Anaconda!

I love the way the days start here.  At around 6:45, everyone meets for breakfast at the lodge.  The energy level is high after a good nights sleep, stories are shared, and you can sense the excitment.  Today, the cooks have made us bread in the shape of a tarantuala.  Which is kind of fitting.  It's the creepy crawlers that have brought me here in the first place, not the fish.  I used to watch a show called Wild Kingdom, way back when I was in grade school.  And it was the images of Marlin Perkins sidekick Jim, wrestling with an anaconda, that just convinced me that someday I had to see the Amazon.  And now here I am, and although I've never seen an anaconda (sightings are uncommon) at least I have the bread spider.

I'm just going to get the fishing description over with now.  It was super, super slow.  We were fishing with a new guide today, Daniel.  We started fishing the main river, and honestly, although Daniel spotted some of those big river cruisers from up on the poling platform, he wasn't able to really communicate where they were to us, resulting in a lot of guessing, and missed opportunities.  We did run into a big school of butterflies off a creek mouth, and had an incredibly large fish start blowing holes in the water when we hooked a butterfly, but we were unable to convert this one.  We fished some lagoons, but they were almost totally dead.  We did fish one large lagoon that you have to hike into, where the guides have a boat stowed away.  This lagoon had some large arapaimas rolling, but it was a big lagoon, probably 15-20 acres, and they never rolled within casting range.  I would imagine between Chris and myself, we probably landed somewhere around 15-20 fish, easily the slowest day I have had here.  And it didn't matter at all.

Mid morning, we were hiking our way into the remote lagoon, maybe a quarter mile walk.  Just as we got to the lagoon, with the boat in sight, Daniel stopped and pointed.  This time, no problem determining what he was looking at.  The biggest snake I have ever seen was laying in the trail, right in front of the boat.  There was a large crevace under a tree, and although part of it was still in there, an easy 12-14 feet of it were exposed.  The whole snake must have been 16-18 feet long and bigger around than my thigh.  It had absolutely no concern about our presence, whatsoever.  We took a bunch of pictures.  We watched it.  And then it occured to us, "How do we get to the boat?"  I poked it with my fly rod.  No reaction.  Daniel then gave it a little bump with the push pole, it immediately struck at it, then slowly turned around, and retreated into the crevace.  I realized this was my chance to touch it, reasoning that 18 feet of snake can't turn around that fast, so I ran forward and grabbed it a couple of feet ahead of the tail, long enough to get a sense of its heft.  And then just like that it was gone.

Guides casting competition

We fished the lagoon, unproductively, in keeping with the day.  I emptied some items out of the boat, and then came back to get a second armful.  I thought, what a great spot this thing has where it can ambush a deer or a pig on it way to the water, it could lie just off the path with it's head only a couple feet from the trail.  And then I looked, as I walked back up the trail, and that is exactly what it was doing, hidden back under the roots, but less than 24 inches from where my boot hit the trail, there it was!  Chills!

This was one of the days it did hit a legitimate 100 degrees, and it sure was nice being met with a cool drink back at the dock.  By 5:30, we were all gathered outside the lodge for the guides casting competition.  All the guides are taught to cast a fly rod before they are even taught to pole a boat, so they will understand the needs of the clients.  Most of them now tie flies, and a few have become very good casters.  This competition was won by Coboclo, who bombed a cast at least ten feet further than anyone else to win the distance category.

Another great day.  Funny how a slow day of fishing didn't even matter.  Tomorrow, I'll be back out with Preto again, hunting big fish, and hopefully finding some on the popper.