Fly Fshing in Chile and Unofficaly in Argentina

G’day,

Initially fishing was a little slow here in Patagonia.  Very HOT for this time of year.  Saturday the 19^th it was 95 when I fished the Airport stream.  But there was no wind.  I’ve had days with wind gusts of 45 mph on the pampas.  Less than a dozen fish in 4 hours and only one good fish.  All took a size 6 foam hopper.  

The next day I fished one of my favorite smaller streams that has a nice mix of browns and rainbows.  First fish of the day was a brown about 16 inches.  May have been the broadest fish of that size I’ve ever caught.  Almost looked like a body builder.  Not quite as hot as Saturday but still near or at 90.  Water was warm by 1:30.  Early on a size 16 caddis was the fly of choice but later in the day a size 8 fat Albert worked better.

I’m teaching a teenage Chilean how to fly fish.  He is going to “work” for me – do the shopping for lunches and the like.  Benjamin is a fencer and quite good I understand.  He understands timing and grace as opposed to brute force.  

He is doing very well on his casting.  On Monday I took him to a small river/big stream that is full of 8 to 10 inch browns.  It was like fishing for brook trout in the western mountains – how many do you want to catch!  The best way to learn to catch fish is to catch fish, so this was the place to take him.  Benjamin takes coaching very well and soon understood where the fish were and where they weren’t.  I bet he got 20+ fish on a little caddis.

 

On Tuesday the weather was distinctly cooler and we went to one of my top three rivers in the world (Hameshop Brook in New Hampshire where I learned to fish and French Creek in Wyoming are the other two).  This stream has nice pools separated by stretches of pocket water.  Some of the pools are below vertical rock outcrops and are likely 8 to 10 feet

deep.  For some reason this is a stimulator stream – orange or yellow in size 12 or 14, it doesn’t matter.  You will get a few on a caddis or a fat Albert but the most and the biggest are on the stimulator.  I’ve checked the benthos and there are more green caddis than anything else but it is still stimulator that get them.  I gave Benjamin all the best locations and most of the stream.  He did OK for himself.  

 On the 26^th my Dutch friend Gerlof and I headed north to fish.   Last year we fished a river near the Argentinean boarder.  It was fantastic.  Over the winter we both studied Google Earth views of the region and found a tributary that drained a remote area of the Argentina pampas without any visible road access.  Our plan was to drive as far as we could and then walk/fish our way up to the tributary.  We camped that night in Argentina at the mouth of the tributary and the next morning planned our assault.  

Google Earth is a great resource for adventurous fly fishers.  But it does have a few drawbacks.  It only gives you a plain view.  You can get some idea of topography but not the intimate details.  In the Andes topography is critical.  Most rivers, once they leave the pampas, flow through a deep, steep gorge at one or more locations.  Some of them are passable by careful wading, swimming or in some cases you can “mountaineer” your way around them.  Most of them end up being impassable.  That was the case with ours.  We gave it our best try but finally turned back when we started to think that if we did manage to make it to the other side we would have to make it back!  Most mountaineers die on the descent and not the ascent. 

Now it was time for Plan B.  Since we couldn’t reach that area of the pampas why not try another?  The “other area” would be the Argentinian pampas region of the main river.  When most people think of international border crossings they vision a distinct location.  In truth it is rarely like that.  Generally the respective immigration/passport control points are some distance apart with a kind of “no man’s land” between them.  I could tell you about Turkey but that is another story! At the point where we wanted to go in Argentina the control stations are nearly 50 Km apart and only get 2 or 3 passages a day.  Most of that 50 km are on the Argentinian side of the frontier.   The Chileans had no problem with letting us make an “semi-official” entry into Argentina.  If we got caught by Argentinian authorities, the Chilean authorities would, in all likelihood, deny any knowledge of our crossing and likely say we were smugglers.   Of course they did hedge their bets by keeping our entry/exit form.  On we went, fording several streams, until we reached the river after about 25 Km.

Over the years Gerlof had fished this river a few times, officially, closer to its headwaters.  The only access in – other than our backdoor entry – is across the big ranch that owns the area. Because it is so remote and roads so bad the area is rarely if ever fished. We fished the main river all afternoon and into the early evening, getting more than a fair share of 14-16 inch browns. He knew of one tributary, something over 5 Km from where we camped, that is often rated as one of the world’s best small, non-spring, creeks and his favorite Patagonian small stream locations.  There is a lodge associated with the ranch.  Some clients make the drive in but many fly to the ranch’s airstrip.  Every few days they float clients down the river.  During the float they stop at the mouth of this special stream and let clients fish the first 0.5 to 1 Km of the stream.   Since we didn’t know when the next float day was, we started our hike early in the morning to be the first ones there and avoid any confrontations with the floaters.  

