Beautiful Fish - Rainbow trout

(Rainbow trout, Bolshoi Shantar Island, Sea of Okhotsk)

See the photos of the different forms of rainbow trout Parasalmo mykiss  

http://flyfishingrussia.com/

Kamchatka, Raduga River, September 2011 - Part 3 (Azhabacie Lake)

On the next day we had decided to go to the nearby Azhabachie Lake.  The big water body is famous by its sockeye salmon spawning grounds and by "hordes" of brown bears.   At the image is the downstream view at the Kamchatka R. from the mouth of the channel, connecting the river with the lake.  The channel is about 10 km long.  

 The "Raduga" biological station at the channel belongs to the Institute of Marine Biology (Rus.  Acad.  of Sciences, Vladivostok).  Here the scientists study the ecosystem of the lake. 

 We go upstream the channel, heading to the lake

At one good-looking spot of the channel we have seen lots of rising fish and decided to stop for fishing. 

Some of these fish were smolts of Pacific salmon (coho).  Some small charrs feeding with insects were also caught with a dry fly.   

 Andrey was able to catch something bigger with a heavy leader.

 It is a charr

 Most of charrs of the Azhabachie Lake are not silver; these fish are resident. 

 I have hooked something strong and fast moving

 It looks like a trout!

 Yes, it is one. 

It is a good size fat trout with a healed scar from some predator (otter?).  The trout in the lake outlet feed with sockeye smolts, so they have enough food.  

Finally our boat is nearing the Azhabachie Lake, which is 8 km long and up to 36 m deep.  

To be continued..

Lago Fagnano, Tierra del Fuego, Chile

 We are heading to the south of the Tierra del Fuego Island.  The road is literally cut in the rocks. 

Finally the long-awaited Lago Fagnano is visible from a mountain pass.  At the pass we see the first snow.  

This huge lake is 100 km long and up to 500 m deep.  In the first evening we were able to fish the lake - the wind was very mild.  I was lucky to land a very unusually looking rainbow trout. 

 The fish was very strong, rather skinny and bright silver - with no pink strips on its sides.

 About 9/10 of the Fagnano Lake belongs to Argentina; we have visited the western, Chilean part.  Here there is the lake outlet - short Rio Azopardo. 

Rio Azopardo is swift and powerful; its water is very clear.  There are rumors on huge sea-run brown trout which are caught in this stream.   The wading was tough - in most areas the stream was way too deep. 

I was able to catch a fat brook trout.  This fish is probably coming into the river out of the lake for feeding or spawning. 

 Good size rainbow trout was caught far from the bank with a nymph on a floating line

Patagonia, March 2010, Jurassic Lake (Lago Strobel)

Lago Strobel is a 100 sq km lake in remote, central part of Argentinian province Santa Cruz.  About 12 years ago this fish-less alcaline water was stocked by rainbow trout, which florished.  Now it is popular sport-fishing destination; in the ads it is often called "Jurassic Lake".   

Our road to the lake was long.  To reach it we had to drive from Punta Arenas, Chile, to Argentina, and then head north on the famous Ruta Quarenta, Road #40.  The lake is surrounded by the lands of private estancias (ranches), which are also organizing sport-fishing. Our host was waiting for us at the 1006 km of the road.  From here we crossed a river (Rio Chico)

and started to climb huge plateau.  This plateau is called Mesetra de la Murerte (Death Plateau) and is formed by volcanic eruption.

The top of the plateau is flat and covered by countless sharp bazalt rocks.  Its altitude is 900-920 m.  It is true "Death Plateau" for suspension and tires of the trucks.  In many places we cound not drive faster than one can walk. 

The lake is situated in a huge caldera (depression) surrounded by 100 m high walls of bazalt rocks.  Along the water edge the rocks are covered by the limestone, which was created by microscopic algae.  This white layer shows the ancient water level in the lake. 

The same algae continue their work

The lake has the most amazing skies with strange clouds

We were starting to fish early, before the sunrise 

The fishing tectnic is simple - long cast with #10-4 dark wet fly and retrieve with jerks.  We were using Wooly Buggers and rubber leg nymphs, but different wet flies can also work.  Sometimes the orange flies are the best.  Most of the fish in catches are fat, silver and very strong rainbow trout; average fish was about 60-65 cm long.

Some trout were ill-looking, skinny specimens.  Such ones are never shown in the ads on the "Jurassic Lake fishing".  It looks like these ones are spent fish, which had recently finished the spawning. 

 

The biggest fish which my partner Arthur had landed was 75 cm long

.. and had huge girth.  Regardless to its thickness, this fish fights well and jumps a lot. 

On the way back from the plateau - we are heading east  and will start the descend into the valley.

Kamchatka 2010 - Vorovskaya River

Vorovskaya River is flowing into the Sea of Okhotsk through the birch forests of the western Kamchatka.  The river hosts stocks of all 6 species of Pacific salmon, Dolly Varden and white-spotted charrs, and rainbow trout. 

Grassy jungle along the river hide trails of brown bears

Cherry salmon in Kamchatka is always small - as big as pink salmon

This male of cherry salmon is beginning to gain spawning colors

Rainbow trout is plentiful in the river; its average size is not big

An attempt to land chum salmon with light tackle could cost you a rod

In the middle reaches of the river there are lots of braids and log jams.  It is is dangerous to navigate the Vorovskaya even with a jet-motor.  Lots of narrow channels are blocked by the logs. 

Upper part of the river has bigger gradient (over 0,002); log jams are also present here. 

We have decided not to go upstream from these rapids

The point which we were able to reach in 2010

Andrey is preparing grilled fish for dinner

Lago Lynch, Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia

Lago Lynch is a big water body in the upper part of the Rio Grande drainage.  The lake surface is about 50 square kilometers.  It is posssible to reach the lake by 4 km of wet trail, coming off a remote logging road. 

Along the road there were lots of beaver dams.  Beavers were stocked into the waters of the island in 1920es; the animal has devastating effect at the beech forests of the island.    

Grey fox is one of the native animals of Patagonia 

 The trail was quite wet; in some areas we had difficulties to pass even in 4WD pickup. 

 

Guanacos along the road

 

 Along the east bank the lake is very shallow, and its bottom is flat.  We did not have a boat, and it was hard to find fish.

 

Finally I have managed to find a "structure" - a deeper area surounded by shallows.  It was situated over 100 meters from the lake shore. 

 

 In this place we have started catching fish.  These were mostly rainbows up to 1 kg. 

 

 The tackle: 15' 2-handed rod, floating line, clear slow-sinking leader, and 0,25 mm tippet.  The fish were biting small dark wet flies & nymphs on #10 & # 12 hooks.  Retrieve: pulls and pauses.   

 

 Ratio of rainbow to brown trout was 2:1.  Some brown trout were dark - they had normal "river" colors.

 

Other fish were almost silver, which is typical for the fish from big, clear waters 

 

 We have decided to keep 2 trout and prepare them in a foil with onions.  Calafate berries are adding special flavor.