TresRios is about fly fishing in Chile for strong, wild fish, away from everyone else, in a setting of natural splendor, with a chance for trophy trout. We are located in an area of great diversity in fisheries and landscapes. Choose your favorite types of water among large and small rivers and streams, large and small lakes and lagoons, spring creeks and salt water estuaries. Play browns, rainbows, sea-run browns and salmon all in the same day! The area we have been fishing for years runs from the Andean peaks on the border with Argentina, to the foothills punctuated with live volcanoes, down to the fjords, and across the forested rolling lowlands to the Pacific Ocean. Weather conditions are generally favorable, and lacking that famous wind of Argentina. Yes, it can rain in Chile, but in this area we always have clear-stream options. Our guides are professional and personable, fly fishermen from childhood, eager to share their expertise and put you onto fish. The comfort and hospitality at the lodge is more than you’d ask for. To be utterly dependable we use only top-of-the-line gear, boats, and vehicles.

Non-angling companions will have plenty of alternative activities to choose from in the immediate area e.g. rafting, horseback riding, hiking, mountain biking, summit ascents, excursions, windsurfing, touring, and more. We can easily arrange any of these adventure activities for you.

Fly Fishing with TresRios Lodge

>For 250 miles along the Andes Range waters on the Chilean side run to a series of great clear lakes. Near the lodge is the most picturesque of them all, Lago Todos Los Santos, an emerald hued, fiord-like lake in the heart of a road-less national park and old growth rainforest reserve. Several streams drain the rugged mountains, flowing to the lake through steep valleys choked with bamboo, lush vegetation and granite walls. Access is only through the streams themselves. Rio Cayutue, Rio Blanco, Rio Sin Nombre and Rio Punteagudo are just a few of these clear wading streams. A very special one that we call “Return to Eden” on the far side of the lake is especially awesome in its unspoiled natural enchantment.

Lake Todos Los Santos has a healthy population of rainbow, brown and brook trout fattened on crayfish, minnows, snails, shrimp, insects, and each other. Dragonfly and damselfly nymph and adult patterns cast around the edges of reed beds in remote and protected arms of the lake are eagerly devoured.

The Río Petrohué flows from the west side of the lake, dropping 500 feet in the 25 miles to the saltwater estuary of Reloncaví. Probably 2/3 of the drop is in the first 12 miles, with spectacular falls and Class III rapids in the upper stretches. This is a fairly big river cutting through a landscape heaved up by plate tectonics and covered by volcanic ash and rubble. The wild scenery is magnificent, hardly a vista without a snowcapped volcano dominating the surrounding mountainous terrain covered with impenetrable rainforest down to the river banks.

This untamed river, runs fast over large freestone in the upper stretches, and then over sand and gravel with embedded deadfalls and undercut banks in the lower, limited access section. Trout thrive and grow heavy on the abundant pancora crayfish, puye minnows, and, of course, smaller trout. The Petrohué typically has one brushy, overhung and undercut bank, while the opposite bank will be a gravel bar where one can wade. Side channels and tributaries offer small stream wading and dry fly opportunities. Muddler and otherminnow patterns are effective cast against banks and around logs, provoking aggressive attacks from browns waiting in ambush, and it’s always a good idea to probe the shallow water first where puyes and pancoras fall prey to cruising browns. Another favorite strategy is to fish down with streamers on sinking tip lines to coax the larger fish out of their deep lies. Woolly bugger variants, zonkers, matukas, kiwi muddlers, marabou muddlers and bunny leaches are very effective.

Most resident fish hooked on streamers are in the 16” to 20” range, and it’s a very rare day when someone in the party doesn’t release, loose, miss, or roll a fish over 20”. At different times in the season there are a few Atlantic and Coho, plenty of Chinook salmon, and the occasional sea-run browns in the system. Generally anglers come for the trout but it's hard to resist casting now and then to 20 pound salmon when you know they are there.

Six different wading streams run off the apron of Volcán Calbuco, three on each side of the lodge, flowing into either the Rio Petrohué or Lago Llanquihue. We don’t fish the ocean-like lake but angling for alewife fattened rainbows can be good where the Rio Tepu and the Rio Blanco flow into the lake. Only minutes from the lodge, these are great short day or before breakfast options for the I’ll-sleep-when-I-get-back-home angler. The outflow of this lake, the Rio Maullin, and its tributaries, is also very good where we float the inaccessible and heavily wooded sections.

On the north side of Lago Llanquihue, the Rio Coihueco, a clear stream over gravel and small freestone, winds through wooded rolling countryside. This surprising and overlooked fishery is ideal for floating and wading with lighter gear.

Come whenever you can because the fishing is always good in several of the many options around us.

The most effective methods and patterns for big fish in area rivers are well presented in Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout by Kelly Galloup and Bob Lindeman.  We have no commercial interest in sales of this book but we recommend it because you can read in advance what your guide will be suggesting here on the river.  Chance favors the prepared angler, and we want to see your rod doubled every chance you have.