It is currently 28 Mar 2024, 11:07


1, 2  Next New Topic Add Reply
Author Message
Patagonia, Unsupervised
Post 19 Feb 2017, 12:59 • #1 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
I'm just back in the winter world, after a three week summer sojourn to Chile and Argentina. It was a great trip, and I think it can be done more easily and cheaply than some people expect. Many friends have asked for some details, so I'll tell a bit of the story.

The trip started when a friend was taken on a cruise with his family from Buenos Aires to Santiago. After the trip, an effort by his parents to spend the kids inheritance, he wanted to stay down and see more of the area. At a drastically different cost, I might add, since he is recently retired and careful with his spending.

I offered to come down and split the cost of renting a car and look for some fishing. Trip on!
We agreed to meet in Puerto Montt, Chile and go from there. Round trip airfare from Bend Oregon to Puerto Montt was $1630. I scheduled 20 days, including arrival and departure days.

Researching the trip we found three areas of interest, the Lake District of Chile near Puerto Montt, the area south around Cohhaique, and the area around Bariloche, Argentina. We figured we could do two of the three.

Many descriptions we found compared Chile to the Pacific NW, and Argentina to Montana. This comparison proved quite accurate, and because we would be camping a fair bit we decided to spend most of our he trip in Argentina. Accounts of taking a rental car from Chile to Argentina ranged from difficult to impossible. It took weeks of emails and raised the truck rental from $1009 to $1265, but we eventually did get all the paperwork and were able to do a big loop into Argentina and back. The vehicle was perfect—a small king cab diesel truck which had scratches and dents everywhere. It was 2WD but had good clearance and suspension.

Neither of us were seeking trophy trout. You see a lot of photos of Patagonian monsters, but they often come from lakes, sea run estuaries, and bigger rivers, All those venues are expensive, require a boat, and tend to be wind blasted. We were looking for aesthetic mountain streams with good dry-fly opportunities. We just wanted to do some mid-summer fishing in February.

This strategy paid off nicely. For example, on the Puelo, a larger river in Chile, we decided it was too big and windy, and a bit off color. We fished a smaller tributary, the Puelo Chico and caught a zillion trout on light rods. That night we had a room next to a group who spent all day with a guide and a boat chasing big trout and salmon but were skunked.

We repeated that success everywhere. We fished 19 spots, and caught fish at 17 of them. Many of the spots were what I consider “Holy Grails”, small clear streams with abundant smaller trout hiding in all the proper places, with the ever-present chance of a big one where you least expect it. Camping on the rivers gave us access to some great evening caddis hatches as well as some early morning stupid fish, who would take anything big and loud on top.

I returned home and found a big catalog of Patagonia fishing trips in the mail. The price ranges from $4700 to $7900 for six days of fishing. We did 19 days of daily fishing and site-seeing for $1610 each, including the truck rental. How did we do it so cheap? Well, we camped 12 nights, often in undeveloped spots. We cooked over a camp stove and only hit restaurants when we passed through a town. We had the best wine we could find, but they usually topped out at $10 a bottle.

I guess no write up on this forum would be complete without a plug for glass rods. I brought four rods:, a Tenkara rod for small pocket water, a 7’8” Aventik 4 wt. 4 piece glass rod, a 7 ½ ‘ Fenwick Voyageur FF756-4, and a 9’ 5wt graphite rod, which is really a 6 wt. I wanted rods that were not too valuable if they were lost or stolen, and all but the 9’ rod fit in my carry on. The graphite rod was good for casting big stuff in the wind, but really boring for the smaller fish. It didn’t get used much. The FF 756-4 was great, it cast dry flies and hopper-droppers on windy afternoons and did not feel like overkill for smaller fish. It was my main rod. The Aventik 4 wt was the most fun to cast and catch with, and really proved its worth when I hooked a 20” brown on a #18 partridge and orange soft hackle. The fish was a bit downstream on 6X tippet and that full flex rod was great
.
I tried to leave most fish in the water, and I lost a camera, but I'll photobucket up some photos of the trip.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:06 • #2 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
Chilean scenery: Lots of green rolling farmland sandwiched between a dramatic coast and some serious mountains:

Image

Image

Image

Image

Chile was not as good as Argentina for camping, but a room here with dinner was $39 each

Image


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:14 • #3 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
Into Argentina

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:27 • #4 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image


Image


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:29 • #5 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 11/24/14
Posts: 1896
Location: US-NC
Just an amazing trip. Thanks for sharing.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:32 • #6 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
Image

Image

Image

Image


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:38 • #7 
Guide
Joined: 12/02/13
Posts: 134
Location: Argentina
Hi , Newfydog
Glad to hear you spent great time in Patagonia !
You are right saying this trip could be done in a cheap way , there are a lot of rivers whith public access and good fishing .
Tell me please , which were the rivers you liked / enjoyed most ?
Did you go to Quilquihue River ?

