Returning Home:ChileTrout Lodge on the Lago Frio

By GARRISON DOCTOR

I have fished for trout all over the western US, Iceland, Argentina, New Zealand and Chile, but I know there are still so many trout regions to explore. Out of all the areas I have fished for trout, none compares to the Aysén region of Chile in terms of the variation of opportunities in a relatively compact area.

The drive from the airport in Balmaceda to ChileTrout Lodge on the banks of Lago Frio, revealed valleys of lupine flowers in violets, purples, and the occasional whites as snow-studded peaks looked on from almost every direction. Returning to ChileTrout Lodge felt like returning home for my wife and fishing partner Corinne and me.

Our good friends Pancho and Karina run this small family lodge and seeing them and getting to fish with Pancho is always a highlight of our year. The faint smell of lenga wood smoke mixed with green growing things filled the cool spring air.

In the living/dining room of the lodge, the full lake view with mountains behind opened up through the wall of glass windows. In the small lagoon in front of the lodge Chilean Flamingos provided a pop of pink to the landscape. The warmth from the wood stove filled the room as sizzling sounds from the kitchen made my mouth water.

The only drawback of the view from the dining room, is that it is possible, if not probable, to spot rising rainbow trout cruising the weed edge of the lake below as you are sipping a glass of wine, and while fun to watch, if you are like me, this can be hard to take! From this central base, it is possible to fish for the day on sizable rivers, huge lakes, small creeks, small lakes, rivers between lakes, small spring creeks, and whatever trout habitat may lie in between.

These varied waterways will take you everywhere from lush temperate rainforest with curious chucaos calling from the water’s edge, to dry, wind-blown, open grasslands with black chested buzzard eagles soaring overhead.

A couple hours from the lodge, further into the wilds of Patagonia is the ChileTrout spike camp. On the fourth day of our visit, we crawled in the truck down a little dirt track through the forest. Magellanic tapaculos sang their two-note squeaky call from the undergrowth, we came into a little clearing on the bank of a pristine lake.

A small trailer with comfortable bunk beds and a small kitchen/dining area provided cover when needed, but the party was always at the fogón, a hangout area with walls of driftwood around a big fire. Positioned around a huge flat rock to block the Patagonian wind, an old stove hood directed smoke up against the southern stars as the sound of waves on the rocky beach below and the smell of steaks from the grill filled the air.

For some glorious reason, the brown trout in the lake in front of camp love mouse flies, like really love them. A small mouse fly seems to outperform any other fly on this lake most days, with many of the smaller 14-18” fish going fully airborn out of the water to attack the fly! Any location where you have the opportunity to net over 20 brown trout on mouse fly in a single day is pretty special in my book.

We fished up the lakeshore, laughing at some of the mouse eats and exclaiming as some of the bigger fish sucked the fly off of the surface. We came to the inlet river and some of its tributaries, one of which was a spring creek small enough to jump across. We changed over to a single beetle pattern and went to work trying to place the fly in the small targets the little creek provided.

There is something about the simplicity of a tiny creek and a single dry fly that will get any fly angler back to the roots of the sport. However, tight targets are not easy to hit in a gusty Patagonian wind and gin clear water does not make for forgiving trout. Still, we were rewarded with a couple fish from the creek and many more from the lake as we switched back to the mouse fly and worked our way back to camp and a cold beer.

Some of the other lakes in this general area provide exceptional opportunities for large fish. Of course, when fishing these lakes, the number of fish per day goes down, but personally, I am happy to roll the dice on quality over quantity any day.

I fished slowly down the shoreline of one such lake, stripping a couple small streamers back through the bubble lines, and felt a tap, tap and my line went tight. I set the hook and yelled with excitement. This excitement took a turn towards anxiety as I watched a massive buck brown trout leap clear of the water. It was one of those fish that makes you catch your breath when it jumps, and you see clearly what is on the other end of your line.

After a few more jumps and a couple of strong runs, the buck was getting close to the shore, I muttered to myself “stay glued” and seconds later the fly pulled free. It was one of those crushing moments, when you know you did everything right and it just didn’t work out. There was nothing for it but to get back to the grind. A few hours later I was able to claim a bit of redemption as a gorgeously fat hen glided into the net. She was a fish to remember, with incredible proportions and girth for a brown trout. But I will be back for that buck…

Another lake in this area is a personal favorite of mine. It is the perfect balance between numbers of fish and size of fish. The structure of the lake is what makes it truly unique, there are islands, creek channels, rocky banks, weedbeds and some strange holes... I walked slowly on a grass island in the lake, feeling the ground beneath my feet moving like a giant, rigid waterbed.

It is a strange feeling to walk through high grass on dry ground and know that you are not on solid ground at all!

Interspersed around and on this island are some deep sinkholes. Some of them are only three feet across, but they go down very deep and somehow connect underneath back out to the open water of the lake.

As we approached one such hole, Pancho cautioned me to slow down and tread softly. I stayed back so I could not see down into the hole, but he snuck up so he could barely see down into the depths.

I carefully dropped a small, heavy, jigged streamer into the hole and it did not take long before Pancho yelled “SET”! I was suddenly playing tugof-war with a big, old, brown trout. I knew if I let the fish get down too deep and turn out into the lake, I would never see it again, so I applied all of the pressure I thought my tippet and hook could handle. Luckily everything held and we were able to net the fish.

It was another fish to remember, not necessarily for its stature, but because of the place! Over a lunch beer and some steaks, we dubbed it “the troll in the hole”.

Back at Lago Frío and ChileTrout Lodge, we brought in the new year with a fantastic traditional lamb asado, drank too much and soaked in the rich textures of the milky way and southern stars from the wood-fired hot tub. The caddis hatch off of the lake was incredible, with caddis flooding into any open window of the lodge. If you listened closely, you might have heard one of the strong Lago Frio rainbows picking caddis off of the weed line.

For more information on ChileTrout lodge visit: www.chiletrout.com

For more from Garrison Doctor check out his Instagram: @garrisondoctor or @repyourwater

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