Austral Kings in the Fjordlands of Patagonia (Long)

The tide had turned and the current had picked up as the water rushed to escape Ralun Bay. Glancing at my GPS I could see we were clipping along at a little over 3.5 mph without paddling much at all. The braid on my Okuma Convector line counter and Shimano TDR trolling rod hummed as the flasher and Super bait rotated in the deep blue water some 40’ below me. Ahead rough water marked the location of a reef as water smashed against a hard granite wall in response to the moon’s gravitation pull. Both Sidra and I cranked our gear up until the line counters read 20’. As we cruised over the reef I marked several fish when Sidra’s rod suddenly loaded up. For a brief moment we thought she had snagged the bottom but when the line began peeling off perpendicular to the current it was abundantly clear that she had not. She grimaced and buried the butt of the rod in her gut as line continued to peel and the fish dragged the kayak with it. It was the longest run I’ve ever seen a salmon complete and it did not cease until her line counter read 180’.



For years I’ve wanted to travel to Patagonia. It has actually been an obsession of mine since I was a kid. There is something about exotic temperate zones which really intrigue. Familiar but not quite. Fast forward to this past January when on a whim Sidra and I decided to book a whirlwind two week trip to the northern Patagonia region of Chile. I knew Chile was renowned for its trout and salmon fishing. The prospect of pursuing giant austral King Salmon excited me. Most of all, I wondered if it could be done from a kayak.

With less than a month to prepare, I quickly poured over YouTube videos, scholarly articles, and various trip reports from anglers. What I found was a patch work of information largely geared towards fly fisherman and scientists and not much in the way of information for anglers hoping to target these fish with conventional gear and nothing on kayak angling. Remarkably I was able to use buildings and mountains in the backgrounds of photos and videos from YouTube and other online sources along with Google Earth to roughly determine where fish were being caught. Using this information I located an area in the Reloncavi fjord that seemed fishable from a kayak. Further research revealed tidal swings up to and over 20’ in height…yikes! However, relatively weak, 7’ exchanges with high tides in the mornings and evenings were forecast near the end of our trip. I decided to target a two day window during this period and made arrangements with a nearby kayak rental company to rent a tandem Necky Looksha. With no Hobies available I thought the Necky tandem was our best option for trolling for austral Kings as one of us could paddle while the other deployed the gear or battled a fish. Through the kayak company I arranged camping on an isolated subsistence farm located directly on the fjord itself.



Next I had to figure out how to get a sit-inside tandem paddle kayak ready for trolling 8-10 oz of lead plus flashers and also hold up to potentially very large Chinook Salmon. Obviously I couldn’t drill holes in a rental kayak so I ordered a pair of Scotty clamp on rod holders. I tested these out on my two small sit-inside Wilderness Systems kayaks and low and behold they worked wonderfully. In fact they were so secure that I could lift the kayaks off the ground without the clamp slipping. With that problem solved I needed to find two relatively short but strong trolling rods. I settled on two 15-40 lb Shimano TDR glass trolling rods. Strong and inexpensive these two-piece 8’ rods fit into my 4’ rod tube and set me back about $50 for the pair. Two Okuma Convector line counters spooled with 65 lb Powerpro finished out the setups. For terminal gear I packed a variety of Mulkey and Toman Spinners and Brad’s Superbait Originals and Cutplugs retied with Maruto hooks and 40 lb Maxima Ultragreen. The strangest item I packed was lead cannonballs but I am very glad I did pack them because there is nowhere to buy them in Chile. Finally, I packed a Garmix Etrex to monitor trolling speeds and I bought an inexpensive battery operated fishfinder produced by Signstek on Amazon for $50 to help monitor water depth. If you noticed, one particularly important item missing from the list was a net. I could not for the life of me find a reasonably priced portable net for King Salmon. My hope was to find one in Chile or at least fabricate one when I arrived.
Finally, the day arrived for us to leave for Chile. We had a week and a half of hiking, camping, birding, and fly fishing planned before we were to try our hand at kayak angling for Patagonian Kings. Flying to the southern hemisphere takes forever and after arriving in Santiago we made a short flight to Puerto Montt in the Los Lagos region and the gateway to northern Patagonia. In Puerto Montt we visited the “Servicio Nacional de Pesca” to buy our one month fishing licenses which set us back a whole $11 USD. We failed to find a fishing net in Puerto Montt but resolved to look later in the trip for one.



The rest of the trip was amazing and the Patagonian Andes delivered in beauty and in an abundance of trout as we fully expected it would. As we neared the date of our planned kayak King adventure a large and powerful storm system rolled in. We used one of the rainy days to visit a small fishing shop in Puerto Varas where I found an amazing folding fishing net perfectly suited to netting Kings and highly portable. Best yet it cost me only $40 USD and it was even portable enough to squeeze into our luggage.



