Trout of Patagonia
There are several streams within a stone’s throw of my New England home that would be the idyll of many a trout angler. These are mountain freestones, running clear and cold out of the spruce forests, and tumbling for miles over time-worn cobbles. The sight of them alone conjures images of blanket hatches and cartwheeling rainbows, and the sound of them tripping out of the mountains does the heart some good. To fish them, however, reveals a slightly different story. In my region, streams such as this were no doubt at some point epic fisheries. The whims of time and weather events, pollution, and encroachment, and certainly some degree of mismanagement have left several such places barren. The state does its best to sprinkle them with stockers each year, but to little avail: the fish disappear to the places fish go, and the holdover, let alone regeneration, is negligible. We fish them anyway… for the promise of something that once was, something that could possibly be again, but in the long and fishless hours we dream of something more. We dream of places where trout hover in the seams and the shadows, as trout should. We daydream of streams filled to bursting with fish and opportunities, ones wherein the picture is complete, and in the soft light of summer evenings our flies get sucked under and our lines come tight. Oh, that we could will such daydreams into being.
Which is why, at times, we travel. On a chilly May afternoon outside the Patagonian town of Trevelin I tied a bushy dry onto eight feet of tapered mono and stepped into a river. The water parted around my boots in a rush, and the shadows danced over a coppery streambed. Looking at the water, and not at the swell of the Andean steppe to the west of me, I could have been back home. A stream, chiming and tumbling as it fell, slicks and bends full of potential, in this case soon to be realized. I blew a fine cloud of desiccant off my fly, dropped it into water slipping past, and peeled some line off the reel. Gathering length overhead, I let the line unfurl into the future and the past, and I picked apart the details of moving water, thinking, as one does, like a fish.
I checked, let that first cast unfold, and watched a fair imitation of something buggy come to light on a glassy window of moving water. That it erupted nearly immediately with the eat of a ferocious rainbow was not entirely unexpected, but nonetheless wholly satisfying. Trout streams, after all, are supposed to contain trout. And trout anglers, after all, are put on God’s green earth to catch them.
What revealed itself in the afternoon that followed was a paradox of sorts. I’d come from a land far north, where streams so abundant as to become near legend had, over the course of a century or so, become vacant. Patagonian Argentina, and one small and comparatively unremarkable river, revealed a different history. That teeming river a century ago had been as barren as what I knew from home, but the narrative had been reversed. In present day, it was a vein of water pulsing with trout, abundant with memories about to be made. That narrative, I was to find, was still in its early chapters.
Within the last century, Argentina—and Patagonia in particular—has become one of the world’s definitive fly-fishing destinations. Generations of anglers have fallen hard for the region’s pristine waters and robust fish populations, not to mention the cultural backdrop that highlights them. As ease of travel combines with an increasingly adept local guide and outfitting resource, Patagonia has positioned itself as the trout fisherman’s Valhalla; it is remarkable, therefore, to think that prior to the 20th century, trout did not exist in Argentina, at least by official record.
Representative species of the family Salmonidae are native to the cold, clean waters north of the Equator, but it is only through human introduction, aquaculture, and subsequent wild reproduction that they have come to inhabit the watersheds of the southern hemisphere. The history of trout in Patagonian Argentina is a remarkable tale, one of rapid and widespread ecological capitalization of a resource, and the hard work and vision of a few adventurous men. It is the tale of fish eggs that travelled three continents by ship, rail, and horseback, to spawn an international tourist economy that has come to support communities up and down the Andean steppe. Foremost, however, it is an origin story, one that describes the genesis of the very best trout fishery that the world has ever known.
There is an old saying among Argentina’s angling historians that ‘In Patagonia, God created perfect trout habitat… he just forgot about the trout!’ It seems that this is true: in the cold, productive rivers and lakes of the eastern Andes there were historically few fish species extant, and no true gamefish species at all. The waters of Patagonia instead played host to relatively lean populations of endemic ‘Pejerrey’ silversides (Odontesthes bonariensis), Patagonian perch or ‘Perca’ (Percichthys trucha), and swarms of ‘Puyen’ (Galaxias maculatus), the predominant bait fish.
This scarcity of quality food fish was of great frustration to Dr. Francisco P. Moreno (later deferentially known as Perito Moreno) during his expeditions throughout Patagonia at the end of the 19th century. Moreno had been charged by the Argentine government (as well as a personal wanderlust) with exploring the mountainous regions along the Chilean border, and he’d hoped to rely on local and native food sources to supplement the rations required by his entourage. In the context of the grand and seemingly productive waterways Moreno encountered in Patagonia, the dearth of gamefish was a bitter disappointment. Belly empty but single-minded in his mission, Moreno returned to Buenos Aires with a vision of clear flowing streams full of trout.
