The monsters of 'Jurassic Lake'

Bruce de Courcy was among the first Britons to fish this phenomenal Patagonian lake.

Imagine fishing a beautiful, clear-turquoise natural lake and its feeder-river in remote, picturesque country and catching 100 double-figure rainbows on fly in two days – all truly wild fish – and with a river full of sea trout that average 10lb not too far away. And deep-bodied beauties to boot, very unlike our slim European sea trout.

Bruce de Courcy, from Chilham, near Canterbury, a member of my winter fly-dressing classes and a season rod at Bewl Water, made the trip of a lifetime in January to Argentina. He was the first person from the UK to fish a fabled rainbow fishery which is being referred to as Jurassic Lake, in the wilds of southern Patagonia.
Bruce, 50, is as passionate a fly fisher as anybody I have ever known. It appears to dominate his life. He fishes year-round, and frequently, when he can get away from the animal park, specialist foods, craft shop and cider-making business he runs. He told me the story of his fantastic trip one evening after we had been fishing. He found the details of the trip while browsing the internet and decided to take the plunge. The website told of an exploratory trip, in April 2006, by three men who had heard tales of giant rainbows in a remote lake. They caught 80 double-figure fish in seven hours!

The main part of Bruce’s fishing trip (six days) was for the big sea trout on the Rio Gallegos, a river that many fly fishers now reckon to be a better river to fish than the much-lauded Rio Grande, to the south, in Tierra del Fuego, because the Gallegos is a much shallower river and may be fished effectively with floating and sink-tip lines, the tip being of intermediate density. The Gallegos enters the sea in the Magellan Straits, at the town of Gallegos, and the local fishing guides believe that about 100,000 sea trout run the river each year.

The comfortable lodge at Los Buitreras, a 40,000-acre estancia (ranch), and the 40 kilometres of the Rio Gallegos fished for sea trout, is owned and run by Loop Adventures, a division of the Loop tackle company. Two rods share a young Argentine English-speaking guide each day. The river is zoned and each zone has its own guide. “The guides are zone-dedicated and are excellent,” said Bruce. “They are extremely knowledgeable about their stretches of the river. Each day is fished in two sessions of five to six hours each, and on different areas of the river.”

Some fishers use double-handed rods in the usually windy conditions met in this region but others choose seven- or eight-weight single-handed rods. Bruce used a single-handed seven-weight outfit, with a floating line with an intermediate-density sink-tip, and 10-12-foot 15lb Seaguar fluorocarbon leader, chosen for its fine diameter, sinking quality and abrasion resistance. He had dressed a collection of flies for the trip, some of them at my fly-tying classes at Lamberhurst, in Kent, helped by fellow class members. He had been advised that these Gallegos sea trout favour flies not found to be effective with European sea trout: rubber-legged Woolly Buggers, Bitch Creek Nymph and salmon doubles, especially Silver Stoat’s Tail, though Bruce also caught fish on a Damsel Nymph. The Zulu is also an effective pattern.

Guides recommend at least 150 yards of backing behind the fly-line and chest waders are needed to cover the water adequately. Bruce estimates that the river has an average width of 50 yards, with a meandering character through flat terrain. The Gallegos has a variety of features, with some fast-running water in rocky areas and some pools 10 feet deep. Fish tend to lie either among rocks along the far bank or in midstream. The wading is easy, on gravel, which has no slippery algal growth. There are also marginal weed-beds alongside which the sea trout lie.

Bruce’s first day proved to be a baptism of fire but he was “very relieved” when he hooked a fine fish late in the day. He added eleven more during the next five days: his total included two at 15lb each, two at 5lb each and the rest between 8lb and 12lb. “They fought very hard indeed and they have bodies much deeper than European sea trout,” said Bruce – something that is quite obvious in the photograph (see page 42).

“Usually the fish are beached but the guides have a net to get to fish that get into the marginal weed-beds. The fish often take near the far bank as you begin to strip line but they also take on the swing. It is essential to activate the fly in a variety of ways on the retrieve as you progress down the river, taking two steps between casts, rather like salmon fishing. The more action you give the fly the more likely you are to get takes.”
After his superb catches of big sea trout, Bruce had booked an add-on four-day trip to fish Jurassic Lake, which lies in undulating terrain 600 kilometres north-west of the Rio Gallegos fishing lodge. There were four rods in the party, two Norwegians, a Swede and Bruce, plus guides and a cook, and the journey proved a very tough one, taking nearly 12 hours, mainly over dirt roads, in four-wheel-drive vehicles. The last 40 kilometres of the journey was over lava-rock terrain and took four hours.

“The lake is about 10 miles long and about two miles wide and lies in undulating country consisting or lava rocks and scrub,” said Bruce. “Some of the rock is white and nothing grows on it. The lake lies in the most remote area I have ever been to, and I’ve been around the world, including spending three years in the Australian bush. It’s an eight-hour drive from Jurassic Lake to the nearest habitation.

“We camped near the lake in dome tents specially designed for use in Antarctica. The lake is a clear turquoise colour with a pebble bed and a river, in which the rainbows spawn, runs into it. In the lake it’s wet-fly fishing but dry flies work in the river.

“The lake and river teem with shrimps and the rainbows feed heavily on them, having bright-red flesh as a result. It was impossible to get a cup of water from a tiny stream running by the camp-site without having shrimps in the cup”.

Read the full article in the December 2007 edition of Fly Fishing & Fly Tying magazine.