Finally the day came to get our kayak. We met with the owner of the kayak rental company whose Subaru Outback looked like it had been through a blast furnace. It turned out it had been buried in pumice and acid rain during one of the more recent volcano eruptions…so not so far off. We loaded the kayak, paddles, jackets, and headed off to the fjord. We arrived to find beautifully calm conditions. We quickly loaded all our fishing, camping gear, and food for the next couple days and launched for the one and a half hour paddle to the farm where we set up camp. Along the way we had several large chinook roll adjacent to the kayak.



In the middle of the night the wind began to pick up. I woke each time growing more worried that the weather would not subside. My worst fears were confirmed when we woke to high winds and intermittent horizontal rain. We huddled in an old boat shed near our camp and boiled water for coffee and tea hoping that the weather would pass. The wind subsided by perhaps a few miles per hour and we decided to give it a go. As soon we pushed the kayak away from the rocks the wind grabbed us but with the help of the rudder and some aggressive paddling we nosed the kayak into the wind. We rigged a Mulkey spinner and Big Al’s Flasher on one rod and a Big Al’s and a Superbait on another rod. We trolled north but fighting the wind and the outgoing current proved too tiresome so we ducked into a cove where we did a couple laps picking up a few small jack chinook but not the large adults we had hoped for. All the jacks were being caught on Superbaits so I changed out the spinner for another Superbait and continued on. Exhausted and with the wind on the rebound we turned back for the camp with the wind at our backs. We were trolling in 60-100’ of water with our gear down at around 40’. The wind had picked up to 15-20 mph with gusts up above 20 mph. As we rounded the last point before our camp a large reef rose up under the kayak and we both cranked our gear up to just 10-15’ on our line counters when suddenly my rod exploded into action.

I quickly extracted the rod from the rod holder as the fish began tearing line from the reel. The wind continued to shove us along at over 2 mph. I turned my head to see the unmistakable sight of a Chinook Salmon tail thrashing violently some 40’ behind the kayak. The fish made several hard runs but I steadily worked the fish nearer the kayak. At some point I managed to move the net forward to Sidra but with the wind pushing us along I could not bring fish forward to allow her to net it. Finally I made the decision to direct the kayak shoreward. While doing this we caught a momentary brake in the wind. Sidra, who had never netted a King before, waited patiently and at her first opportunity perfectly slipped the net under the fish. A wave of relief swept over me. We had done it. We had caught an austral King Salmon from a kayak.



Fortuitously the wind and fish had pushed us adjacent to our camp. We quickly landed the kayak and I got my first glimpse at this beautiful fish. The fish measured 36” long with a girth of 24” placing it squarely in the 25 lb range. We decided to bonk the fish and donate it to our hosts on the farm we were camping on. It was a beautiful, fat, and dark sooty faced fish reflecting its Cowlitz/Kalama “springer” heritage. Walking up the hill to the farm house we were given away by the sheep and the hog, Sancho. The old woman who lived on the farm and her son were shocked by the fish and were completely blown away when I handed it over offering it as a gift. The old woman was so over taken by the gift she came out in the weather and gave both Sidra and I big hugs and kisses despite my warnings that I was covered in fish slime. She stressed that we must join her for dinner that evening which we of course accepted. She asked if we wanted the salmon or some local ‘carne’ from the farm. We told her the salmon was a gift and she could serve us whatever she liked.

We returned to camp and decided to give trolling one more go now that we had some confidence. The wind was even worse so we stuck close to the shoreline. About 20 minutes in Sidra scored some bizarre sooty-blue fish that resembled a large greenling. We also caught several more jack Chinook but did not catch any more large adult Kings. Back at camp we secured the kayak and changed into dry clothing. We hiked up to the farm house and were overwhelmed with the smell of roasted pork as we entered the house. We slid our sandals under the iron wood fired stove to dry as pork, Sancho’s father, and potatoes roasted on top. Our host’s prepared fresh tomato and cucumber salad while uncorking a large bottle of wine to celebrate “el salmo” (the salmon). The meal was spectacular and we all got a little tipsy on red wine, which only improves my Spanish!



The next morning low clouds began to give way to sunshine and there was barely a whisper of wind. I stuffed the Superbaits with tuna and “Salmon Hammer” Smelly Jelly and started the troll north. We caught a few jacks heading north but were marking very few fish in the slack tide. I spotted a couple fish rolling on the surface near where the alluvial fan on the Petrohue River drops off into the fjord. We decided to focus our energies there. Sidra’s original Hot Tamale took the upper column while my cutplug Double Take worked near the bottom. Within a few minutes of paralleling the drop-off my rod came alive. It clearly wasn’t a salmon but I was surprised to pull up a large flounder in the mid 20” range. I dropped my gear back down when Sidra’s rod crackered off.

