Rumble In The Jungle 2023 Day 5 It's DeJa Vu all over again!

 So. lots to be thankful for as we eat breakfast, and contemplate Day Five.  Our guide today is Joseph.  Joseph has been guiding, literally forever.  He claims to be the first fly fishing guide in Brazil.  This is probably true.  He also is just an incredibly fishy dude, knows the river better than anyone else, and every year, I never fail to have an incredibly productive day with Joseph.  When you hear you are fishing with him, the anticipation soars!  Plus, Greyson looks like he is feeling good, and it's not raining!

Joseph has a new beat this year, farther upriver than we have ever traveled before.  In fact, we burned figurative rubber for two hours and thirty five minutes before we slowed.  The river is narrower here, and we can see a mountain range that I have never seen before.  I began to wonder if we were still actually in Brazil!  So, if you travel this far, the fishing has to be good, right?

We finally slowed, and left the main river channel, detouring through the jungle to get to a lagoon.  As we went, I mentioned to Greyson that his big fish of the week was a 14, and that I was fully expecting that he would get a fifteen today.  We entered a fairly small, non-descript lagoon.  It wasn't far off the main river channel, so the water was still very discolored.  To be honest, not very promising.  I walked up to the bow of the boat, and I was stripping out line, Greyson took his first cast of the day.  I heard some shuffling, and Joseph said, "Big fish!" and turned to see Greysons rod with the kind of serious bend that big peacocks tend to put in rods.  I took a cast, and as I was lifting my fly out of the water to cast again, a large fish exploded on it, but the fly was already in the air.  So...maybe this lagoon might work out.  Greyson worked his fish to the boat, a large male with a knot on its head, and we weighed it, 15 pounds!  My prediction took one cast to come to fruition.

And then it got better from there!  We slowly worked our way around the small lagoon, making long casts, and then stripping through the dirty water.  Occasionally, one of us would come tight to a small fish.  Occasionally, one of us would come tight to a medium size fish.  But mostly, we came tight to big fish.  Sometimes, we came tight to big fish at the same time.  By the time we were done, I landed fish of 15.5, 14, and three other fish fish between 10 and 12 pounds, and Greyson landed several other double figure fish as well.  We even had  double figure double, with 12 and 10 pound fish.  It was extraordinary!  It was truly Deja Vu all over again, as this was so much like my last experience with Joseph last year.

Check out the black bars on this dude!  He's gorgeous

Double figure Double!

Just another 16 pound fish.

Unfortunately, the long run up and back left us very little time to fish.  We did fish one other lagoon.  The most memorable part of this lagoon wasn't even a hooked a fish.  Greyson had a fish hooked, I happened to look right over the side of the boat, and a huge arapaima, well over 100 pounds, was two feet under the surface, right beside the boat, looking straight up at me.  I jigged the fly in front of it, with only a couple feet of leader out the rod tip, it completely ignored the fly and just drifted off.  But wow!  What a fish!  Not long after, I had a powerful strike, and after a pitched battle landed one more giant peacock of 16 pounds!  It took me three trips to Agua Boa before I broke the 16 pound mark, this is my fourth fish of 16 or better this week.

It was a long, but dry trip back to the lodge.  When we got there, we received amazing news!  One of our

group, Eric, has landed a 19 pound fish!  Mostly happy for him, a little jealous.  Another unforgettable day on the Agua Boa!