South American Brown Trout

Here is an old photo taken sometime in the early or mid '90's on the Futaleufu river in Chile,check out the first generation pair of Simms breathables. I spent a season back in the day guiding on the beautiful Futaleufu River in the northern Patagonia region of Chile. It was a dream job as the Futa is paradise and I was working for legendary angler, writer and photographer Jim Repine. Jim has since sold his operation but at one time Jim and his wife Sonja operated one of the finest fishing lodges in all of Patagonia.

Jim is a huge fan of Hexagraph fly rods and had invited the owners of Hexagraph down to fish the Futa. Hexagraph fly rods are a unique concept in fly rod design, they look and feel like bamboo but are made of modern materials. Almost identical in action and construction to bamboo, Hexagraph rods are incredibly durable yet fairly lightweight.This is how I found myself drifting the Futuleufu one beautiful sunny spring day with Jim Repine and Hexagraph owner Harry Briscoe.

If my memory serves Harry was in the bow of the raft casting a rabbit strip sculpin pattern toward the bank. As I rowed the raft in to the lunch spot Harry hooked up with a heavy fish that immediatly ran for the far side of the river. Since we were close to shore I pulled the boat in to the lunch spot and let Harry get out and play the fish from shore. After securing the raft, I looked over to see that Hexagraph bent right down to the cork. As hard as Harry pulled he didn't seem to be able to gain any line on this mystery fish.The Futaleufu river has a small run of Chinook Salmon aka King Salmon which apparrantly originated from fish farming escapees.To see that flyline stretched across the river and that rod bent to the cork, Jim and I started to wonder if Harry had hooked into a Chinook.

The Futa is a wide clear river and in this section the river rocks were coated in a thick heavy moss. It started to become clear that the line had gotten stuck in the mossy rocks after that long initial run. Though we were doubtful that the fish was still on, Harry waded out managed to get the line off the rocks just as the big Brown Trout surfaced on the other side of the Futaleufu river. After that the fish came in pretty easy and we got this nice picture of Harry, myself and the mystery fish. Too bad I'm too busy checking out the beautiful Hexagraph rod to look at the camera. I had a good laugh last year when I noticed that the Drake magazine had a Hexagraph ad featuring Harry, myself and this very same Futaleufu Brown Trout.

Flyfish Argentina

I received this picture along with a very short email explaining in detail just how good the fishing is on the Rio Gallegos in Argentina right now. The pic is of a very happy client alongside Christer Sjoberg,Loop Tackle founder and all around good guy. It doesn't matter where he is in this world, Christer always seems to find time to email me photos like this just to remind me that he is out there 'workin it' while the rest of us are just plain working. Anyone that has been fortunate enough to spend time with Christer knows that he doesn't do anything half assed. As such when it's time to fish for sea run Brown Trout, commonly called Sea Trout, Christer can be found wading the banks of his beloved Buitreras beat on the Rio Gallegos. It would seem that recent catch and release regulations are already having a positive effect on the Gallegos, not that the fishing needed much more. According to Christer, and trust me he would know, the fish this year are large and plentiful. Hmmm....I think I'll try and get down there myself in March. Anyone care to join?

If I do make it down to Argentina this spring I will be sure to spend 3 or 4 days fishing Jurrassic Lake as well. For those that have never heard of it, Jurrassic Lake is probably the most productive Rainbow Trout fishery on the planet. Here is another shot of Christer doing a little field test of Loop products. All work and no play-yeah right. As for Christer you've got to give him credit, not only does he design great flyfishing equipment, he also knows how to look good putting the gear to good use earning style points with the new Loop shades and always popular Opti 3L Cheak jacket.