We didn’t run into anyone and had the stream all to ourselves.  Within the first 100 meters I understood why this stream has the reputation it does.  The water is vodka clear (why does gin get all the props?) and an easy wade.  Most of the day was sight fishing to big browns and rainbows that are almost cutthroat dumb!  When we didn’t see a fish it was no big deal.  Just slap a hopper on the edge of the willows and let it float a foot or two.   Near the willows 

having an exit strategy was critical!   Realizing we had a long trudge back to camp over many Km of loose gravel bars and through brush, we finally forced ourselves to quit.  

There were a few more days of fishing, all good, but now I’m back in Coyhaique waiting for the next adventure.

MARMOT: IT'S WHATS FOR DINNER!

I like food.  I like everything about it.  I love to shop for it, prepare it and enjoy it with my friends.  I also have what may best be described as an “adventuresome palate.”  What that translates into is that I’ll try anything at least once.  That is not to say that I’ll search out weird things to eat.  I’ve never had brains – some would say I still don’t have had any – and I wouldn’t order them off a menu.  But if you order them and asked me to try them, I would.  Or if they were included in some dish, I didn’t know it and then was told about it, I wouldn’t run off and barf.  Most likely I’d find the meal quite pleasant and would consider eating them again.

There are a couple of things I’m not real fond of.  Right now the only things that come to mind are trout (goes back to eating them all the time as a kid) and rodent.  The only rodent I’ve knowingly eaten is squirrel.  I hunt them so I eat them.  Well, actually I donate them to my friend Wayne for inclusion in his semi-sporadic “Rodent Feast”.  We call it “Rodent Feast” but actually it a clean out the freezer of wild game meal.  Wayne’s chipolata squirrel is ok – lower case on purpose – but I’d rather have wild boar or antelope.

We have marmots in the Rocky Mountains.  Besides marmot, we also call them “whistle pigs.”  In the Midwest we call a closely related species Woodchucks or Ground Hogs.  I don’t know of anyone who purposely, or even accidentally for that matter, says “Marmot: It’s what for dinner.”  They have never been on the Rodent Feast menu.  So when, on a recent trip Mongolia, I was asked by a local family to help prepare and savor with them a traditional delicacy, fresh marmot, of course I joined them.

Supposedly the best marmots are the ones that are shot in the fall.  They have a generous layer of subcutaneous fat to last them through the winter hibernation.  The fat layer is what adds that special taste appeal.  My marmot timing was perfect.

So here in narrative and pictures is “Marmot. It’s what for dinner.”

The man of the Ger apparently is the local purveyor of marmot.  He came home the night that we stayed in the Ger with two marmots.  He hunts them up in the rocky edges of the steeps with an old rifle with “sticks” attached to the forearm to stead his aim.  All kills are head shots to keep from damaging any of the prime cut.

The marmots were hung from a bar with a loop around the neck just below the jaw.  A circular cut was made through the skin were the neck joins the body.  Carefully the skin is peeled off the body down to the paws and the tail, kind of like turning a dirty sock down off your stinky feet. Once peeled the marmots were eviscerated (the heart and liver being saved) and the carcass cut into pieces.  After washing the marmot chunks  were placed back into the skin, now turned right side – fur side -out, and the future meal was stored in a hole in the ground covered with a piece of tin to keep the dogs out.

Apparently there is a good market for marmot.  A local trader who stopped at the ger wanted three kid goats for a big sack of flour.  But gladly turned over the flour for two kids and a marmot. 

 Just by looking I couldn’t tell what constitutes a “prime” marmot over a “choice” marmot.  But Tsog could.  He spent a lot of time examining the cache, checking the thickness of the fat before deciding on the best one for dinner.

Now remember that the marmot were peeled and not skinned.  Skinning would have resulted in all that wonderful subcutaneous fat going to waste.  So what do you do with hairy bag of marmot meat?  Simple, you singe off the hair with a 

blow torch, scrapping the body as you flame it, to get all the hair off.  No one wants to find a hair on their chunk of marmot meat.  Beyond singing the hair, the blow torch treatment makes the skin nice and crispy and melts some of the fat to baste the meat piece inside the skin bag.   

Once cooled, the skin bag is opened, the meat pieces cut into smaller units and the skin cut into pieces.  

 In traditional marmot cooking 1) all the cooking was done by the men of the ger community, 2) the hair was removed and the skin crisped up by putting the skin bag directly on the fire and 3) hot rocks were put in the skin bag to cook the meat form the inside out.  But my marmot was nouveau cuisine.

The skin and meat chunks were finished over the cooking/heating stove in the ger in the wok like utensil that was used to cook everything.  

First some rendered mutton fat oil has added to the wok and heated.  Next came some cut up potatoes, onions, marmot pieces and a few hot rocks.  After stirring it around for a bit, another layer of potato, onion, marmot and rocks was added.   Finally a generous portion of salt and some water was added, the wok cover and some milk tea enjoyed as the marmot cooked. 

So how was it?  I still don’t care for rodent and I’m not going to shot one so we can have chipolata wood chuck at Wayne’s next Rodent Feast!  But if marmot is what’s for dinner, I’ll gnaw on a few of the better pieces and wash it down with some milk tea.