Rumble in the Jungle, Day Four - "The better to eat you with, my dear"

 One of my favorite things about fishing, and really, about life, is that you never know exactly what is going to happen.  Sometimes, fishing can surprise you in ways that leave you speechless, and in this case, grinning from ear to ear, for several days.

I have a rule about fish.  I like fish with teeth, and my rule is, if my fish is eating your fish, I'm going to fish for that.  Therefore, pike> walleye, barracuda>bonefish.  And I've always been fascinated by a fish called a payara.  You've probably seen them.  Giant fangs protruding UP.   The rest of their jaws studded with needle sharp teeth.  Holes in their face for the teeth to fit in when they close their mouth.  For me, they are a dream fish.

Unfortunately, Agua Boa is not the place to catch them.  They are rarely around.  When one is caught, they tend to be tiny, a pic I saw of one caught last year looked like the fish weighed about a pound.  But this is no ordinary week or season at Agua Boa.

Today, we were fishing with a guide named Irmau.  He is quiet dude, but fishy.  Early on, Terri tied on a deceiver type pattern that a friend of mine, Caleb Condit tied.  I had a nice seven pound fish hooked, and several other large fish were chasing it.  The drill is to cast your fly right behind the hooked fish when this happened.  Terri tried.  She really did.  But when she tried to pick up her line to cast she couldn't.  Because a much larger fish than I had on already had her fly.  After a spirited battle, Terri got to pose with a nice 10.5 lb peacock.

Eventually we headed up river, and ended up at the head of narrow channel, fishing a deep pool.  Terri cast and the fly was greeted with a large, silver flash.  The guide said, "Payara".  Everything kicked into overdrive.  Flies were cast frantically.  Payara were all over Terri's flies, she hooked several, and eventually landed  one.  I couldn't stop looking at it.  Polished chrome silver, built like a torpedo and those teeth!  I admit being happy for her, and feeling insanely jealous at the same time.  I worked at it a while longer, and got the payara drill from the guide.  Sink the fly deep, short quick strips, flash on the fly but a smaller fly.  Unfortunately, the payara bite slowed down, and we moved on.  The guide told me not to worry, he had another payara spot in mind.  I must admit, I felt resigned to fate that I was never going to land one of these fish!

 We headed further up river, and posted up on spot that reminded me very much of the first one.  I cast out the fly, and as it was sinking, there were flashes everywhere , large silver flashes, as fish tracked it while it was sinking.  On the retrieve, it was followed by a pack of payara!  I quickly hooked one, it jumped twice, and the hook went flying.  Casts two, three, and four met the same fate, cast five was intercepted by large rhombeus, or white piranha, which I accidently dropped in the bottom of the boat.  Terri and I did the piranha dance avoiding the wildly snapping jaws.  Then back to fishing.  Payara have EXREMELY hard mouths, and it is just very difficult to get the hook in them.  It's a numbers game.  Fortunately the numbers were high here, and I eventually got one to the boat where I could admire it.  Part joy, part relief, and then I quickly landed two more.  The fish we were landed were running about five pounds, but there were much larger fish out there.  I jumped a couple that were easily over ten pounds, getting to watch them throw their body several feet in the air before the fly flew out.  The largest fish of the day, approached the fly straight from behind, I could see it coming, and it whacked the fly. I stripset, the fly came loose and went flying forward several more feet.  The fish, so large that it's teeth looked like daggers, shot forward ten feet and ate the fly again, and I missed it again!  Did I mention their mouths are hard!  Finally, the payara action slowed down, and we reluctantly moved on.

They have the teeth and know how to use them.

Honestly, I don't remember much about the rest of the day.  We did some more peacock fishing, and some nice fish were caught, I've included a
pic of a decent speckled or paca that  hit not long before we headed back.  But mostly, even as we were peacock fishing, I was remembering the payara, leaping, gills rattling, the hook making clacking noises as it bounced of those teeth.  What a day!

Back to the lodge, I got out the five weight and beat up the pacu for a bit, and watched the Amazonian sunset.  Tomorrow, we are headed out with Bacaba, who has a lagoon with a high population of arapaima.  One bucket list fish was taken care of, is two too much to dream of?