New species of pacu!
It's Saturday, the first of seven fishing days. Despite having approximately two hours of sleep in the previous forty, when the small plane passed over the lodge for the first time, and I saw the twists and turns of the Agua Boa River, I felt a surge of adrenaline. Within an hour, I would be casting flies into the familiar waters that I love so much.
With me on this trip is my friend, Captain Scott Hamilton. Scott was, I believe, the first fly fishing only, blue water fishing guide, on the east coast of Florida. He is innovative, curious, and one of the best fly casters I've met. He also was a mentor when I was cutting my teeth in saltwater fly fishing many years ago. This would be Scotts first trip here, and actually, his first trip as a client anywhere. I felt a little nervous, as you typically do when you show something special to you to someone else. Not under my control, but I really wanted the river to show out and show off!
We landed, got the customary flute of champagne, ate some breakfast, and hurried to the rooms to rig up. I had actually pre rigged leaders when I was home, so I was down at the docks a bit before Scott. This meant I got to do a little pacu fishing. They rise all around the lodge dock early every morning, and there were a few still active. I pulled out the three weight, took a couple of casts, and was instantly into a strong fish that almost ran to the backing. Pacu on a three are no joke! It was touch and go, and often with protracted battles, pacu, with their dentation will often cut through the leaders, but soon enough had a beautiful fish at the dock. A new species of pacu, and a new species on fly, which makes 203!
Our guide for the day is Zenzino, also known as Joseph. He has been guiding for 24 years, and is rumored to be Brazils first fly fishing guide. I've caught many big fish with him, respect his knowledge, and even though he is by far the most, should we say, excitable of the guides, I was thrilled to start our day with him. The way it works in the Agua Boa, is that you have six different guides, each with their own beat, except Joseph is kind of a rover, and can fish anywhere. This being a shorter day, we wouldn't be traveling far, but I was a little disappointed when we literally went two minutes in the boat, cut the motor, and Joseph started poling the far bank. In the past, I've found this stretch not to be super productive, and I was hoping maybe we were fishing it just so Joseph could see if the new guy could cast or not. In the next few minutes, I was to learn that I really don't know anything.
The water is pretty high. Wet season has kicked off early, the river has risen, and the classic Agua Boa sight fishing is going to be mostly reserved for the lagoons, where the water still has some clarity. Basically, we were chucking streamers tight to the bank, and ripping them back as quickly as we could. Just a few casts in, I had a wrenching strike, and it quickly became apparent that my first fish of the trip was going to be a good one! Soon, I had a ten pound fish at the boat, and Scott on the bow was also hooked up. From there, chaos ensued. Almost every cast was a strike or a hook-up. Small fish, medium sized fish,....big fish. Scott lost a very large fish, that at the end of the fight, the fly simply fell out. I had a good look at it, and was sure it was 14 pounds so. Scott, surprisingly (he's an intense guy) took it philosophically, remarking that losing some of the big fish is part of the experience. So grown up of him! Sometimes losing big fish makes me a bit sulky.
We eventually came to an area where the river opened up into a lagoon. We reeled up, and Joseph motored slowly around and through the trees and logjams, until it opened up. Again, we're not five minutes from the lodge, and with all the authority of experience, I remarked that this lagoon was a numbers lagoon, but I had never taken a fish over six pounds here. Yep, you know what happened. We landed many fish over that number.
Butterfly 13 lbs!
I landed a 13 pound fish and an eleven pound fish. Scott landed a 14 lb fish. And honestly, one of the highlights were the butterfly peacocks. The butterflies are the most beautiful of the peacocks. Typically, they weigh 2 to 3 pounds, and anything over that is notable. They are present in high numbers, and if you just wanted to focus on them, most days you could catch them all day. This year...they're just bigger. The first one I caught in the lagoon was probably pushing six pounds, and we caught many that were in the four to five pound range. Honestly, rods were bent on hard fighting fish the majority of the time, and my fishing partner was giggling like a junior higher. You may have heard someone say before, the fishing was so good it was ridiculous? We had definitely climbed into the ridiculous category.
We also landed a few of the fun by catch species, in this case most of them fairly typical. I landed a jacunda, a kind of pike cichlid, and a piranha. Scott landed a fish the Brazilians refer to as a dogfish, a fish with a mouthful of nasty teeth, that I've learned to avoid setting the hook on, when I see them flash on my fly. If a person brought along a six weight and a Clouser minnow in the boat, you could be in to "other" fish all day, for sure.
As we made our back to the lodge, we speculated on how many fish we had caught. Neither of us are really counters, but we felt conservatively, we had probably landed between seventy and eighty fish, on our "half day". Scott remarked that he wasn't quite sure how it could get better. But I have a feeling...
No comments:
Post a Comment