Fly Fishing the Rio Baguales with Rumbo Patagon

One of the reasons we travelled to Chile and fish in southern Patagonia was because of the scenery. Yes, catching Brown trout was the goal, but why not fly fish in a beautiful place? On this day, fly fishing the Rio Baguales with Rumbo Patagon was our destination and Torres del Paine was in full splendor behind us.

Did I mention the scenery?

I hope you read last week’s post about the Rio Penitente where I mentioned all the gates we drove through. The Estancia Cerro Guido was no exception, passing several gates on the way to the river. It was a massive estancia and even had their own school and airstrip.

We finally arrived at the river where we had been assigned a beat for the day. I walked to the wooden plank bridge and took this image upstream.

What we found on this river was very nice pocket water.

Brown trout willingly rose to our dry flies, most of them on the smaller size in this section. A few were caught on the nymph dropper.

It was a classic riffle and pool river. Here I am fishing the drop off below the riffle.

And Dancingtrout fishing below a similar riffle.

As we walked upstream fishing the pockets, Dancingtrout found this skinny Brown in the shallow water. They are difficult to manage for a quick picture as the fish wiggles for freedom.

I’m still amazed how skinny some of these 16 – 18 inch fish are. They must be starving!

The fish seemed to get bigger as we walked upstream.

I love the blue spots on the gill plate of a Brown trout. The fly is a Condor nymph my guide from Chochoy Mallin in Argentina tied using a condor quill for the body. It seems to work in Chile as well!

On the drive to and from a river, we’d occasionally see a Rhea in the distance. Below is an image I captured as it ran along the fence line. I found a few feathers while walking along the river…and no, I didn’t bring them home!

Lunch found us walking back to the truck and enjoying the scenery as Maxx warmed up our meal. The cups were filled with hot soup, something we enjoyed everyday. I don’t recall what story Maxx was telling us.

The view below is from the truck where lunch was served. The scenery was stunning!

Thanks for a great day Maxx. We had a terrific time!

Enjoy…go fish!