My Fly Fishing Blog

Chandler and I had this trip planned for a couple of years, and for a long time it seemed like it would never really happen.  I named this post Patagonia 2008 because this is hopefully the first of many trips/posts about fishing there.  The pictures are great, but they don’t do the the experience justice…..you have to go for yourself to know how awesome it really is. 

Friday, Feb. 8th (Day 1)

I left my house around 10 a.m. or so for the airport in Salt Lake.  I met Chandler, who was flying from Boise, and we had lunch while we waited for our flight to Atlanta.  We got to Atlanta around 7 p.m. local time and had several hours to kill before our 9 hour flight to Santiago that left around midnight.  We ate at the food court and noticed our sister sitting with her husband a few tables over.  It was funny to run into her in the busiest airport in the world (she was on her way back home from Costa Rica).

I got a prescription for ambien for the long flight so that we could hopefully sleep a little…..I think I might have slept for a couple of hours.

Saturday, Feb. 9th (Day 2)

The view of Santiago from the plane reminded me a lot of Southern California.  It makes sense, it is on the pacific about the same distance south of the equator as California is north.

When we landed (around noon or so) we had to go through customs and get our luggage.  Our bags were on top, I don’t know why they sort the bags this way…..

I’m amazed at how many people actually think I’m serious when I tell them this.  Well, we had made it to Chile, but we were still a day away from our destination.  After another few hours waiting for our next flight we boarded a LAN Chile flight en route for Balmaceda (with a connection in Concepcion).  The further south we went the greener the mountains began to get.  We saw glaciers and volcanoes from the window.

After our stop in Concepcion (and a good conversation with a chilean guy who I gave a Book of Mormon to), we landed in Balmaceda, Chile.  From Balmaceda we hopped on a shuttle that took us to Coyhaique about an hour away.  Coyaique is the biggest city in Southern Chile.

We walked around the city and found a nice little restaurant called La Casona.  We all ate rack of lamb.  After dinner we went back to the hotel we had checked into earlier and tried to get some rest.  What we didn’t realize right away was that it was Saturday night in South America and we were situated in the center of town.  The bar across the street kept busy until at least 2 or 3 in the morning.

Sunday, Feb. 10th (Day 3)

After another good night of sleep we got up and drove to the small airport in Coyhaique to catch our final flight. 

Dave and I decided to fish during lunch today (I needed a warm up trip before I head to Patagonia for week of fly fishing), but when we started to gear up the cold scared us away and we decided to just go eat lunch.  After lunch (shrimp tacos from Bajios) the temp had gone up a few degrees but Dave didn’t have time to fish anymore.  I decided to go anyway.  The temperature wasn’t too bad once I was all geared up, but my guides were getting ice in them and I had to continually remove the chunks of ice every few casts. 

I landed 4 fish in just over an hour.  The biggest (above) was about 17 inches.  I also caught one in the 15-16 inch range and a couple of little browns around 11 inches or so. 

Darren and I decided to make a quick trip fly fishing the Provo.  The temp was in the high 30’s when we left the office, but when we got up the canyon the temp was in the upper 20’s and very windy.  We decided to go back down the canyon and fish through town.  Within a few minutes of fishing Darren hooked this big whitey…

It was 20+ inches (but still a whitefish).  We threw it on the bank and kept fishing (just kidding…even though I wanted to).  A few minutes later Darren hooked another fish but this time it was a nice brown.  I hadn’t even taken a cast yet because I was too busy trying to get a tangle out of my new Lamson reel that hadn’t even been used yet.  Eventually I sorted it out and was able to do some fishing as well.  We spent a few hours on the river and landed a dozen or so fish.  Nothing huge…just little browns like this guy…

Friday morning we left for Boise, ID.  We made our traditional stop at Maddox for some good eatin’ - steak ‘n shrimp, and their famous fried chicken.  The kids mainly just ate rolls and were full by the time the main meal came.  Anyway, we made it to Boise and left the older kids with Zach, Beau and Kirsty while we went to McCall.  We stayed at the Whitetail resort.  The view out of our room was awesome:

On Saturday Kristina and JoAnn went skiing at resort called “Tamarack”.  Chandler and I stayed back at the lodge with Daniella. 

So I was at work today and one of the girls I work with said there was a big Bull Elk out in the field.  By the time we went to look it had already gone into the trees by the provo river that runs parallel to the office.  I thought it was heading back towards the mountains so I got in the car and went to see if I could find it.  When I turned onto University Ave. the big guy was on the side of the road waiting to cross.  He hesitated a couple of times and then went for it…..luckily the timing was good and he made it across safely.  I pulled over and got a couple of shots and then took one of the roads up the hill and came across him again as it headed back up to the mountains. 

BYU again found itself in the Las Vegas Bowl this year.  I went down to the game with Chandler, Josh and Zach.  We drove down in Chandler’s new Armada with Chelsea, JoAnn and Kirsty.  We left late Friday night and had to pick up Josh in Caliente, NV.  I had to meet a car dealer from California by about 10 am on Saturday to pick up my new Range Rover Sport.  We didn’t get to Caliente until about 2 in the morning.  At some point during the night I think someone dropped a bowling ball or something in the room above us (reminds me of a night in a motor home in Mountain Home-Herm will know what I’m talking about)…..not the best night of sleep. We got up pretty early and picked up Josh.  It was great to see him and hear about his time in Caliente.  We drove to Vegas and met the dealer to pick up the car.  After working out a misunderstanding (the car did not have some of the features they claimed it did) we finalized everything and took the new car to the game. 

BYU almost managed to blow what should have been an easy win. UCLA just had to make an easy field goal with a few seconds left to spoil it for BYU. Somehow Manemaleuna got his hand on the kick.  We ran out of the stadium screaming and were in the parking lot running to the car as the fireworks were going off (At some point in the mayhem some dude hugged me).  What a game!  

I spent several days on the river(s) last fall.  The browns were spawning and the fishing was awesome.  Some of the pictures were taken with my iphone, so the quality isn’t as great…..Here are some pics:

19 inch Rainbow (top) 

23 inch Brown (above)

21 inch Brown (below)

Nice spawning Brown Trout caught by Herm

Samuel and I went and watched BYU play vs. Eastern Washington.  It really wasn’t much of a game as BYU won 42-7.  We did get to eat a couple of cougar tails and had some hot chocolate.  At one point in the game white out conditions took over as a crazy blizzard hit the stadium.

Kristina and I took Daniella to her first BYU football game.  It was BYU vs. Air Force - the Cougs won 31-6