Lago Strobel: The Experience

Location: JURASSIC LAKE ( Lago Strobel, Argentina )



Camp: Loop Camp (http://solidadventures.com/)

Dates: December 3, 2011 through December 10, 2011

Party: My good friend and coworker Jason, his wife Cindy and myself.

Introduction:

Where to start? How do you describe the absolute best fishing experience you have ever had? How do you break it down to people that have their own stories and try and convince them that NOTHING they have ever experienced will probably not even come close to the fishing in Lago Strobel (Jurassic Lake)? The closest description I can even come up with is just “WOW!” It has taken me a couple months just to process this trip it was so amazing.

I will start by saying I am ruined, I live in Alaska, where up till my ‘Strobel Experience’ I believed I lived in an area with some of the best fly fishing available. I had steelhead in the spring and trout/char all summer and fall. I also had all the salmon fishing I wanted. From April to November I could walk less than half a mile from my front door, to fishing that some people dream about.

To break it down a little more what I thought was great fishing prior to and after the trip to Jurassic Lake. Personally, every day of fishing is good, but if I had to pick how to classify each trip as good or great it would go something like this.

• Pre “Strobel Experience”: The thought of catching a 20 inch, 4 pound trout was a nice fish. My biggest trout caught was 26 inches. A 30 inch, 8-10 pound trout was a dream I hoped to achieve. A great day of fishing was landing 10 or more fish greater than 15 inches.

• Post “Strobel Experience”: A 20 inch trout is small. A 30 inch, 10 pound trout is an average fish. My biggest trout now stands at a 34 inch, 24 pound rainbow trout caught on a fly rod on a fly I designed and tied (more later). A great day of fishing is catching 30+ fish all measuring more than 25 inches.

Details:

Transportation: The ride in was everything we had read about. Each guide drives their party in his own personal vehicle. Our guide Juan had a diesel Nissan Xterra and after experiencing this vehicle get tested harsher then it would on Top Gear, I would love to get my hands on one up in Alaska. The ride to the camp was long and bumpy, 3 hours on highway mostly dirt, another 1 hour on a dirt path and 3 hours across a boulder field that you could barely make out where the road was. It was a true four wheel experience into the middle of nowhere. Wildlife was everywhere and the scenery nothing short of amazing.



Lodge: The lodge is not luxury lodge, and honestly I did not want that. I don’t go fishing to have a butler wait on me and change my sheets. The majority of my fishing trip are done in tents or in cabins. At Jurassic, I had my own room with a comfortable bed. It had a propane heater so it was warm and dry. The new dining and relax house was also warm and very comfortable.


photo by our Guide Juan

Food: Every night the food was excellent. Three nights we had all you could eat steak. Argentina loves their beef. Included with the lodge was all we could drink wine, beer, soda as well. Our group would finish several bottles of great Argentinian wine every day. We would load up on several beers and wattle bottles in the morning and head to fish until lunch. Our guide would even bring us cold beers when he came out to check on us.



Guides: First the guides and camp manager were awesome. Guides may not be an apt word for them. They spoke great English and were super helpful. They would join you on the lake or river if you wanted them to. However I prefer a more hands off approach. By doing that, they turned from a guide to a friend, joining you in your experience as any friend would instead of as a person getting paid to stand there with you.

Our guide Juan was an excellent photographer. Outside of fishing, photography was his favorite hobby. As such he joined us throughout the trip and took over 700 pictures of our experience in which he uploaded to a spare SSD card I had at the end of the trip. This allowed me to have all the pictures of my experience. These pictures are some of my favorite pictures and some of the ones in this story were taken by him.



The guides were also excellent educators. Loop has a new spey rod coming out. They had test rods at the camp. I wanted to learn and my friend Jason wanted to get better. They taught us well and at the end of the trip, my buddy Jason was casting like he had been doing it for years and I was successfully using spey techniques in fishing.


photo by our Guide Juan

Once again I was thoroughly impressed by the professionalism of the LOOP camp staff and the LOOP camp. Even if the fishing was mediocre they would have made the trip worthwhile.

Fishing:

Thinking back, even having experienced it with pictures and video proof, I still have a hard time believing it.. The fishing or should I say catching was nothing short of amazing. But sometimes it isn’t just about the catching, sometimes it is that challenge in fishing. Even at Jurassic Lake it exists, the difference is you are guaranteed to catch giant fish while overcoming those challenges.


photo by our Guide Juan

There were days where you had to find that fly that worked the best as they were a little picky that day.



