Fishing under the shadow of volcanoes - Chile - Kdu Magalhaes- Adventures/ENGLISH 51

FISHING UNDER DE SHADOW OF VOLCANOES
Kdu Magalhães: http://www.sportfishing-brazil.com/


THE CHILEAN SCENERY
Looking at the Chilean map, we can see a strip of land with a length of 4263 kilometers. Its average width is only 177 kilometers. In the center is Santiago del Chile, the country capital. The strip ends at Patagonia, at the tip of South America.


In Chile, the fishing season for trout and salmon starts in the second week of November and finishes on the first Sunday of May. But 100 years ago, you would find neither of these species. Famous as Chile is now for its fishing diversity, trout and salmon are not native to the region. In Chile, they were introduced into rivers and lakes around the beginning of last century, by landowners in the south, who imported the eggs and alevins from hatcheries in both the US and Germany. In the beginning they were imported just for the benefit and recreational fun of the big landowners, but due to the great success of their acclimatization, the Chilean Government started an incentive to create large fish farms. As a result, today Chile has the largest fish farms in the world, and has just achieved first place in the world as salmon food exporter. With the large number of Chile’s salmon farms, the natural evasion of fish smaller than the nets’ mesh, occasional unexpected storms periodically destroying fish pens and releasing tens of thousands of salmonids, it is estimated that millions of fish have escaped into the wild in the last thirty years. The ideal local and regional environment (good climatic conditions, suitable habitat, fast flowing rivers) and the proximity of the Pacific waters (which remind me very much of British Columbia), has allowed trout and salmon to grow and become the dominant species throughout the region. Nowadays, most of the coastal rivers of Patagonia have seasonal runs of Coho, King and Atlantic salmon. In those runs, Steelheads, Brown and Rainbow trout can also be found. Brook Trout thrive in great numbers, in slow moving rivers as the Maullin River. In the Lake Llanquihue, and some smaller lakes, you can find a resident Atlantic Land-Locked salmon population.










Amongst the first foreigners who visited Chile in the early 50 fifties, were Joe Brooks and Roderick Haig-Brown. They loved it, and recognized South Chile as having some of the world's finest fly fishing waters. PUERTO VARAS We stayed at Puerto Varas, a lovely small city 960 kilometers south of Santiago, founded in the 1850s by German émigrés. Nearby, there were the two rivers we intended to fish. To the West - the Petrouhé River, and to the South, the Maullin River. The local scenery was dominated by a big volcano, the Osorno, and a smaller one, the Cabulco. During our fishing trips, we never lost sight of at least one of them. You can see more details of this area in http://www.wildriver.cl FIRST DAY: PETROUHE RIVER




We stayed at a charming lodge between Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas. Our local guide Marcelo Wilhelm, is the owner/operator of one the lodge. He take us in a pickup, towing a 15 feet boat. They call them “Makenzies”. It is an aluminum rowing boat. It took 45 minutes until we reached the Petrohué River, in a place suited to launch the boat. It is a very fast river, but full of small bays and hideouts. The trip of 16 kilometers down river would take eight hours. We would be met in a place called “Arenales” by the pickup.

We launched the boat and a strong North wind started to blow, helping our guide to row down river, but making it extremely difficult to cast our flies. The weather was unexpectedly hot for this time of the year, causing ice melt from the snow capes of the Volcanoes. And the resulting water flow, a mixture of the black powdered lava sand with the clear water of the river, resulted in a visibility of no more than 50 centimeters. After some time, Marcelo advised us to stop with our fly rods, and use our spinning gear instead. My host for the trip, Mario, was very upset at the wind and the water visibility, claiming that in the same week, last year, the conditions were perfect.

We started to spin-cast down river, without much success. So we stopped in the flat borders of the river, to try to start some action. We were using big (1 oz) rounded spoons painted yellow and red. As those are the colors of the Spanish flag, the local call those spoons “españolas”. In the beginning only small trout attacked them. But the # 4 treble hooks were too big for their small mouths. Anyway, we caught four famished rainbows, not much bigger than the spoons. If we were using small spinners, we could have caught a lot of them. But that was not our aim. We wanted big salmons. So we kept the “españolas. But they did not appear. A small consolation was 2.5 kilo rainbow. According to our guide, due to the fast flow of the river and the dark water, the salmon were hiding themselves very near the shoreline. Do we decide to go to the middle of the river, and start to cast very near the shore?