Regards
TROMEN


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:44 • #8 
Master Guide
Joined: 02/14/15
Posts: 684
Location: NM
That looks like an absolute blast. I bet you had more fun doing it your way than the more expensive way, too!


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 13:54 • #9 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
The best river was the Malleo. It lived up to its reputation as a world class dry fly stream from top to bottom. We found good camping and great fishing everywhere. I had a massive brown (6lbs easy) grab a green inchworm on my Tenkara rod, right in camp, right next to the bank (the line broke, not the rod).

Next would be the Meliquina. Water so clear you could have read a newspaper 7 ft down and hundreds of fish on dries.

We screwed up the Quilquihue! We went up to the Boca, and found shallow riffles, with lots of small fish rising---as in minnow small. Downstream of there we found a beach party on with dozens of swimmers in the pool. We then beat our way downstream on some dirt road and found a really difficult section, narrow, fast tough wading. Never did the lower section. All in all we did well for knowing nothing about the area, but that one we could have done better!


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 14:00 • #10 
Master Guide
Joined: 02/01/12
Posts: 900
Location: Upstate NY
Sounds pretty awesome, your gona have some jealous readers of this.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 14:08 • #11 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 11/09/10
Posts: 1355
Location: US-CA
Nice! Major envy factor.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 14:57 • #12 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/26/14
Posts: 3578
Location: US-MN
Newfy, awesome trip! Thanks for sharing! Good to see it can be done without spending an arm and leg. It is officially on the bucket list now.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 15:43 • #13 
Sport
Joined: 05/20/16
Posts: 52
Location: US-NC
Wow, unbelievably gorgeous! Thanks for sharing and inspiring me to start planning a trip.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 16:11 • #14 
Guide
Joined: 12/15/14
Posts: 102
Location: Western North Carolina
That looks to be the trip of a lifetime! Thanks for sharing some of it with us.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 16:53 • #15 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 11/24/14
Posts: 1896
Location: US-NC
I recall you were going to pick up the book Chasing Rumor. Did you find the author's experiences/adventures to be representative of what you encountered?


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 17:17 • #16 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
I think the Rumor guy spent too much time looking for something to whine about. We had more fun than I expected from his book.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 17:43 • #17 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/10/07
Posts: 1632
Location: The Netherlands
Holy smokes, what a dream trip!

Yeah, I long for a Patagonia trip for a long time.
Have yet to put my mind & work on it to look for a DIY trip.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 18:00 • #18 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/12/16
Posts: 4093
Location: USA-CO
That's some great-looking country and water, with absolutely beautiful trout! Thanks for showing.


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 18:34 • #19 
Sport
Joined: 08/08/16
Posts: 42
Location: Huntsville, Alabama
Could you set up camp wherever you wanted?


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 19:26 • #20 
Master Guide
Joined: 03/03/16
Posts: 483
Location: Upstate NY Maryland eastern shore
way cool !!


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 19:38 • #21 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 08/25/08
Posts: 1526
Location: Delton, MI
Fascinating!


Top
  
Quote
Post 19 Feb 2017, 20:29 • #22 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
jessejw18 wrote:
Could you set up camp wherever you wanted?


No, there were many places designated "no camping", but then there was a nice mix of camp spots with no regulations, some free, designated camp spots, and some commercial campgrounds with showers and a little kiosk. There is a fair bit of private water, but at any bridge you can access the water and hike up and down the streambed.

Everywhere we went, people were super friendly and helpful.


Top
  
Quote
Post 20 Feb 2017, 09:31 • #23 
Master Guide
Joined: 06/10/13
Posts: 624
Location: US-MO
A totally awesome adventure. Amazing, truly amazing.


Top
  
Quote
Post 20 Feb 2017, 10:41 • #24 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 09/18/09
Posts: 5561
Location: Relocated to the Drought Stricken West.
How good is your Spanish? With my zero knowledge, I wouldn't try it, but I am interested with how much you needed.

That is a dream trip.


Top
  
Quote
Post 20 Feb 2017, 11:01 • #25 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
My Spanish is not great---I had some in high school, but have worked on it a bit since then, and have traveled a fair bit in Spain, Mexico, Cuba etc. I can get most basic things done. I was amazed at the range of English skills. Some people in a tourist type jobs spoke none, some spoke English better than me.

It is useful for certain, but not essential. We spent November mt biking in Thailand, and I don't speak any Thai.


Top
  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  

1, 2  Next New Topic Add Reply



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Greedad and 17 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Jump to:  
Google
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group