Nice Peacock Bass. On a fly

AMAZON ADVENTURE

After the Bare Lake fiasco, I thought we might need some professional help in planning our trips so I employed a fishing travel agent. He proved to be a real bust, but this one trip he recommended did turn out to be OK. But let me tell you about it.

The Varig flight landed in Manaus at 5:00 AM, after an overnight flight from Miami. So here we are on the Amazon River in the heart of Brazil, with nothing but jungle for hundreds of miles in every direction. This looked to be a great fishing adventure

We, along with eight other sleepy guys, were met by a native and transferred to another airport where two very small airplanes awaited. They had this funny thing going round and round out in front, and were of an age that the Red Baron would have appreciated. It was said that they were manufactured sometime in the distant past by a company called Embraer.

Sam, myself, and six others piled into the lead plane and were off. The last two guys and the luggage boarded the second plane and were stranded. The machine wouldn’t start.

Two and a half hours and 300 miles further into the jungle, and precisely on the equator, we landed at a primitive strip on the Itapara River (A tributary of a tributary of the Amazon.) At least we didn’t hit a cow, as was the fate of one of the previous flights. If you have read ”The Witness” by John Grisham, you would know exactly where we were.

The Amazon jungle, in central Brazil. Note the cleared patches.

The "jungle" is really kind of scrub brush, about twenty feet tall.
The soil is too poor to suport anything else.

Next to the airstrip was a kind of oversized thatch roofed hut, which turned out to have 5 rooms and a dining area. The hut, and the furniture therein had been built on site, from native materials, with no help but a chain saw and an axe. Needless to say, it was kind of primitive. We did though, have a private bath, of sorts, with an old pull chain toilet. The problem with ours, though, was that when you pulled the chain, you were just as apt to get five gallons of water around your feet, as in the bowl. This defect was finally remedied the day before we left, but we never did get used to hearing eight other guests snoring all night.

Our fishing lodge.
Home for the next seven days

So here we are. We have boats and guides, so let’s go fishing. The problem was that the rods and other gear were back in Manaus on the non starter airplane. On the plus side, this gave us a chance to meet our guide, and swill down some of the good, and free, Brazilian beer. Our guide, Pelado, was a really neat Indian kid who didn’t speak a word of English. Brazilians speak Portuguese, as you probably know, so it looked like we might have a problem. But then my rudimentary knowledge of Spanish (which is kind of close to Portuguese) was called into play, and between that and sign language, we established essential communication.

Pelado, our guide.

Sam kept Pelado in cigars, and in the evening, cigar smoke would waft up through the floorboards, from where the guides were sacked out, in their quarters, under the lodge.

Eventually the errant plane showed up with the luggage, so with two fishermen and one guide per boat, we set out on our great fishing adventure.

Being on the equator, of course, the sun was directly overhead. One self styled expert warned us that the sun would burn us to a crisp, and that mosquitoes and flies would eat us alive, if we showed one square inch of skin. Unfortunately, there is usually one of these “experts” in every camp, and we figured him to be wrong on this point, as he was on most others. So Sam and I happily dressed in tee shirts and shorts, and had not one ounce of trouble with either sun or bugs.

First fish. And a nice one at that.

We were basically fishing in a large swamp, hundreds of square miles, with innumerable creeks rivers, bays, lakes and bayous. Sort of like the Mississippi delta. Again if you read Grisham’s book, it was a dead ringer for where the missionary lived. For company, we had jaguars, (the animal, not the car), picas (a kind of rabbit), anacondas, crocodiles, sea snakes, river otters, monkeys, and assorted birds. Also weird creatures, identifiable only by their blood chilling screams and shrieks. Not to mention piranhas, and barracuda type fish, to name a few. One could be lost there for days, and we thought we were once when the outboard blew a head gasket miles from the lodge, but Pelado nursed it home. I think that he would probably have carried us in on his back, if he thought it was necessary.

A river snake. Just one of the wierd creatures which abounded.

Fishing was fantastic. Peacock Bass up to 25 pounds as well as other strange species. Once we figured out the drill, we could easily catch up to a hundred a day. It turned out that although spoons, plugs and flies worked fairly well, casting a live piranha was always a sure thing. The problem, of course was getting the piranha. Although Pelado was pretty efficient at catching them with a hand line and storing them in the bait well, the problem was to keep from getting nipped when putting them on the hook.

Oh, Oh, the Barracuda fish got there first

On one lake, we did have some competition from a crocodile. He would hang out till we had a fish on, and then swim over, full speed, to take it away from us. After a score of crocodile three, fisherman zero, he finally tired of this game and went away. The barracuda type fish would also sometimes grab your fish, so all you would pull in was a head. One day a river otter also wanted to share, but Pelado jumped in, grabbed him by the tail and pulled him up on the bank.

Here is Pelado pulling in that River Otter

One good fish story was the fish we caught twice. You see, there was this big old peacock bass lying in his nest. He was at least 25 pounds, and not interested in anything we had to offer. Finally, when Sam dropped a live piranha in front of his nose, he inhaled it, and took off. The twenty pound test line broke like string and the fish was gone. Pelado managed to grab the end of the line and wrap it around a bottle, but the fish took that away too. Oh well, there are other fish in the sea, but that was a nice one. Anyway, after cruising around a bit, we happened back over the nest, and guess what, there was our fish, lying as if nothing had happened. Pelado, not to be cheated again, jumped into that crocodile, piranha, snake, and God knows what else infested river and started looking for the line. Eventually he found it and carefully tied it onto Sam’s remaining line. This time Sam was very careful, and finally managed to land the monster. After a photo session, we let him go, but he did not, and I repeat, did not, return to the nest again. I guess twice was enough.

A nice Bass. Like the one we caught twice.

Our story would not be complete, without a word about the food. Breakfasts were fairly conventional, but dinner was a real experience. For starters there was all the delicious soup one could eat, then two main courses. One course consisted of fish, and the other was an unknown jungle creature. Inquiries as to exactly what we were eating were useless, as the lodge staff knew even less English than Pelado. One day a couple of the guys went hunting and bagged a croc and a pica, so at least we knew what was on the menu that night. We eventually figured out that the soup, while very tasty, was concocted from yesterdays unknown jungle creature, ground up and mixed with a liberal helping of beans.

This one is realy colorful

Anyway, nobody got permanently lost, Pelado happily puffed on Sam’s cigars, and the trip, all in all, greatly exceeded Sam’s and my expectations.

Ready to head for home

However, one really should have an open mind and some taste for adventure to appreciate such an outing.

And here is an interesting sequel to the Amazon story:

My doctor's practice in CA is almost exclusively with very rich people. I guess I must be her charity case who she takes care of 'cause she likes me.

Anyway, I had given her a copy of the Amazon story, along with a pic of me holding the crocodile. You know, like I had caught it. She liked the pic so well she hung it on the wall in her private office.

So one day I am hanging out in the waiting room, and get into a conversation with this rich guy fisherman, who was bragging about fishing all over the world. I told him that I was into fishing a bit, and had recently returned from the Amazon, where I had been fishing for crocodiles. Of course, he didn't believe me, so I ushered him into Doc's private office, and there was me and the croc, big as life.