Rumble in the Jungle Day Six Amazon 2022 Can fishing be too good?

What an interesting day.  Fishing with Joseph again today, which is always a good thing.  Joseph is experienced, and when he sees a big peacock, gets so excited it's almost like watching a birddog go on point.  A day with Joseph is going to involve some whispering, some shouting, and maybe some cursing.  But it's always going to be good.

The water has risen again and is really rolling.  Today, however, it will benefit us.  We headed downstream and then turned left into a channel that had never been accessible before, and then were in the boat for a solid forty minutes, bumping through trees, and around log jams, and even once it opened up, still went much longer.  It had to be a positive sign that even in the skinny water, we were spooking big peacocks, including several above ten pounds.

We popped out into the lagoon proper and the first thing that became apparent was that there were big butterfly peacocks, many of them five pounds or more, everywhere.  And mixed in with them were plenty of giant temensis peacocks.  I started on the bow, took a few casts and landed a double figure fish of about eleven pounds.  What Scott and I have been doing is switching every time someone catches a good fish.  Scott stepped to the bow and immediately hooked up with a nice ten pound fish, he landed it, and while I was waiting for him to get his line under control enough to switch, I hit a twelve pound fish casting from the middle of the boat.  And for the next three hours, that's just the way it went.  Too busy to count, but it was the most productive, frantic, big fish session I can remember, and when it was over, I'm sure we landed well over a dozen fish that broke the ten pound mark, more than my wife and I caught the entire week combined when we first came four years ago.  I landed an absolute chunk that probably went fourteen, and Scott landed his biggest of the week that we weighed at 14.5.

That fish was approaching us fast along the bank, moving from right to left about 70 feet out.  It was my shot, and just as the fly was in the air, and halfway to the fish, I realized I had my foot on the running line, and the fly abruptly fell to the water about 20 feet short.  I was frantically trying to strip in and cast again, and Scott says, "Too late", and launches a cast 95 feet, dropping it perfectly in front of the fish, which immediately elevated and inhaled the fly.  He does stuff like that.

Moments later, I lost the peacock of the week.  I had an enormous flash behind the fly, a powerful take, and was into an absolute tank.  It exhibited much more endurance than peacocks usually do, and every time I would get it close would go on another powerful run.  A brief glance had us speculating, 18, 19, 20?  But when I had it with just a few feet of line and the leader left, it surged off again, and the fly just simply pulled out.  Sometimes the big dudes win the battles, especially fishing barbless.

We hit one more lagoon, but it was pretty slow.  Or maybe we were so satiated by the action earlier, we were fishing lazy.   But did have one more highlight to finish the day.  A large school of arawana materialized off the stern, and that's the only way to describe it.  It seems like they come out of nowhere!  But this time, I had a three weight rigged up with a foam cicada pattern, and I was ready.  I would drop it out there, pop it a couple times, let it sit, and these things would rise to the surface and jump all over it.  I only landed one, but I jumped a couple of others and missed several strikes, Scott also landed at least one on a small streamer.  One of my favorite jungle fish.

So, I don't want to wax philosophical, but that question, "Can fishing be too good?", what do you think?  A day like today prompts that question.  Because as I reflect on the morning, I barely can remember an individual fish.  I remember, chaos, one big grab after another, but honestly, the morning flew by in blur.  When I think of the day, I'll remember the arawana on a dry, the piranha for dinner, the trip through the woods to get the lagoon, but I won't remember any of those ten pound plus fish.  Just something I'm thinking about.

It's Thursday.  Thursday in the jungle means it's piranha night for dinner.  They are so delicious and you can't beat the presentation.   Very difficult to get fresh piranhas back in Iowa.  I love it here.  I think I've mentioned that before.  But I do.