The Baker is Chile's largest river by volume, and it announces that fact the moment it leaves Lago Bertrand — a wide, powerful, glacial-blue flow that stayed free only after a long public fight against a major hydroelectric scheme in the 2000s. Big brown and rainbow trout hold in the softer seams and back channels off that main current, feeding heavily on sculpins and baitfish, and streamers fished with weight and patience are the method that consistently moves serious fish. Dry-dropper tactics have their place in the gentler side water, but this is fundamentally big-river fishing — heavy currents, real wading hazards, and water that punishes a casual approach. It's specialist, guided water, and deserves to be treated that way rather than fished on a whim.

• Glacial