From: 12/03/2017
To: 02/28/2018
Type of Water: Freshwater
Species: Brown trout, Brook trout
Brook Trout fishing in South Patagonia
One of the most famous kind of fish for its beauty and the fun of catching them is brook trout, salvelinus fontinalis. Lately Patagonia –clothing brand- has introduced to the fishing world the movie called “finding fontinalis” in which the director has moved from the search of a world record brook trout into a conservation effort to keep some pristine places that hold brook trout as safe as they can.
Meanwhile, way down south from Chubut province, there are a few creeks in Santa Cruz province that are famous for its brook trout fishing, like Pelke, Coyle and Chico Sur. But I must say that brook trout in these fisheries is very challenging. I was born fishing these creeks and today I have developed a destination called The Route of the Spri View more...Brook Trout fishing in South Patagonia
One of the most famous kind of fish for its beauty and the fun of catching them is brook trout, salvelinus fontinalis. Lately Patagonia –clothing brand- has introduced to the fishing world the movie called “finding fontinalis” in which the director has moved from the search of a world record brook trout into a conservation effort to keep some pristine places that hold brook trout as safe as they can.
Meanwhile, way down south from Chubut province, there are a few creeks in Santa Cruz province that are famous for its brook trout fishing, like Pelke, Coyle and Chico Sur. But I must say that brook trout in these fisheries is very challenging. I was born fishing these creeks and today I have developed a destination called The Route of the Spring Creeks, where these beauties are the main goal, along with some really fun brown trout fishing in skinny waters.
The idea of fishing and experience the lifestyle in real estancias was my mission from the beginning. I`m 4th generation of pioneers and feel very keen on showing every visitor how hard was to my great grand father to work with cattle and sheep in the most hostile environment you could imagine. Gives you perspective of what you have and how you live today! One short story that shows how hard was the winter in the beginning of the XX century is from an ranch neighbor called Lesner; he lived first in a basement 2 meters deep in the ground not the feel wet, while he was building his first house. Every night he slept with this leather boots raped to his body to be able to put them on in the morning with out ice on them”. Yep -35C was not strange in those days.
But what really keeps me busy in this land is the brook trout, how to understand its behavior, and also to look for that big mama that holds in some deep pool somewhere along the route.
People from all over the world came here to experience this kind of fishing, in spring creeks, slightly different from what they find back home, with a lot of hunting more than casting to these fishes. Medium size brooks are not very easy to see in the surface during the day, even less if it is sunny, unless a big hatch is on, but also the wind can be tricky and speed up this condition. They hate wind more than local fishermen.
Big brookies usually leave the bottom of the pool right before the sunset. That is the time when the mouse pattern comes out from my fly box. Big fish big meal makes a lot of sense here in some of these deep holes. The lack of speed in the water of these spring creeks makes every angler by the end of the week an expert on how to move a fly. Brook trout don’t react so fierce into a dead drift fly as much as to a popping fly. That in my opinion is the moment to take a big fish on a dry fly.
During our last seasons at “The Route of the Spring Creeks” brook trout from a pound to 8 pounds have been caught, and that only happens in places where you reach after long hours of walk, there are not signs of fishing pressure for years. Brook trout are very territorial, so any hard impact on them can low the fishing quality immediately. But also there is another thing I found very interesting; even though we have put back every single fish we´ve caught, we rarely see the same fish been caught (typical wounds).
“A way to give some back after enjoying so much these fisheries was the introduction of some fries brought from wild trout of Tierra del Fuego, from really big and beautiful reproducers caught on the lakes district of the Heart of TDF. We hope to see more pieces of water with life again in the next 4 years.
These creeks turn gin clear in the middle of the summer, so sight fishing is very common in lower water conditions. With good glasses (COSTA made a huge difference) you may spot huge fish stick to the ground almost as still as rocks. Those fish can be spooky as hell and getting down with a heavy streamer feels like the best option but not many times gives a good result. I would wait to see if they start feeding. Every time the conditions are good I spend hours lying down on the ground looking the big ones to understand how they behave, and to be honest, some of them are completely unpredictable. I observed huge fish over 7pds running upstream and downstream like trains, and I was not moving! Why so crazy? Probably fighting with other big ones for a good spot before dinner.
Some pools I counted more than 20 big fish over 3 pounds and could not touch a single one with ten different flies. Those days brook trout got all my respect. As in other occasions we got 14 brookies in 14 casts haha!
We are preparing ourselves for one more season chasing the most beautiful fish on earth, “The Route of the Spring Creeks” 5th year! Stay tuned and follow our reports
