In the first of a new series, Oxford University graduate Holly Conyers reveals why she abandoned a promising legal career for the wilds of southern Argentina
I FELL into fly-fishing — and my life in Patagonia — through a happy twist of fate. I heard about Tipiliuke Lodge through a friend of a friend while planning my gap year post-university. I had been in the saddle since before I could walk, and was always happiest out in the Scottish wilderness back home. Argentina — the land of the gauchos, never-ending pampas and unfathomable quantities of horses — was an intoxicating prospect.
Tipiliuke is a fly-fishing lodge based on a 50,000-acre working cattle estancia, allowing the lodge to also offer horse riding to guests. By the end of my three months eating, sleeping and breathing all things Patagonia, I was hopelessly enamoured. I loved the horses, the wildlife, the gaucho culture, the late nights and early mornings, the food, and learning scraps of sing-song Argentine Spanish. Argentina was more than I had ever dreamed might exist in this world.
Leaving the bright lights behind: Holly Conyers.
Argentina was more than I had ever dreamed might exist in this world
But I must be honest: I did not pick up a fly-rod once during my first stint here. All the fevered discussion of hatches, dry-flies and casting in the bar every evening remained a pleasant mystery to me, and a curious distraction from potential time in the saddle. I fantasised about throwing away my promising legal career and my Oxford degree to gallop off into the sunset herding cows with the gauchos.
In September 2021, I finally did just that. After six years toeing the corporate line in London, I quit my legal job to return to Tipiliuke in order to train for the Gaucho Derby — a 500km, ten-day horse race across Southern Patagonia. I earnestly sold this move to friends and family as a six-month career break to help me scratch the Patagonia itch: in theory, I would train for the Derby as a CV-enhancing challenge, then realise the Argentinian grass wasn’t really greener after all and return home.
No such luck.
By the end of my planned “break”, I had won the Gaucho Derby and been offered a job running the race, as well as acquiring a local boyfriend who happened to be a fishing guide. Additionally, I had landed another job as a gaucha working with the cattle operation at Tipiliuke, and a cottage on the estancia. The bright lights of the city were fading into distant memory.
The bright lights of the city were fading into distant memory
I had also developed a keen interest in fly-fishing, having finally been persuaded to try a day floating the Chimehuín, the hallowed trout river that flows through Tipiliuke. The river I knew intimately from the back of a horse was transformed from the boat. I never knew how much I would relish staring at a fly all day, transfixed by the movement of the river and breeze across the water. I realised, as I reluctantly stepped off the boat at the end of the day, my arm aching from casting and landing rainbow and brown trout, that I had thought of nothing outside of the banks of that river all day. It was the kind of peace and complete connection I had only ever previously found on the back of a horse.
As I settled into gaucha life in my cottage — which makes up for in character for what it lacks in heating and water-tightness — an idea began to take hold. My partner Peter is a prodigiously talented fisherman and an equally gifted guide. I was becoming an enthusiastic angler, and found myself missing the daily hum of lodge life. After 13 years of guiding for other operations, Peter was clearly ready to strike out on his own and I was keen to try being my own boss. And so, Fish Patagonia was born in the summer of 2023.
I was becoming an enthusiastic angler, and found myself missing the daily hum of lodge life
We work with ten local partner lodges to put together bespoke itineraries around the needs of each client. We fish a network of ten rivers and six lakes for rainbow, brown and brook trout, and the occasional landlocked salmon, during a season which runs from November to May. We focus on quality over quantity: we only work with the best local guides, who we know and trust implicitly. Many of them are Peter’s own family, which has been fishing in San Martín for three generations.
My lodge life no longer revolves around one lodge in particular, but instead around liaising with all of our partner lodges to co-ordinate each trip, and travelling between them to visit and ride (or fish) with guests. We are very lucky and proud to have close personal relationships with the families or teams behind each of the lodges we work with, so it always feels like staying with friends.
Just last weekend, I made the nine-hour round trip on horseback to visit guests staying at the neighbouring estancia for dinner. I have no plans to return to my previous commute anytime soon.
PHOTOGRAPHY: THOMAS TSCHERNE ILLUSTRATION: SARAH PHILLIPS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holly Conyers
Former London commercial lawyer Holly Conyers is now half of the duo behind Fish Patagonia, an outfitter specialising in carefully curated fly-fishing and horse-riding trips in Northern Patagonia, Argentina.