Moreno’s opinion of the potential for Patagonia’s fishery was not unfounded: he had travelled the US and Europe, and in the mountainous countryside of each he had noted prolific numbers of cold-water gamefish that were prized not only on the plate, but also by recreational anglers. Upon returning to the capital from his extensive expeditions, Moreno made the official recommendation that the Argentine government pursue the establishment of gamefish in the Patagonian watersheds, in the hopes of replicating what existed in much of the American West and mainland Europe. Moreno’s vision ostensibly extended beyond the creation of a food and game resource to encompass the potential for a budding tourist economy.
He likely could not have known that a world-class fishery might evolve from his early recommendation, but Moreno’s conviction in the potential was strong enough that, under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture, naturalists Dr. Fernando Lahille of France and Dr. Felipe Silvestre of Italy, were invited to assess the feasibility of introducing salmonids to the lakes and rivers of Patagonia. With the blessings of these experts, plans for an official introduction were inked, and in 1903 Argentina identified the man who would head up the project.
At the start of the 20th century, an American named John Wheelock Titcomb was serving as Chief of the Division of Fish Culture in the National Fisheries Bureau. In that role he was among the world’s most qualified experts on salmonid rearing. At the bequest of the Argentine government, he made the long journey to Buenos Aires and then overland to Patagonia. Upon arriving in the Andean foothills, he worked his way steadily north until he reached Lake Nahuel Huapi, in the then newly formed Nahuel Huapi National Park. It was there that he envisioned the foundations of his life’s defining work. At a waterhole he called the Molina spring, Titcomb established Argentina’s first fish hatchery, and eventually introduced salmonids to Patagonia’s cold, flowing waters.
Simply having a vision, however, is a far cry from seeing it materialize. The actual transport of viable trout and salmon eggs from the northern hemisphere to Patagonia was a feat to be reckoned with. Titcomb assigned a colleague Edgar Allen Tulián the daunting task of collecting the heartiest and purest strains of fertilized trout and salmon eggs from points across the US. With the eggs sourced, collected, and secured for travel, Tulián left port in New York on January 19, 1904, bound for Buenos Aires. It would be a months-long journey. Tulián first made landfall in Southampton, England. Under his care were seven crates containing 1,000,000 Whitefish embryos (Coregonus cupleaformis); 102,700 Brook Trout embryos (Salvelinus fontinalis); 53,000 Lake Trout embryos (Cristivomer namaycush); and 50,000 Landlocked salmon embryos (Salmo sebago). Upon landfall in England, the eggs were shifted to a British freighter which featured refrigerated cargo space designated for the transport of beef between Argentina and Europe. The ship set a course for Argentina, and after weeks at sea, arrived in Buenos Aires. Under the watchful eye of Tulián, and after further weeks moving overland by rail and horseback, the eggs arrived in Patagonia. Throughout this voyage, Tulián worked tirelessly in the care of his precious cargo, and a testament to his extraordinary stewardship was the small percentage of viable embryos that were lost in transit. On March 4, 1904, those eggs were transferred to the hatchery near Nahuel Huapi Lake, and the course of angling history officially and permanently took a turn.
Ironically, the initial introduction of salmonids to Argentina was weighted heavily towards whitefish, as that species was favored to find greatest reproductive success in Patagonian waters. Fingerlings numbering 900,000 resulted from the initial Whitefish incubation, and all were placed in Lake Nahuel Huapi. This introduction, however, proved a failure. Regular monitoring of fish stocks in the lake over a period of years would prove that a viable population of whitefish failed to take, or even grow to viable size. Trout and Landlocked salmon, on the other hand, proved a very different story.
The trout and salmon eggs that were initially reared in Titcomb’s hatchery were distributed through lakes Nahuel Huapi, Traful, Espejo, and Gutiérrez. A second import of 50,000 fertile steelhead eggs (Salmo gairdneri) and 50,000 rainbow trout eggs (Trutta iridea) followed in 1904. Unlike the whitefish, these fish saw instant and widespread success, encouraging both Titcomb and the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture to expand the fish rearing and stocking programs. With that in mind, Tulián embarked on October 19, 1905, for Europe and the United States, to source and ready the shipment of Atlantic salmon eggs (Salmo salar), brown trout eggs (Salmo trutta fario), and eggs from a smattering of supplemental North American trout and salmon species.
