Visit Southeast Idaho

What kind of fishing adventure are you interested in? Given a choice, would you choose a high-cost lodge where you are catered to at $1,000 a day or a remote backwoods adventure where you cook on a wood stove for $75 a day? Take a look at the video and make a choice.

$1,000 a day: Yan Kee Way Lodge in Southern Chile

This place is amazing. Individual chalets, 4-star cooks, guides equipped with the best gear and the world-famous Rio Petrohue river to fish for rainbow and brown trout in an exotic location. Unfortunately, I was not fishing but on a writing assignment for Salmon Trout Steelheader magazine out of Seattle to chronicle the fishing adventures of expert steelhead guide and angler Jack Mitchell of eastern Washington.

The Rio Petrohue is famous. Flanked by snow-capped volcanoes and deep woods, it produces rainbows to 10 pounds, sea run browns to 20 pounds and Chinook salmon to 70 pounds. When we arrived, the river was high due to heavy rains, a volcanic eruption trickled silt into the river and the Chinook salmon run was late. Even a $1,000 a day can’t guarantee good fishing.

Jack Mitchell is an expert fly fisherman, and he drew on years of experience fishing the Snake, Columbia, Klickitat rivers for trout and steelhead. After a day of pulling streamers in eddies and casting dry flies to small pockets of water, it was apparent catching fish was going to be a challenge. His wife, Jennifer, also an accomplished angler, suggested fishing yarn under a strike indicator. It worked and instead of catching five to 10 rainbows a day between them, they caught 27 rainbows the next morning.

Where were the giant salmon and brown trout? Out in the bay, lodge salmon guide Clancy Holt and his client Gary Loomis trolled deep the river mouth and caught salmon to 70 pounds, but the salmon and browns had not yet entered the river where we could get a crack at them.

$75 a day: Backwoods fishing adventure in Chile

Leaving luxury, I boarded an ancient plane for a two-hour flight 300 miles south to a backwoods lodge that promised excellent rainbow trout fishing. The manager of Yan Kee Way owned the low-cost fledgling Rio Paloma Lodge and was exuberant about the fishing. All I had to do was pay my airfare, cost of food and pitch in. All for $75 a day and the cost of a horse back ride to see a rare deer in the Andes Mountains.

The catch? The only the cook was at the lodge, he didn’t speak English and I would have to pitch in on the chores.

The plane landed in a defunct military airport, miles from nowhere and the cook/guide was not there to pick me up. An hour late, he rumbled up in an old pickup truck, hopped out and let out a burst of rapid-fire Spanish and motioned like he was casting a fly. Yep, this was my man.

The lodge was two hours over dirt roads and one temporary road block consisting of 100 sheep away. It is an old wood frame house with three tiny bedrooms, kitchen and a wood fired stove. He would guide and cook, and I would clean dishes, chop wood and fetch water.

The next morning, we were casting on a river out of a picture book. Tall pines, rippling water and trout breaking the surface. But the fish were not biting our flies. Late in the day, I broke out my little spinning rod and a No. 2 gold Mepps spinner. Three casts later, I landed a nice 2-pound rainbow. The cook was delighted. No catch and release here. This was dinner. The spinner worked magic on fish after fish.

Delighted at the great day of fishing, the cook arranged for a horseback ride into the mountains to see a rare and endangered deer. The year before, I spent nine days in the Andes Mountains in a pup-tent with a scientific team trying to locate and photograph one of these rare deer with no success.

As my horse swam the swift river to start the steep ascent into the mountains, I realized this was clearly not a tourist horseback ride. Four hours later, I swore I would never ride a horse again.

The endangered Huemul deer stood in a small ravine 100 yards away. A nice buck with forked horns. I snapped shots with my 600 telephoto lens. Not great shots but rare ones. We continued up the mountains for several hours looking for more deer then returned to an old sheepherders hut. Sore, hungry and tired, I dreaded the four hours more of trail riding to reach the road.

At the hut, to my amazement, the sheepherder pulled from his saddle bags a rack of lamb, started a fire and stuck the ribs on a T bar over the fire to roast. Once they were done, he rustled in his other saddle bag producing a loaf of bread and a six pack of beer. He handed me his knife to cut off a slab of roasting ribs, hunk of bread and a beer. Best mountain meal ever!

Chopping wood and washing dishes was a small price to pay for excellent rainbow fishing day and a horseback ride to see the endangered Huemul deer.

Choices

So which adventures would you choose? Luxury lodge or wilderness house with cook for a guide and a trail ride?

Harry Morse is currently a freelance writer living in Pocatello. His articles have appeared in national hunting and fishing magazines. The majority of his career he worked for Washington, Idaho and California Departments of Fish and Wildlife as an information officer. He has travel broadly an enjoys photography, fishing and hunting.