Then our troubles started. The river span is around 60 meters. As we were fishing in the middle of the water flow, our 30 meters casts, needed to be perfect, not to tangle in the margin obstacles. If the baits got caught, good bye! The boat could not stop. The rower had not strength enough to row up river. We lost 10 spoons in the first day. Around 1 pm, we stopped in a small bay to have lunch. During the time the guide was preparing the food, very good by any standards, and cooling an excellent Chilean Bordeaux, we went to fish in the “ensenada”. I changed to light tackle, with # 3 Mepps spinner and caught and release a dozen small trout. Diego insisted on the “spañhola” and caught a nice 4 kilos steel head. Still on the beach, my first cast after lunch, (maybe because of a half bottle of the Chilean wine), brought a big Coho, around five kilos. He was so famished that he gorged the full bait with the number 4 treble hook, and even with our lengthy efforts to revive it, died spilling a lot of blood. What a pity for so beautiful a fish to die. Deeply saddened after that disgusting scene, I substituted the trebles for single hooks.

We kept going down river, and around 3 pm, caught two more Coho, both released without problems. At 4 pm, we arrived at the ”Arenales” beach 16 kilometers down river, and started our 55 minutes trip back home. SECOND DAY: MAULLIN RIVER. This small river reminded me very much of the Sete de Setembro River in the Xingu Area. Very sinuous, lots of sciliar forest, slow waters, dark water, and full of fish. To arrive there, we travelled 35 minutes through dirt tracks crossing the paths of Chilean old farms. I could swear that I was in the middle of back country in Germany. It is a beautiful river. Lots of small bays and inlets. And a good place for the “farios’ as the Chilean name the browns. They are very timid, and like to hide under the margins.


A very precise cast is needed, because of the great number of old logs and floating debris, where the browns love to hide. But in this slow moving river, we could stop the boat and untangle the baits, if necessary. In hours we caught more than 20: small ones. The biggest maybe 1.5 kilos. I used all kind of artificial baits with the same success. Marcello, the local guide, told us that the really big browns, up to 8 kilos, can be easily found at the Puelo River. A very expensive place to go. The only lodge there charges U$ 1000 for one day fishing trip. Besides the “farios” my friend Mario caught 3 nice “perches” that the locals call “Percas”. We stopped for lunch in a very nice pebble island in the middle of the river. Lettuce, onions and tomatoes salad, fresh cured salmon and delicious black bread. Not to mention the wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon, “Cabo de Hornos”, made at Vina de San Pedro, a vinery owed by my friend and host Diego Martinez. By this time, the guide was ready to take some time off and went to fly fish. As usual, good wine brings luck. On one of my first casts, I caught a nice perch creole, now a IGFA World Record. The 32th I have broken. The rest of the afternoon was eventless. Lots of small browns, and one or two rainbows.




THIRD DAY. RIVER PETROUHE

Waiting for the opening of the gates of the farm, that I should cross to arrive to the river, we found a lot of fly fishermen. Americans and Peruvians. To our surprise, the water visibility had improved considerably. At certain points, we could see almost 2 meters deep. But the wind was still blowing hard and the current, swifter. In those conditions, it was very difficult to cast and catch anything. You need to be an expert enough to cast all the fly line in a single double haul. If you are not able to do this, the flies will not reach the targets you want to reach. After a few trials we gave up and reverted to spin-casting.

Thanks God the sun was not so fierce like two days ago due to the change of the wind, from South to North. Bad for the rower, but comfortable to us. Due to the transparency of the water, we decided to use “españholas”, with silver backs, instead of the copper backs we used last time. And it worked: in less than an hour we caught two browns of 4 and 7 kilos. Just before we chose the place for lunch, we saw a huge king, gliding in the water like a submarine. After lunch, and a good cup of wine, my luck again brought a big present. Just in the middle of the river, a sudden ‘geyser’ erupted when my bait hit the water. It was a big Chinook that started to peel off my line with the speed – not of a submarine, but of a destroyer. Luckily, instead of running to the main water flow of the river, he speeded in the direction of the shore. My guide, rowing like a madman, after some time, hit one pebble beach with an impact that almost threw me overboard. I jumped out and started to work on the fish. Fifteen minutes later, it was grounded. When I saw the joy jumps of my guide, I thought to myself: “This must be a very big fish for this river”. Indeed it was. Eleven and half kilos. As you will be able to see in the photo, it was a really nice fish. Nothing like my former 65 lb caught at Sitka in 1998, but a very good fish for Chilean standards. But if you look at the other photo, with Diego holding the same salmon, it looks much bigger. Holding the fish with extended arms and using a great wide-angle lens is the trick. During the fight, we had drifted almost a kilometer down river. So, half an hour later, we arrived at Arenales and started the long trip back home.