March, 2004 | mtshasta.com - Outfitter & Actor - Jack Trout's Blog

Jack Trout’s Weblog

By Jack Trout, on March 11th, 2004

***** CHILEAN ADVENTURES CONTINUE SIZZLERS!!!*****

The Petrohue is a river with lots of pocket water. Chris and I came on the scene early one morning to try our luck and find some hard fighting McCloud River Rainbows and Steelhead.

At first the fishing was slow, it’s hard cause you know the fish were there, but we had to go through the cycle of figuring out what the fish wanted… That usually means trying every fly in my Fish Pond fly bag until at last success!! When we got away from bigger buggers and threw on a small size 18 Micro Mayfly, Chris’s luck began to change.

After two hours of catching nothing, Chris began to catch fish like no other day he has had…and no other day I have seen in my 11 years of guiding. Here he is with his 11th fish in a row over 3 lbs. It was a day we’ll never forget. Finding the right flies to use made all the difference!

Chris then made many drifts excited by the hits to our flies the fish were making almost every drift!

We stopped one time to look up at the views the river and countryside had to offer. We noticed the fog along the hills, giving our adventure the wonderful compliment of a calming effect.

After the 11th Steelhead in a row ( with one of them being a true Mccloud River Rainbow), Chris elected to hang it up and go back to the lodge for a drink and a comfortable nap in his king size bed…. He had a day like he had never experienced in all his years of fly fishing and rightly so, for this was his 50th birthday present trip from his wife Alice. We were all smiles as we left the national park
with an awesome day under our belts.

Later that night, Tom and Greg from Portland showed up at the lodge and Francisco and I were happy to have them, as he and I went over our plans with boys for the next day… Of course, that was after a few bottles of wine, dinner and a shot of the local liqueur made from distilled apples. We all slept well that night!! jt

The next day we all headed back to the Petrohue in search of more Monicas. Tom, Greg and Chris were ready for action and the river as always was productive for all..

Greg hooked 7 in a row in this one small pocket water slot, and reminded us of Brad Pit as he had to run down stream each time to land them…

Tom and Francisco also got in the action. Unfortunately, I got the picture of the smallest Steelhead Trout caught. He had many others that were much bigger and impressive, Francisco was in his element and knew exactly what to use to catch these hard fighting trout! Francisco!! YOU’RE MY SIZZLER OF THE WEEK AWARD WINNER!!! CONGRATULATIONS SIZZLER!! JT

I really enjoyed this underwater shot of a trout we caught that day. It really shows how clear the water is in this river… jt

Heading backwards in the direction of our adventure, Chris enjoyed his night out in Pucon at this wonderful seafood restaurant that included albalone, crab, mussles and clams, as well as congrio (white bass). We ate our food and enjoyed a fine bottle of Errazuriz Max Reserve, Cab 2000. Oh Yea, did I mention Pisco Sours too??**** THERE YOU GO! JOIN AS WE CONTINUE OUR ADVENTURE BACKWARDS IN TIME, IN THE PUCON AREA OF CHILE!!***** TAKE CARE SIZZLERS, JACK TROUT