Flyfishing heaven

It took a few days to organise in Coyhaique, but Friday found me in the car with a local guy who had agreed to drop me off about 60kms south west of Coyhaique at a junction of three rivers that I had heard was good fishing and had spotted a camp site on the map.
Turned out he was the best person to get a lift with as he knew the local farmer who ran the campsite with his wife and so I got to enjoy some good Patagonian home-cooking and hospitality at the same time as camping for three nights in one of their sheds at the river.
The Rio Mogote and Rio Balboa joined the Rio Paloma within a few km´s of each other and I had a stunning 4 days fishing mostly the Mogote and the confluence with the Paloma.
It was classic dry-fly fishing, with long runs that about half the time had a fish in the spot you would expect him to be and they were mostly hungry, so if you got your cast right and found the spots, you were into fish.
Very rewarding!
I fished solid for the 4 days and must have landed well over 50 brown and rainbow trout, with the mix about 75% browns.  They ranged from 8" through to my best which was over 20", and after the first day where the weather was a bit cooler and I took a few on the nymph I fished just the dry and so the takes were great and they spent a lot of time in the air too.
Apart from the great fishing, the scenery was also spectacular, with Lenga forests along the banks and steep slopes heading up to snow capped valley ends, lots of good birds including a few Kingfishers along the river.
The family who´s farm I was on were great and I was roped into carrying milk pails back to the house from the yard one morning as I was walking past, but it did earn me a breakfast of fresh bread, homemade cheese, the first fresh milk I have had in two months and a lunch invitation that included a creme caramal and more homemade treats!  They initially indicated that I give the milking a go, but I was pretty useless and hence was relegated to the more manual labour.

My best brown of the trip.

Looking upstream on the Rio Paloma, the Mogote comes in on the right and my campsite was just down below...

Another nice brownie...

Looking upstream on the Rio Mogote where I fished mostly

One of the brightly coloured little rainbows

I mostly used a fly I called a Patagonian Slop (jandal) which is a high floating beetle imitation which the fish seemed to love.  These beetles were flying around the river and so I suppose it is not too suprising the trout get excited when they see something like this land on the water.  Bit like a whole roast lamb!

The flies I was using and the beetles that made the odd appearance!