Fly-fishing adventures in Chilean Patagonia

Wild places, pristine waters and plentiful trout are the hallmarks of a trip to this South American rainforest – with a touch of luxury to bookend the day

- ADRIAN DANGAR

We are driving to the River Palena on the final morning of our Patagonian fishing adventure when an elegant pampas cat emerges from dense Valdivian rainforest and slinks slowly across the dirt track in front of us – an animal so rare that it’s only the second one our guide, Reinaldo, has ever seen. Like the other experienced fishing guides employed by the newly opened Rio Palena Lodge some 80 miles inland from Chaiten on the Pacific coast, much of Reinaldo’s life has been spent in the great Chilean outdoors, so I take the sighting as a good omen for what lies ahead. Not that it seems possible to improve upon the fly-fishing adventures our group of four had already sampled during the previous three days.

Our team is headed up by Cameron Davenport, a fisherman and hunter from Colorado and angling sales manager for Eleven Experience. He is here to assess his company’s latest addition to a global portfolio of luxurious adventure lodges. Davenport has brought along acclaimed photographer, Patagoniaphile and fellow American Bryan Grayson and Tom Bie, who founded and edits cult US fishing publication The Drake magazine. Consequently, the chat was peppered with unfamiliar Americanisms – beats are called sections, catches are measured in inches not pounds, trout don’t take the fly they eat it, and our normal method of fishing in the UK is so unusual on many of the large Patagonian rivers that they have a special name for that, too: walk and wade.