Rumble in Jungle Day 7 - The Last, Best Day in the Amazon

 I can't believe it's the last day!  Today, we are heading to the lowest beat in the river, a ninety minute boat ride with our guide Samuel Almeida.  It's a day I've been looking forward to for a couple of reasons.  Sam is a great guide, and just a lot of fun.  He's a little bit of a cowboy, but will do just about anything to get you into a fish.  And like all the guides there, very attuned to his clients.  My wife loves taking photos of birds, and any interesting bird we saw on the river, Sam has noticed this, and swings the boat closer for a better photo opportunity.  He also can mimic the call of about any animal in the jungle, which will come in handy later!  Secondly, I love the water he fishes.  There is a section of the lower river where we pole the boat down the main channel, it's wide, and crystal clear, over light sand.  You can see the fish coming a long ways away, and you have the opportunity to make some really long casts, which I love to do.  I don't always know exactly where they're going, but I truly do enjoy casting.  Fishing with Sam is like bonefishing for peacocks.

I do have two goals today.  I'd like to land a fourteen pound peacock, and I'd like to catch an arawana.  Arawanas are this fascinating, somewhat eel-like fish, that are known to occasionally leap out of the water and catch birds.  They're pretty aggressive, and not that hard to catch.  But...they're not super common and there isn't really a way to target them.  They just kind of mosey by the boat while you're fishing to peacocks, and if you see one, you throw at them.  Last year, when I was at Agua Boa, there just weren't many around.  This year,  there are, and almost everyone else has caught one, I just have a little bit of an arawana curse.  Two days ago, we were fishing a lagoon, and I snagged the fly on a deep, unseen sunken log.  Just as I did, the guided called out arawana, 12 o'clock.  And sure enough, five arawana were cruising along the surface about 20 feet from the bow of the boat.  Except of course, I couldn't do anything about it, because I was snagged up.  Kind of the way it's gone for me.  But I also made a decision to make sure I really enjoyed this day, our last day, no matter what happened.

We started out the day with a long hike to a remote lagoon, where another boat was stored.  The fishing started slowly, although Terri was catching them a little quicker up in the bow of the boat.  Terri has the magic this week.  We were catching a species of peacock the guides call Tawa.  They're smaller, I've never caught one exceeding three pounds, they have very few markings, almost solid yellow, but the orange patch underneath their throat is absolutely brilliant.  In about an hour, we probably landed about 20 tawa and butterfly peacocks.  Two notable things, we saw a large redtail cat cruising near the surface ( I lust after one of these on fly)but were unable to get the boat in a position where we could cast to it before it disappeared, and I managed to stick Terri with a cast.  I was fishing from the middle, when you do this this, the drill is shoot the backcast between yourself and the person on the bow, and then lift slightly on the forward cast to bring it over them.  I miscalculated and on a long cast with a lot of line speed, whacked Terri in the head bringing the backcast through the boat.  She was a good sport and posed for a picture, and the hook was barbless, and just stuck in clothing, so it was all good.  Always wear glasses!


On the way back out, Sam spotted a large peacock and told me, I had one cast, and it had to be perfect.  Hmmmm, lots of wind, the fish was about 65 feet away, and if you tell me I need to make a perfect cast, that is recipe for me not to make a perfect cast.  But this time, the fly landed where it was supposed to, and this gorgeous, thick fish rose up and ate it, and did all the wonderful things peacocks do on the end of a fly line.  I knew it was big, and when we landed it, it weighed out at 14 lbs.  Happy!

We left the lagoon, and did a little fishing in the main river channel.  While we were traveling, we came across a group of giant Amazon river otters.  Sam actually called to them, and when he did they approached the boat to check us out.  Terri got some great photos, and then a few minutes later we saw something she had been hoping to get pictures of all week, a group of jabiru storks.  Sam swung the boat over, and Terri shot a ton of pictures, I had one very happy wife.

We stopped for lunch, and were actually near a fairly deep pool, so while Sam napped, and Terri shot pictures, I grabbed a five weight and some small Clousers.  I landed some small peacocks, got broken off by a couple that I was undergunned for, and of course, had two large arawana swim by.  I had no room to backcast, and they were too far away for me to rollcast to.  The curse continues.

After this, we spent the afternoon, fishing the main river channel.  Terri decided she had caught "so many big fish" that she was done fishing, so I got the bow.  I didn't argue.  It was a wonderful afternoon of fishing the main channel.  Lots of sighted big fish, visual eats, strong tussles.  3 memorable events.

While landing a butterfly peacock, a large school of black piranhas suddenly boiled out from the depths and were swirling all over him.  Black piranhas are large, up to eight pounds, have huge teeth, red eyes, and look slightly demonic.  I landed the little guy as fast as I could, but he still lost a portion of his tail.  Better him than me I guess.

Sam spotted a group of large fish swimming fast up the bank about 70 feet out.  I made a quick cast, dropped it about ten feet in front of them, stripped once, and they all raced for it.  When the fish ate, I thought it was six to seven pounds.  But it sure didn't pull like a seven pound fish.  It ran hard and deep, and then suddenly exploded into the air about 30 feet from the boat.  It looked huge!  And when I landed it, it was, 15  pounds, my best ever, and more importantly, caught in a perfect way, a cruising hunter, that blasted the fly after a long cast.  Perfecto!

By now, we were nearing the end of the day.  Sam spotted two large peacocks, again running the bank about 80 feet away.  Just as I was hauling and preparing to drop the fly, Sam shouted, Arawana, close.  I grabbed the line and stopped the cast in mid air, it fell to the surface, about thirty feet from the boat, the arawana spooked, but when I frantically stripped the extra line, and eventually got the fly moving, it turned around, came back and ate it!  After some cool jumps, Sam let me out of the boat, where I took it over to the bank and beached it.  What an amazing fish!  Some beautiful pink hues to the scales that a camera can't seem to pick up, and a unique body shape like nothing else.  I couldn't stop looking at it.  And that was it.  My last cast in the Amazon, it was time to head back.  It was an absolutely perfect day in an absolutely perfect place, and I can't wait to get back next year!