Betty and Steve MacKenzie at Jurassic Lake in Argentina

Betty and Steve MacKenzie just  arrived home safely on Monday night from a wonderful 3

weeks in Argentina.  Here is their story of another great adventure!

After arriving in Argentina, we spent a few days in Buenos Aires, resting

and getting over the time change, as well as doing some sightseeing.  We

flew to Comodoro Rivadavia on Friday afternoon, January 4, and stayed

overnight.  Early Saturday morning we met the other 6 people in our group,

and were shuttled to the airport for our twin otter fight to the Jurassic

Lake, in the middle of Patagonia.  We enjoyed views of the dry landscape on

the way out.

After 1 and 1/2 hours we landed on a very windy and cold airstrip, where the

crew was waiting to transport us to the lodge.  

Jurassic Lodge sits at the mouth of a river, and provided a very comfortable

and convenient base for our fishing.  Our rooms were very comfortable, the

staff and guides very knowledgeable, and the food was excellent.

On a typical day, we would meet for breakfast at 8, then get ready and meet

our guide by about 9 am.  Our 8 anglers divided up into 4 groups, each with

a guide.  Each group was assigned a "beat" to fish for the time period,

although there was some flexibility depending on the weather. 

We would fish until about 12:30, then head back to the lodge for lunch and

siesta time if we wished to take a break.  It was never more than a 10

minute walk back to the lodge.

By 4 pm we would be out fishing again, and usually met back in the lodge

about 7:30 or 8:00 pm for happy hour and to compare stories and pictures of

the day's fishing.

We experienced an unusually windy week, even in that very windy part of the

world, with wind speeds of 75 - 80 kph many days, and some gusts over 100

kph.  However, the skies were usually blue, so we chose to ignore the

conditions and make the best of it.  Fishing was very difficult on some

days, but was more than made up for by a few truly stellar fishing days.  

There were no real monsters caught during our week, with the largest fish

weighing in around 15 lbs.  But we caught and released a ton of beautiful

rainbows in the 8 - 12 lb. range so we were very happy.  

It's hard to say what flies were the best, as we caught them on  wide range

of our favorites. Balanced flies that worked were ruby-eyed leech, green

dubbed leech, las vegas leech and good old ice minnow.  We caught some on

prince nymphs and baby damsels, as well as small scuds.  Floating patterns

that worked included big foam chernobyls and deer hair caddis.  I caught my

largest trout ever on a dry fly with a small Goddard caddis.  The lesson we

learned is that these are rainbow trout like any other - your good strong

Manitoba flies will work just fine!  We used 6 and 8 weight rods with Rio

indicator line.  Every fish was released as carefully as possible.

Our pictures are pretty self-explanatory.  I'll attach one video that is

pretty cool!

I'll have lots more stories to tell when I see you at fly tying!

Betty and Steve