There were days where the ever present Patagonian wind would challenge your casting skills.



Another one is that had never fished dry flies in fast water before. Learning how to read the river to find those hydraulic cushions, perfecting my casting to gently lay that dry fly for a good drift was a challenge for me.


photo by our Guide Juan

Landing a 30 inch Rainbow trout in fast, boulder strewn plunge pools on a 5 wt, was a challenge.


photo by our Guide Juan

Fighting and landing a monster rainbow (34 inch / 24 lb monster) that had taken you through most of your backing and worrying that your 20lb maxima leader or 8wt rod was going to break if you didn’t play that fish exactly right, was a challenge. For more details on this see the tale of the Fruitloop leech linked below.

• All told we caught hundreds of fish with an average size of over 8 lbs.
  
• We caught four fish over 20 lb trout.
  
• We literally lost count of how many trout exceeded the 30 inch mark on our rods.
  
• One afternoon I fished until I couldnt hold my rod rods in either hand anymore. Our group estimated over 100 fish in landed in about 5 hours. Most were over 8 lbs.
• I went through every fly in my stuffed boxes and did not find one that did not work, even the fruitloop leech SEE STORY OF THE FRUITLOOP LEECH HERE
  

I will let these other pictures talk for me. Each one has a story and a good memory but if I am to ever finish this Blog/Forum post I cant describe them all.










photo by our Guide Juan


photo by our Guide Juan














photo by our Guide Juan


photo by our Guide Juan






photo by our Guide Juan




photo by our Guide Juan


photo by our Guide Juan




photo by our Guide Juan

Fun with Flatfish

I intended to start recording my favorite fishing trips last year, but work, family etc got in the way in 2011 and I never finished these. I am in the process of finishing stories for 2011. 1

March 26, 2011
Last winter the fishing bug hit Elijah as much as it hit me. Every day I would be greeted at the door with "Daddy, lets go fishing". To which my response would be: "Is the grass green and leaves on the trees?" My excuses were largely warranted due to lack of meaningful fishing in the area from November to May and the weather but I had to take Elijah fishing.

Finally, we got one of those rare March days where the temperature was warm enough to go outside and try our luck. I had already decided Auke Bay was the only place early in the year to take him fishing, so after a quick stop at Fred Meyers for some bait and tackle, Elijah and I were soon walking down to the end float at Auke Bay to try our luck.

It didn't take long before we were greeted with nibbles. Elijah got all excited and I hooked one. I was using my light spinning rod with six pound test, thinking it would be an easier rod for Elijah to handle. I didn't stand a chance. After 5 minutes of making no progress, I intentionally broke it off.

Elijah was bummed but I promised where there was one fish there is always more. I rigged up the bigger salmon rod and let it go to the bottom. Since I knew fish were there I handed Elijah the rod.



It didn't take long before Elijah was yelling he had a fish. The rod was way to big for him to hold, though so I showed him to hold the handle under his arm, turn the spinning wheel sideways and reel. He managed with some difficulty and I had to help him support the rod on bigger fish, but he did a really good job. He didn't have to go to far, only 60 feet or so, but he was really working. A smile from ear to ear the entire way up. When he saw the white flash he started jumping up and down. I grabbed the line and hauled in a Yellowfin Sole. He was so proud of that fish.



He was upset when i let it go but I told him that he had to let it go to catch another. After several fish he got the point. A little while later a group of tourists came by and watched. I answered all their questions and in return they offered to take my picture with Elijah when he caught his next fish. It ended up being one of my favorite pictures of the year and a nice fish too.



After about two hours of non stop action or around 20 fish, Elijah started to get cold, my hands were ice blocks because Elijah stole my gloves and we were getting low on bait. I told Elijah to catch his last fish and I would video tape him releasing it all by himself. I felt bad for the fish but Yellowfin sole are resilient, I am sure this fish was fine when it finally ended up in the water.

Here is a video of Elijah releasing his last fish.



As we were packing up, I turned around and Elijah had a herring in his mouth. I swear I did not put him up to it. I got the camera out just in time to get a quick video clip. He didn't like the taste and the herring blood freaked him out that he cut himself but it provided a nice video clip.