The colonization of Patagonia
Fishing possibilities in Chilean Patagonia have multiplied in recent decades. Today, the limits of this discipline stretch beyond Tierra del Fuego, as far as Puerto Williams, the southernmost city in the world. There, south of Cape Horn, on the other side of the Dientes de Navarino mountain range, it is possible to complete the grand slam of fly fishing, that is, to catch and release – in the same day – a wide variety of salmonids, from rainbow trout, brown trout, brook trout to even bull trout (salvelinus confluentus), as well as sea-run browns and a variety of salmon.
This is unique in the world. However, although there are some clues, how these fish arrived at the furthest reaches of the planet remains an enigma to this day. Although there is no known fish farming in the Puerto Williams area, it is presumed that these trout and salmon, descendants of generations of salmonids, arrived by sea or by divine fishing providence to settle in the purest waters of the world.
What history has left us as a testimony i s that the first trout and salmon eggs arrived in Chile by the hand of the German botanist Federico Albert Taupp, who i n mid 1905 achieved his feat of bringing the first 400,000 eggs of Atlantic salmon and German rainbow and brown trout, which arrived at the Rio Blanco fish farm, in the Aconcagua mountain range. In 1907, brook trout eggs would arrive. These would mark the beginning of what would later include stocking fingerlings, very young salmon and trout, in Chilean Patagonia.
In 1909, stories began to appear in magazines about trout fishing in Paine, Tinguiriririca, Cautín, Toltén and Lautaro. Even around the capital city of Santiago, trout were chased in the reservoirs of the La Dehesa estate and in the La Gualtata and El Arrayán streams. Later,
in the 20’s and 30’s, fishing began to spread to the south: Pucón, Villarrica, Panguipulli, Choshuenco, Llifén. Then came Osorno and its countryside. Fly- fishing enthusiasts from other countries – such as the Lutheran pastor Herman Stieve, Luis Stuardo, Osvaldo Barrientos Billecke and Herbert J. Tanner – were soon seen fishing throughout, popularizing the sport among the locals. The first hunting and fishing clubs also emerged, and with it a fishing boat industry also took hold in southern Chile.
However, the definitive catalyst for sport fishing in the country was sparked by the United States Department of Commerce which, between 1920 and 1930, through its Bureau of Fisheries, sent to New Zealand and Chile more than 700,000 eggs of sockeye, Chinook, silver, and lake trout (steelhead). All were introduced to various rivers in Chilean Patagonia, including the Aysén, Puelo, Yelcho and Palena rivers. In later decades, this was repeated many times over, mainly upon request of the hunting and fishing clubs, who, in programs previously agreed to with the government, were seeding the water courses all over Chile, according to Sergio Basulto del Campo in his book El Largo Viaje de los Salmones (“The Long Journey of the Salmon”).
Thus began a colonization of trout and salmon that has multiplied over the years. But there is still history to be discovered, such as the arrival of the bull trout and other species to Puerto Williams and Navarino Island, and other remote corners of Chilean Patagonia. But that is a chapter yet to be written.