Here are a few images of Nano Martinez. Nano is a Limay River Lodge guide and fourth generation on this section of river, El Medio. He can laugh, fish, and guide with the best of them...
Nano ratchets up the drift boat after a fall day on the Limay
On a Limay side channel...
Fall light on the Limay
Here's a slideshow from my recent trip down to Chile. I stayed at Los Torreones Lodge with the owners, the Salas family, and was blown away by their kindness and work ethic. They brought me into their lives for over two weeks and tolerated my energy and busting into their kitchen looking for mate and coffee each morning.
A small lodge with a lifelong dedication to fishing, it's located on the Simpson River, Los Torreones is also a small ranch with chickens, geese, pigs, sheep, goats, alpacas, horses... Pancho Salas, the owner and patriarch has been guiding in Northern Patagonia since 1984 and his four kids were all raised in the Simpson River Valley. Three of those kids are guides themselves and probably wouldn't take kindly to being called, kids... Grown and confident and knowledgeable and just fun to be with, I would gladly spend a week or more on the water with any of them.
I am working on a story on the Salas family and Northern Patagonia that will be published in the months ahead. More to come...
The days are long in Patagonia during the summer months. There's hazy predawn light just after 5:15 am and it's easy to be on the water with plenty of light to see at 10:30 pm. When the days are warmer in late December and early January there is an evening hatch and it's worth postponing dinner until 11:15 or so and that Chilean wine tastes even better after having witnessed sippers eating caddis and mayflies...
A well prepped moment during an evening hatch. Angler John Mullen got the right idea from Chilean guide Pancho Salas.
I just got back from a trip down to the Chilean side of Patagonia. I'll be posting many images in the days to come from the trip. I stayed at Los Torreones Lodge with Pancho Salas and his family who let me into their day to day lives. The trip was incredible beyond just the fishing and without the kindness and generosity of Pancho's entire family I would never have seen many aspects of life in Patagonia.
A typical Patagonia dirt road near Los Torrenes Lodge.
Guide Sebastian Salas, after putting us on a rising rainbow, rowed the pontoon boat over to a patch of sweet yellow raspberries. Sebastian was born and raised in the Simpson River Valley in Patagonia. He is one of three brothers who guide this area.
When something needs to get done, it gets done. Pancho Salas gives his son Sebastian a hand at shoeing a horse.
The ubiquitous ibises. Their call could be and can be heard from all over Chilean Patagonia.
Matte. While it's not as de rigueur as in Argentina, it's still consumed a bunch in Patagonia.
Pancho Salas nets a rainbow at the end of a great and long Chilean summer day.