Chile Guidespeak Glossary

Over the past few months we’ve presented glossaries to help you communicate with our guides in Alaska and in the Bahamas. Today we focus on the foreign language spoken by Chilean trout guides.

If you’re headed to Chile West in the next 6 months to chase some Patagonian fatties, you’re going to want to brush up on the today’s vocabulary – understanding your guide is a good thing.

Run – n. a gathering of people running a race, sometimes to raise money for a cause; what you do when you have no more backing on your reel; a section in the river between drops in elevation, usually between turns in the river. Generally each turn in the river creates a run.

Head – n. the part of the human anatomy that sits on your shoulders, the brain is inside; the area of the run just after the river has dropped in elevation, quite often making a turn over rocks. The first fishable water.

Riffle – n. a gun used to hunt big game; a place in the river where the water runs fast and shallow over the rocks.

Bucket – n. a container, usually to hold water; a pail; a deeper area where the current usually slows down, generally after the riffle.

Flat – adj., n. having no slope or contour; a box of berries; the area after the bucket where the river starts to shallow and widen. In this area, the water is generally smooth and ‘flat’.

Tail – n. the part of an animal’s anatomy that is connected to the tailbone, used to swat flies; the area below the flat where the river shallows and the current starts to speed up before it pinches and drops down to create the next run.

Seam – n. the place where two pieces of cloth have been sewn together; the place where two different current speeds come together. There will be a seam, so to speak, where the two join. This area will collect and funnel debris and insects.

Foam – n. material made with tiny air pockets used for flotation; white pillowy stuff on top of the water that has been created by river currents like the seam or currents running around objects such as rocks or logs.

Bar – n. a place that serves alcoholic beverages; a beach of gravel and/or boulders on a given run. Note that bars can also be subsurface.

Trench – n. a ditch that is used to hide soldiers; the deepest part of an area or a run.

Pocket – n. an extra piece of cloth that is sewn on your pants to store things in; slower water just on the downstream side of a boulder or log. An area the guide wants you to cast your fly -usually the size of your pocket!

Line – n., v. a protective layer or padding; to cast your fly line on top of a fish and spooking it.

Bang the bank – v. a slang term used by thieves to describe bank robbery; to cast as close as you can to the river bank, fast and furious, usually stripping the fly.

Chug – v. to drink all of your beer as fast as you can; to strip a huge dry fly, usually a mouse or a foam beetle.

Swing – v. a type of dancing; a technique for fishing a streamer, to cast the fly slightly downstream and let the fly swing around in the current.

Hopper dropper – n. rabbit poop; a term used when fishing a grasshopper with a nymph below it.

Sip – v. to take small drinks of a hot liquid such as tea; the action of trout as they gently take an emerging insect, usually small, from the surface of the water.

Farm – n., v. a plot of land used for agricultural purposes; the act of losing a fish.

Farmer – n. a person who works a farm; a person who loses fish.

Set – n., v. all the pieces to a game; what your guide tells you repeatedly when a fish takes your fly; the act of bringing the line tight in a swift manner in order to hook a fish.

Mend – v. repairing something, usually a tear or hole in an article of clothing or waders; another phrase your guide will repeatedly tell you; the act of manipulating your fly line after a cast so the fly may drift in a more realistic manner.

Flog – v. to torture using leather straps with sharp metal shards attached; to cast repeatedly into the same section of water, the cast usually collapsing on itself and thus scaring away any fish that might have been in the area.

Spook – v. to scare a person, sometimes with the use of a costume at Halloween; to make a bad cast that flops down and causes the fish to run away.