This was no flounder! Line peeled from the reel and I quickly cranked my gear up and nosed the kayak back around. The fish made a hard run reversing directions on us on each time. This fish wasn’t going down without a fight. We got our first sight of the rotund chromer but each time she drew the fish close to the kayak it would reverse direction forcing her to slip the rod tip around the front. Near the end the fish made a hard run toward the back of the kayak and I managed to slip my rod and gear out of the way and net the fish. SWEET! Sidra had landed her first austral King and it was a dandy with a total length of 38” and a girth of 27” placing it at or near 35 lbs. The fish was exhausted after the long fight and it took several minutes to revive but we finally sent it back on its way.



Due to the timing of the tides and the forecast winds we needed to be headed back to camp to break it down and return to the launch with both in our favor. With only a little time left I decided we would troll back to camp. The outgoing tide was now in full swing and our kayak began to accelerate as we approached a narrow section in the fjord. On our right we could see turbulent water breaking over a reef. Our experience so far had demonstrated that salmon would congregate in these areas. We were clipping along at nearly 3.5 mph without hardly paddling. The bottom rose up quickly from 60’ to 15’. Sidra and I both cranked our gear up to 20’ on the line counter. BAM! Sidra’s rod loaded up and for an instant I thought we had snagged the reef. Those doubts were cast aside the line peeled away perpendicular to the current dragging the kayak along. After peeling 160’ of line from the reel a beastly speckled purple tail thrash the surface in the bay out in front of us. “Good God!”, I exclaimed. This was going to take a while.

The fish never relented making run after run taking 50’, then 30’, then 15’ until we finally got the upper hand. Along the way the current continued to push us along drawing us back into shallower water near shore. Finally, we had the beast alongside the kayak. It was the largest Chinook I had ever laid eyes on. Remarkably the fight near the kayak was uneventful as the fish had clearly tired itself in the opening round. I quickly slipped the fish into the net. I passed the net forward and had Sidra orient the fish into the current to help revive the fish. After we landed I gently slipped the fish from the net and removed the hook. It was beastly. It took both of my hands to wrap around the tail. I passed off the fish to Sidra and laughed as she could not lift the fish from the water. What struck me most was the size of the pectoral fin and her hand, they were almost identical. The fish measured 42.5” to the fork and had a girth of 30”. It carried that girth remarkably deep into the body from the shoulders back. We estimated the fish weighed around 49 lbs if not more. A couple of quick pictures and the fish was eager to continue on its journey. As it slipped away I almost wept I was so happy and Sidra was still so high on adrenaline I could barely calm her.



The fish has destroyed her leader so we re-rigged and quickly got back on the water. However, we were going to pay dearly for the delay caused by the fish. We still had a 1.5 mile paddle south and the south winds were already kicking up near 12 mph. Giant “super eddies” were forming in the fjord as the current peaked. At one moment we would have a 2-3 mph tail current and the next we would be fighting 2 mph head current. We slogged back to camp keeping our gear in the water as long we could but our arm muscles were fatiguing fast. Finally with camp was in sight and I called it. We pulled up our gear for the final time. It was over. The camp came down, we snarfed down lunch, hugged and kissed our hosts goodbye, and stuffed the kayak to the brim. The tide had shifted and the wind was in our favor. It was an easy paddle back to the car. As the blue waters of the Reloncavi Fjord faded in the sideview mirrors I smiled knowing that we had realized a dream. I smiled also because I knew I would return…someday.

SWEET report!  Thanks so much for sharing your great adventure!

Beautiful pics, nice narrative, looks like a trip of a lifetime, hope you get to do it again!

John

Incredible experience - thank you so much for sharing the tale and photos.

   Thanks Tyler,

 That had to have been one of the best stories I have ever read on NWKA.
 Outstanding tale exceptionally told. You did great.
 I think , no I know, I just had an add on to my bucket list.
 Appreciate your sharing with us all.


 Besides those were some totally awesome fish....

This is my favorite trip report in a very long time.  I am legit jealous right now.  So awesome.

  lucky beautiful area to fish in I too am jealous as hell!

Outstanding!!   

Epic trip and story. 
I don't know if you shot video or not but I hope you did.  Those fish are enough to make you want to look into Realestate!

Tyler, what an amazing story from an incredible trip!  Thank you for sharing!

Great story. Your planning and work paid off. Thanks.

Really wonderful story Tyler.

Inspirational story! Thank you

Nice report.. now you just need to catch Chinook in the Great Lakes and New Zealand to fill your king salmon of the world passport.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Sidra's greenling-like fish is a Chilean sandperch (Pinguipes chilensis). 

Nice report.. now you just need to catch Chinook in the Great Lakes and New Zealand to fill your king salmon of the world passport.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Sidra's greenling-like fish is a Chilean sandperch (Pinguipes chilensis).

Yes you are correct. Chilean Sandperch it is!