hook, just a great looking hookless streamer. The first fish clean snapped the 2X strong, 2X heavy size 2 hook clean. Maybe it was a flaw from an over-tightened tying vise, or just a manufactured flaw, but those two fish will haunt me until we are able to return to Secret Lake #17, and trust me when I say, we will be back..."

Check out the Rep Your Water website and make sure you take a look at the Spring 2020 Collection.