About 45% of TresRios guests during a season have fished with us before, some folks as many as four times. Although there is always interest in fishing some of the favorite and familiar waters, it is only reasonable that we would include new water in every program. After a couple weeks of fishing based in Ensenada, it becomes an exciting alternative to take to the road (we certainly love it!).
We are fishing the great variety of water that is found between Chaiten and La Junta, from the Pacific coast to the Argentine border. This includes mountain rivers large and small, streams, lakes, ponds, coastal rivers, and even the ocean. These fisheries are some of the best in all of Chile for rainbow, brown and brook trout. Occasionally there are salmon, and if you cast in the ocean there are a number of salty species, but in general you catch trout, very nice trout. Some of the legendary waters of Chilean fish lore are in this area: Yelcho, Futaleufu, Palena, Figueroa, Rosselot. Many more are not well known and yet perhaps more interesting in many ways. Just as in the Ensenada area, we enjoy fishing beautiful water in solitude, always avoiding popular spots, working a little harder to reach isolated stretches.
Rather than having a lodge base, we have a network of private cabins and hotels strategically positioned to cover this entire area. In general we fish a different fishery, or stretch of a river, each day and stay at a different river-side cabin each night. Instead of a long drive each morning we hit the water just after coffee. We sure hope that the fish should settle down again between the time we go through and the lodge-based anglers reach the same water some time later (in those cases where we are not entirely alone)!
No, this is not roughing it. Each site is set up differently and each one has all the creature comforts a fisherman/woman needs. Our contacts and accomplices in Patagonia are descendents of colonists that first settled the area, who in turn have lived their lives in this magnificent but difficult country. As you can imagine, they know everyone (not a lot of people in this area) and how to get everywhere (not easy).
There is also the option to fly out by helicopter to magnificent spots that are virtually unreachable by other means. This is the part of Chile where the Andes range runs into the ocean, and when you see this splendor for yourself you’ll know that I am not exaggerating about the difficulty in reaching some spots. One great aspect of heli-fishing is that you can hop from one fishery to another in 15 minutes by bird when it would take a day or two by land, or by jeep, horse and boat. Coastal rivers are notorious for being hot and cold; when the fish are in you hit the jackpot, if they are absent, or the river milky you are out of luck if fishing from lodge or yacht. By helicopter you get back in the bird and buzz off to another of many, many options. Bad weather on the horizon? Hop back to base quickly and safely in the helicopter, whereas you could be stuck for days on a boat or in a camp.
No contest, if your budget allows you to share a chopper with up to 3 passengers (plus guide), then it is, without a doubt, the best way to fish exclusive water that has been locked up and reserved by nature. This past season a Bell Ranger with capacity for pilot plus 4 pax was $750 per hour of flight time. TresRios does not own helicopters nor operate them nor commercialize them, we merely reserve them and make all the arrangements. The five anglers that flew into the star fishery for a day this past season unanimously declared that journey one of the most memorable times they have ever spent.
Typically you would fly into Puerto Montt from Santiago on LanChile. If your arrival is after 11:00 then there are two options. We could spend the day/evening at TresRios (with or without fishing as time permits) to continue to Chaiten the following day, or charter a flight to Chaiten. If your arrival is early enough to make the 11:30 local flight on to Chaiten then you would be arriving at about 12:30. Within 45 minutes we could be floating a stretch of river, or we could continue on a bit to cast dry flies to trout rising along the tulles in a lake. That evening we would continue to a cabin on the banks of the river to be fished the following day. Each day thereafter we would repeat the sequence of great day fishing, short drive to next cabin, wine, dine, and snug sleep to the babble of the river outside. If heli-fishing, you can start with the chopper at Puerto Montt and fly direct to the base site with fishing in one or two hours depending on the program. Programs can be all road, all chopper, or combos with one or more days with a chopper on a road trip.
There is great versatility in our outfitter program. There are many options as starting points (e.g. Chaiten, Futaleufu, Palena, La Junta) and the program can go north to south or vice versa. If you already know the area you might have certain ideas about where and how you want to fish, or you may just want to leave it up to us. Either way we can come up with a customized program for the fishing that you most enjoy, in the timeframe that you have.
