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continued from Itinerary Day 10:Lago No. 3Read about our experiences last December by George Anderson
From the vast wide open pampas of the Gualjaina valley, we headed south once again towards jagged peaks. There we were back in the Andes, looking at the snow covered mountains residing the border of Argentina and Chile. The Rio Pico wound its way through the green foothills below, on its meandering journey towards the Pacific Ocean while Lago No. 3 held still surrounded by seemingly endless distant peaks and closer cragged, karst like horizons.
This time our sojourn was a very comfortable, recently built cabin overlooking Lago #1, just a stone's throw from our front deck. Marcos told us that there were some nice fish in all five lakes here in Rio Pico area, but Lago #3 was by far the best. That afternoon we found that it lived up to its billing. We had hauled one inflatable Zodiak style boat with us that had a v-hull and 35 hp Johnson on it, and brought another 25 HP Johnson to put on a hard sided boat the Patricio leaves there in the off season. A sandy beach provided a wonderful boat ramp for us and a ten minute run took us to the west side of Lago #3 and the reed beds where we would find Alaska sized rainbows that would slam an olive, multi-colored wooly bugger with enough zest to burn right into your backing, even using 2X tippets. The water along the reeds was deep a good 10-15 feet, so a Teeny T-200 or a 24 foot Type V Density Compensated sink tip was the key to getting down. Most of the fish were hot rainbows in the 22-25 inch class but everyone got into fish in the 26-28 inch range that afternoon, including one big brown that Rick nailed that would have gone a good four or five pounds. I kept thinking what kind of damage a guy could do with a
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pontoon boat here, especially in the shallower water a few hundred yards on the shallower side of the reeds. It would have been incredible fishing in the shallows for those huge rainbows...