After spending a week fishing in Argentina, we travelled into Chile and slowly made our way to Puerto Natales in southern Chile for the inaugural season with Rumbo Patagon.
We were excited to visit the Puerto Natales area. It is home to Torres del Paine National Park, a spectacular visual experience of the Andes mountains and a destination for backpackers and day hikers.
This was the first season for Rumbo Patagon.
Gaston and Claudio Urrejola joined with friend Cesar Lobos, the manager, to create a wonderful experience for us to fish for Brown Trout in southern Chile. We fished with the Urrejola brothers back in 2007 just before they built their Coyhaique River Lodge. We were interested in extending our South America trip with another venue and initially thought about returning to fish with Gaston and Claudio. But we found out about this new venture and were intriqued with the area and opportunity to be some of the first fly fishers to experience these waters.
This was our cozy and intimate home for the week.
They describe the accomodations as a follows: “The classic estancia style home has been fully renovated and overlooks the Señoret channel on ones and has great views of Balmaceda peak and the Serrano Glacier on the other side. It has four bedrooms all with attached bathrooms and accommodates six guests per week.”
While there is room for six guests, it’s my understanding only four anglers fish per week.
The seperate sunroom below was enjoyable and we sipped on Chilean wines or a pisco sour.
On our first day, it was such a joy to see the mountains in the distance when driving to the rivers north of Puerto Natales. We fished The Rio Tres Pasos twice during our week, travelling through private estancia’s to find the river.
These double tracks became very familiar as our truck slowly traversed the estancia roads and thankful for four-wheel drive when a culvert was washed out.
Little did we realize how many more gates we would stop and pass through during the week.
This valley was wide with the Tres Pasos meandering thought the pasture, where curious cattle roamed and closely watched us open and close the gate behind us.
The water was small and intimate. Deep holes next to a grassy bank held fish. Here is my first trout in Chile, a nice Brown trout who ate my dropper nymph.
As we progressed upstream, sections of the river were partially covered with trees and presented difficult casting opportunities.
The red circle shows a trout eating the dry fly. We watched as it moved several feet and slowly took the fly. Here is Dancingtrout and our guide Nathan after landing the beautiful Brown!
It’s always surprising to me that such small, intimate water can hold large trout. I missed several, but did hook up and land this one.
And another…
Several of these Brownies looked like they needed more food!
Fly fishing the upper section of the Tres Pasos was a great way to begin our fly fishing week with Rumbo Patagon.
A couple of days later, we fished a lower section of the Tres Pasos. But driving through the estancia, our guide Maxx had to check on a sheep blocking our path.
We were in the truck and thought it was dead, but an ear moved. Was it the wind? Then I saw it breathing. So Maxx gets out, unsure what to do.
He reaches down thinking once he touches the sheep, it might wake up and run off. Nope. He had to lift and drag it off the road so we could pass!
I must admit, it was the strangest thing any of us had ever seen on the way to a river!
The weather changed this day and high winds were in the forecast. Maxx selected this lower section of the Tres Pasos because it was somewhat protected due to the trees.
Well, that was partially true. Here I’m trying to get a lower profile to minimize the wind.
Unfortunately, we only landed one small fish this day. I missed a nice one, but even nymphs below a dry fly didn’t seem to get their attention.
At one point, Maxx grabbed the back of Dancingtrout’s coat during a strong wind gust that moved her towards the river.
We decided to cut our day short and not fight the wind. There would be another day of fishing tomorrow…
Enjoy…go fish!
John, as always, great pics. Enjoy the Expo. I won’t be able to attend this year.
Magnificent scenery and beautiful fish! Now we know that sheep have deep sleep!