Lago Vintter lies on the banks of Vintter Lake near Palena, Chile. This property has incredible lakeside views and forested landscapes and lies in the heart of Argentina Patagonia, here in Argentina it is known as Lago General Vintter, and by Chile, where it's called Lago Palena. Both names are internationally accepted. The Argentine name is after General Lorenzo Vintter, the second governor of the Argentine Territory of Patagonia, and the first governor of the Territory of the Río Negro.

The Palena River originates at Vintter Lake, where it is locally Rio Corcovado.

The Rio Corcovado is a region that is considered as one of the most spacious, varied and superlative trout fishing opportunities not found anywhere else today.

It is an area made ??to look after trophies. The angler can fish rainbow trout as big and wild as the steelheads and brown trout in the order of 4 to 5 kilos, or brook trout as large or larger than those of Labrador.

Today we would like to let you know our experience in Upper Corcovado River in Chubut Province, to Fly Fish here me and my brother when we came to do a research so we got in touch with Benjamin Bill who runs and owns an operation in Patagonia called El Encuentro Fly Fishing. 

They got a lodge on the side of the Futaleufu River and they got a base camp in the Upper Corcovado River. The name of the camp is called Brook Trout Base Camp and is located about 3 miles from the mouth of the Corcovado River river when it comes from the Vintter Lake, to get here people normally get from abroad to Buenos Aires or they connect during the day and they take a short flight of about 2 hours to scale province then from scale problems you got a couple of hours to get to the base camp and normally people get and luxury glamping camp where they can go fishing different types of waters from this base camp one of the most important fishing is the upper Corcovado River that is just in front of the base camp, in those three miles of river you can appreciate like the intermediate highland mountains where you still see some forest in the Patagonia before you get to the desert and the river is freestone rock basement which got big pools on some of the corners and you got amazing brook trout. 

That was why we were so excited to get here. Lake Vintter got a huge population of brook trout that they normally go to the river for food and to the Sobalo.

So we met our guides Marcelo Whitman and Robert, and we all drove from Corcovado town about one hour or let's say 50 minutes to the mouth of the river. 

We were talking about the different waters to fish in the area, and when we got there we decided to wait for our waders, we sat up our rods. They were number 5 and number 6 fly rods with some floating lines but we also prepared two of the rods with a 150 grams sinking line and 280 grams sinking line.

We were able to do some sightseeing fishing especially at the beginning at the Joaquin pool and Llao Llao pool. The water is completely clear and you can easily see fish around the river if there is no wind or very small wind. 

The morning was very friendly for March. We were wearing very light clothes but the temperature was around 70F. It was amazing, it was very sunny and almost not windy. 

We get into the river after walking a few meters from our picking up trucks, Marcelo was the first one to hold the rod and did the first cast, also he was explaining to us how to do the fishing for brook in that area, they were mostly sat at the bottom of the sides of the pools where the water was running into the pool and we started with some streamers doing some long cast a little in front of the trouts and the water was taking the fly into the hole where they were setting it was pretty amazing after a couple of fly cast.

In my turns I was able to get one of the most beautiful brook trout of my life! It was very nice, very interesting and the two guys were encouraging about how to cast how to do the movement, where to put the fly, how to strip and they were very very happy when the first trout was catched! It was very exciting, we enjoyed it a lot and I was so happy to appreciate it!

 

So in his turn Marcelo did a couple of casts and he was really excited when he got a bite, but when we found out  the fish was a very small one, 10 inches, we all laughed about that joke and we encouraged him to keep fishing. In the meantime we were having laughs and making jokes. He was able to hook another fish, another beautiful brook trout, kind of the same size. Most of the trout we were getting these days were about 16 to 19 inches long, very beautiful brook trout, very fresh, so he was kidding … in that nice brook trout and telling Roberto how good he was. 

Then it was Roberto's time to show his skills and the good thing was that Robert made one fly cast and he had his brook trout at the end of the line, we should be able to say that probably Roberto was the winner in terms of efficiency.

We got a couple of more in the next pool. We have been laughing and making jokes about it.

 

Then we had lunch on the side of the river with Salame, some amazing blue cheese, olives, peanuts and enjoyed a beer, all this on a sunny beautiful day with almost no wind. It is kind of amazing at this time of the year in Patagonia.

It was a nice meal. We ate beef with some special onion sauteed that the guys made for us in the river and then we opened a bottle of wine. Then for dessert we have fresh fruits and caramel to enjoy the rest. After lunch we took a nap for 10-15 minutes in a beautiful spot.

Then it was time to get back in business, the rest of the afternoon we decided to visit a couple of pools that were downriver, so we drove a little bit and we got out into another river. We were trying to get some trout that we saw set on the bottom of the hole but at that time even with 250 grams and using different streamers we were not able to move them.

We saw a fish jumping a little bit farther but it was a rainbow trout that was crossing through. We tried to get it through some of our flies to that trout but it wasn't easy to get it. We get into the next pool and then was wen all of us got some more fish and enjoy the day and after getting some of those fish we got some black coffee that the guys prepared and mate, and then we all started to tell stories about how good was the day, that we were using like 3x on our leaders sometimes 4x, we were using some sages and orbeez fly rods. We were enjoying some of the differences in between those rods, we all have to use our waders boots and we did not needed the rainy jacket because the wind was so sweet and smooth that was not even needed to have protection for any kind of fly coming into out back or over our head so after that great day, around 6:30pm we decided that we had enough so Juan and I got our beers of the evening and start driving back to the lodge. We have been having some great appetizers and drinks then when we got to the lodge we took a very hot shower and we enjoyed having a great day in a river and in a section of the river that is huge more than a hundred kilometers, it gets to Chile and became into the Palena River. The system of the Corcovado is one of the most amazing rivers you can find in Patagonia. We hope you can enjoy this river with us one of these days.