Andes Journeys Chileen Fjords
This is a trip report on a recent fishing trip to the Chilean Fjords with Andes Journeys, billed as world class fishing in remote unfished Chilean Rivers for very large trout and salmon. Our trip took place on 12th -17th January 2025. There were 4 anglers, three from the UK and one from the US who was already known to the operator and head guide, Christian Dufflocq. This report is written on behalf of the three of us. The boat, as shown in the website photos, was fairly magnificent and we all boarded after breakfast having stayed the night in a local hotel in Puerto Chacabuco. Unfortunately, there were massive gusts of wind blowing down the Fjord and no one was complaining that we didn’t set off as, apparently, it was blowing force 10 around the corner in the main channel. We settled down to wait it out and, in the end, stayed at the port all day, finally setting sail in the small hours of day 2. We therefore missed the short fishing session we might have had on the first day. Next day, after 7 hours motoring and breakfast, we found ourselves moored off our first river and, with much anticipation, scrambled into a small inflatable boat to fish it from the shore, wading and walking upstream. The whole idea of the fishing, we were told, was that large estuary-living slob/sea-run brown and rainbow trout (5-8lb and more) came up the rivers to hunt for bait fish washed down the tidal zone. In the smaller rivers (the majority of them) the tidal zone was only large enough for 2 anglers and therefore the other two fished the fresh-water pools above. This was true of the first river which we fished for 2-3 hours. No fish were caught or seen in the tidal zone and we caught a couple of small resident browns in the freshwater pools. We returned for lunch and motored to the second river where we repeated the operation, and the fishing experience. The following day we fished two other rivers, again with no sign of anything but the odd small resident brown. Ditto day 3, day 4 day 5 and day 6. In total our party caught little more than a dozen really quite small (1lb average, 2.5 lb max) resident brown trout and there was zero sign of the larger sea runs. The rivers, although beautiful, and full of minnows were actually peculiarly lifeless and devoid of any larger fish. No explanation was forthcoming other than unusually hot weather the previous week which we understood had been almost as poor for the party fishing, although the water and air temperature were quite good for trout-fishing in our week. By the end of the week our angling party was exceptionally disappointed, and the guides were in 1000yd stare mode. We were all glad to get off the boat. Conclusion – the three UK clients are highly experienced fly fishermen and have done a great deal of international flyfishing. This trip was supremely expensive (we are talking peak Rio Grande prices) and whilst we didn’t necessarily believe the fishing would be world class, we did expect it to be very good, subject of course to encountering exceptionally difficult conditions such as a storm. What we found out during our week was that this trip had not been run by the operator since pre covid times and the photos on the website were certainly of a much younger Christian Dufflocq. This was not denied in follow up correspondence. It seemed to us therefore that the two one-week fishing trips were essentially used to fund an exploratory trip to see if the fish were still around. In our opinion they aren’t. Or if they are at all, they are so unreliable and elusive as to make the trip too high risk. Why they aren’t is anyone’s guess: dolphins, evidence of old fish farms in the vicinity, climate change…, who knows? What we do know though is that this trip should not have been run with fee paying clients without out a far higher level of certainty that the fishery is still intact and fishing well. In our opinion it isn’t, and we would not recommend anyone else goes near it. Where it is we can’t disclose as we had to sign NDA’s covering its location – the irony was not lost on us. Our experience clearly reflects extremely poorly on the operator, Andes Journeys.
By Simon D.