These initial sourcing trips, and subsequent rearing/stocking programs, represent the official origins of salmonids in Argentina. That said, it should be noted here that there are unofficial reports of earlier ‘rogue’ efforts at trout introduction that took place largely in Buenos Aires province. In the early years of the 20th Century, Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, was a hub of the global economy. Rail lines, agriculture exports, timber, and a host of additional natural resources drove the Argentine economy, drawing presence from an associate congregation of international businessmen.
Chief among these were British entrepreneurs and capitalists who brought with them to South America a decidedly European sporting appetite. Arguably, the English were the first to introduce trout to Argentina, though not in a manner that was terribly successful. The Hurlingham Club, which was founded in 1888 in the largely English neighborhood of Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, was a social and sporting club structured in the model of classic clubs of the UK. The focus of the membership both then and now was a focus on lawn and field sports, trout fishing among them. To support the endeavor, rainbow trout were introduced to nearby Arroyo Morron, but the warm temperatures and lack of aeration and current kept the fishery from supporting any viable population.
Similarly, there is conjecture that several spring creeks in southern Buenos Aires Province were stocked with trout as a means of entertaining expat and traveling British railroad executives, who had similarly cultivated a taste for sportfishing back home. Moreover, the anadromous brown trout of Tierra del Fuego may well have been introduced by independent landowners, some of them European, rather than by government officials, according to the genetic record. Though the sea-run strain of brown trout throughout the southernmost Rio Grande were officially sourced from Denmark, the fish now in the rivers of Tierra del Fuego have genetic markers that lead fisheries biologists back to Scotland, and the sea-trout rivers of the British Isles. Regardless of the genesis of Argentina’s earliest stockings, sanctioned or otherwise, it was Titcomb’s work in the primary rivers of Patagonia that lay the groundwork for today’s storied Patagonian fisheries. The stocking and aquaculture programs in Patagonia continued and expanded through the 1930s, though additional stocking in the northern provinces of Cordoba, Juyui, Salta, and Tucuman took place as far back as 1907—though almost entirely on a put-and-take basis.
Throughout the early history of these stocking programs, Argentina noted some challenges, and some unprecedented successes. Pure strains of McCloud River rainbows, brook trout from northern Maine, and landlocked (????) from Sebago Lake took hold nearly instantly and proliferated. Anadromous Atlantic and a variety of other salmon subspecies failed to take hold to any significant degree, and German brown trout similarly established slowly, and without immediate vigor. Eventually, supplemental stocks of brown trout were requested from Chile, and a shipment of viable eggs were delivered in the early 1930’s. It was these eggs, and fingerlings from previous embryos sourced from Germany, Denmark, France, and the UK that eventually pushed both Salmo trutta fario (non-anadromous) and Salmo trutta trutta (sea trout) into viable reproductive numbers and allowed the fish to take hold. Somewhat slower to start, brown trout remain less prolific than rainbows in Patagonia, but they do generally grow to greater size.
Through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s the trout of Patagonian Argentina proliferated, and occupied the econiche that Moreno had noted might provide fertile ground. Growing fast on a diet of native baitfish, insects, and invertebrates, the populations bloomed throughout the major Patagonian watersheds, and anglers began to take notice. By the late 1930s and early 40s, both Argentina and Chile took the opportunity to promote a tourist economy based on fishing, and fly fishing in particular. The fishery proved happy to oblige, turning up an increasing number of fish in world-record size through a rapidly expanding range.
In more recent times, the direct genetic lineage of those early stockings has moved through nearly all suitable waters of Patagonian Argentina. Though specific rivers undoubtedly favor populations of certain species, it would be hard to find a section of cold, flowing water in Patagonia that did not play host to a viable population of trout. What’s more, the genetics of these trout are virtually unadulterated, and the limited evolutionary period that has passed since introduction represents a living evolutionary history of sorts, and a handful of species trapped in time.
What matters to most of us, however, is that trout are trout, and Patagonia is full of them. To think that little more than a century ago, the world’s finest trout fisheries were essentially barren… in many ways, the introduction of trout to Argentina is an unfathomable success story that continues to inspire anglers the world over. At the very least, it provides a world’s worth of fly fishers a destination to dream of, and an adventure to aspire to.
First Published in Gray’s Sporting Journal
