Part 3: The Long Way Through Patagonia - Experience Jurassic

Part 1: The Long Way Through Patagonia

Part 2: The Long Way Through Patgonia - Dorado Teeth

All good things come to an end. At least when it comes to the weather. After two weeks of mostly cooperative conditions, my sunburn and the backpack digging into it were proof that I had gotten lucky. Then Buenos Aires disappeared behind me.

One minute it was traffic, warm air, late nights, and city noise. The next, I stepped off the plane in El Calafate into a cold wind and sideways rain on my way to Jurassic Lake Lodge. Patagonia was reminding me who’s in charge.

Pato was waiting at the airport. We loaded the bags and drove straight to Carlos’s house, the owner of Jurassic Lake Lodge. Outside, a whole lamb turned slowly over an open fire beneath a shelter, smoke hanging low in the rain.

Inside, Josh and Tony had just arrived from the dorado program, along with John and Jack, a father-and-son team who would be fishing with us for the week. Wine was poured, plates started circulating, and eventually the conversation shifted from stories to logistics.

We’d have an early pickup, drive four hours north, switch trucks, another two hours across a remote estancia, then, finally, the lake.

By now, long drives had become part of the rhythm. After the noise of Buenos Aires, the emptiness felt like a reset. Route 40 wound north through the steppe, guanacos moving along the fence lines and the silhouette of the Fitz Roy mountain peaks rising in the distance. The farther we went, the more remote it felt.

The drive into Lago Strobel, better known as Jurassic Lake, is part of the experience. Long, rough, and deeply scenic, it makes one thing clear: you are going somewhere that is not easy to reach. By the time we arrived, the wind had picked up. Waves were crashing against the shoreline, the tattered Argentinian flag in the center of the yard flapping aggressively.

Jurassic Lake Lodge sits tucked into one of the few protected places along the lake, with the Rio Barrancoso visible from the dining room. Strategically located at the only tributary of the lake and the most productive stretch of water. After lunch and a quick orientation, we headed for the shoreline.

Tony, Josh, and I scrambled down the bank and immediately got a taste of what the lake could throw at us. I chose a particularly bad route to the shoreline, slipped, and sent a sheet of water over my rain jacket and straight into my waders. Strong start.

I am not generally a lake fisherman. I have spent a few days on Pyramid Lake in the Nevada desert to check it off the bucket list. Jurassic felt like a different animal. Windier, wilder and less forgiving.

Within 30 minutes of fishing, the line came tight. I had cast a small leech well over the ledge where the lake dropped away, let it sink, and started a slow, erratic retrieve. The line slipped through my hand and shot away! I panicked and clamped down.

Pop. The line went slack.

I reeled in expecting to find an empty leader. Instead, the fly was still there. The hook had been bent almost completely straight. The custom-tied flies on 2X-strong hooks suddenly made a lot more sense.

That was my only real chance that afternoon. Other anglers connected, though, and by evening the guides were returning to the shoreline with a few enormous rainbows thrashing in their nets.

We went back to the lodge, ate another enormous meal, and waited for morning.

Then something unusual happened, the wind disappeared. At first light, Jurassic Lake was almost perfectly still. The surface looked like glass, and the first rays of sunlight crept over the far shoreline as we stood knee-deep in the shallows.

It was beautiful but it was also about as difficult as Jurassic gets.

Head guide, Jose, handed me a 5 weight with a long leader. Compared with the standard 8 weight and heavy tippet, it looked almost absurdly light.

It took only a few casts; the line came tight but this time I was ready. I let the fish take up the slack until it came to the reel, and then it took off. The rod bent deep into the cork, and for a while I could do little more than hold on. Trying to turn a Jurassic rainbow on a 5 weight is an exercise in optimism.

Eventually, Jose and I worked the fish close enough to shore to slide the net underneath.

I had spent a portion of my adult life guiding in Alaska and had put a lot of big trout in nets. This fish was different. From a distance, it looked more like a salmon than a rainbow. Its shoulders were so tall they seemed almost unnatural, and its bright coloration was unlike anything I normally associate with a resident trout.

It was my personal best rainbow, and it was only the first morning. The irony was that the conditions that produced that fish were not the conditions Jurassic is famous for.

The lake needs wind. Wind pushes food toward the shoreline, turns up the bottom, and brings the fish into shallow water. When the lake is rough, the rainbows cruise close to shore and become surprisingly aggressive.

When the lake goes calm, everything changes. The fish spread out, they become more cautious and long casts matter. Lighter tackle becomes necessary. Fish roll well beyond casting range, their backs breaking the surface. You can see them, but you just can't reach them. It is beautiful, frustrating water.

After lunch, we changed gears and headed to the Rio Barrancoso. From a bluff above the river, I could see fifteen or twenty large trout holding between the boulders below, many of them well over 24 inches. They were also some of the spookiest fish I had seen all trip.

I managed to get a couple to eat a small purple Chubby, but once hooked they immediately disappeared into the maze of rocks. One broke me off. Another came loose.

That was Jurassic Lake Lodge in a nutshell. The rest of the week followed much the same pattern: excellent meals, restless nights plagued by the thoughts of the fish I had seen, hooked and lost, a few fish to hand, and an almost obsessive anticipation of what the next morning might bring. Every morning we departed earlier. The stars and moon illuminated the lake, numb fingers fumbling on cold lines, and a sunrise that can only be described as heavenly. 

The stillness eventually broke. An overnight rainstorm brought a higher river and, with it, the wind returned to the lake. Waves began rolling against the shoreline again. Suddenly, dark shapes appeared just offshore. Pods of rainbows moved along the banks, and up and down the lake, anglers began hooking into fish. Jurassic was waking back up.

The fish are obviously the draw. But standing there in the wind, staring across a lake that seemed to have no end, I started to understand that Jurassic is as much about the place as what lives in it. The scale, the weather, the isolation, and the sheer size of the trout are all tied together. Everything about Jurassic feels outsized, including the trout. There is something fitting about finding fish that big in a place this wild.