Description

Latitude 55° S 🇨🇱

For those that seek adventure and the last fly fishing wilderness, Lakutaia Lodge offers just that. Located at the southern most inhabited island before Antartica this Heli-fishing operation offers a real chance to fish untouched waters for some of the southern most trout on the planet.

As it is a relatively new operation only 50% of the islands waterways have been discovered which means that when you visit here you may be the first person to cast a fly over those fish this season.

Due to the extremely light fishing pressure in this remote wilderness, you are able to catch these fish on all methods on a given day. From streamers, nymphs, drys, and skated flies your fly may be the first that the fish has seen which is totally unique in todays day and age.

The helicopter is the key to the operation, without it you could not access any of the river systems. Everyday you fly from the lodge into a new area of the island where you are able to literally choose with the guides where you would like to fish next.

There is such a diversity of fish species on the island, when you are fishing down a pool you literally don’t know what you will catch next. We caught sea trout, brown trout, brook trout, rainbow trout and sea bass all in one system in one day. This has to be the most diverse fishery that we have fished and essentially it is a fly fishers paradise.

The weather systems come off the mountain ranges changing all the time. One moment it can be full sunshine and warm and the next cold winds from Antartica howl through the landscape with icy rain and challenging fly fishing conditions. The brutality of the wind, the weather and the wilderness environment is not for the faint hearted but that just adds to the experience.

The combination of the harsh environment, the weather and the multitude of fish species here has provided us a fantastic opportunity to test next generation tackle to ensure it has no flaws. We used single handed rods entirely where we put some focus on testing the LOOP Q rods in the #6 and #7 weight class, combined with the Opti Flow and Opti Stillwater lines. On smaller streams we fished with the cross S1 590 and our most reliable setup which we used each day was the Cross SX 690 teamed with the Opti Dryfly reel and Evotec 100 line which was perfectly suited to overhead casting streamers, nymphs, and dry flies along with spey casting when there was little space available to make overhead casts.

The Navarino Island experience was an unforgettable trip for all of us! The union of the wilderness fishery, adventure filled helicopter rides, professional pilots and amazing guides will draw us back here for years to come.

GEAR USED:

Al – Q 790 – Opti Rapid Reel – Rautas Carbon grey – LOOP rods and tackle cap – LOOP V10 sunglasses grey/blue

Eoin – Cross SX 690 – Opti Dryfly reel – Opti #6 – Rautas Blue – LOOP Classic grey cap – LOOP V10 sunglasses blue

Will – Rautas Swedish Blue – Evotec m/f 690 – Evotec 5-7 FW – Evotec. 100 #6 fly line – LOOP flexifit classic cap grey – LOOP X10 sunglasses grey/green

Rafael – Q 690 – Opti Dryfly Reel – Opti Flow #6 – LOOP Lainio Blue – LOOP logo snapback cap