Rumble in The Jungle Amazon Day 7 Anaconda!

 Well, it's the last day.  Not sure how this happens.  Not long ago, it was day one, and it seemed like your fishing was going to stretch into eternity.  Now, it's the day seven, and you're plotting how it might be possible to stay just a little longer...or a lot longer!

Today, we will be fishing with Boo-yah, a second year guide, who has Beat 3, the water immediately downstream from the lodge.  Little did we know that the highlight of the day would have little to do with fishing.

We started out fishing a lagoon literally five minutes from the lodge.  It was quiet, I landed one strikingly marked, medium sized fish and we got a few other smaller ones.  Then we motored back up river, and then Booyah spotted something and we headed for the bank.  This needs to be said.  I've always loved snakes, been fascinated by them, and my early desires to see the Amazon didn't have to do with fly fishing.  I thought it would be amazing to see an anaconda.  This wish was fulfilled on my third trip, when we saw a 17 footer laying beside our boat, and I even got to grab it by the tail. (long story).  But I would never turn down a chance to interact with one of the apex predators of the Amazon jungle.  As we pulled up, I could see there was a downed, hollowed out tree jutting out from the bank.  And sunning itself on the tree was an enormous anaconda.  We pulled the boat up to bank, and I climbed out and worked my way up the bank, until I was a couple of feet away from the tail (non bity end ) of the snake.  A quick rough measurement with my nine foot fly rod put the snake at about 18 feet long.  It has recently eaten something, judging by the bulge in it's middle, and seemed to be very mellow, almost like a person might get during a Thanksgiving food coma.  I really wanted to at least give it a pat, but Booyah was already quite distressed that I was close as I was, and was indicating that we should leave.  At least, that's what I discerned from "Problema, we go."  Didn't want to alienate a guide I had never fished with before, right at the beginning of the day, so I complied.  Something I now regret!  Whatever happened with the fishing the rest of the day was just going to be frosting.  My day was already made!

                                                                 Anaconda!
We then headed into the jungle, where we spent about thirty minutes working our way along a narrow channel, which eventually opened into a very large lagoon of a hundred acres or so, and this is where we spent the rest of our day.  Booyah was calling for precise casting, asking us to hit small spots and pockets, and often requesting that we put several casts in the same spot.  It was a different style of fishing, and I was questioning it, but on about my fifth cast to a small pocket that looked like all the others, I got mashed.  There was an enormous flash visible when the fish took the fly, and then it pulled like a freight train for the jungle.  After more excitement than I wanted, we eventually got it boatside, and it was an extremely long, but not very thick peacock, coming out at 16.5lbs.  This would turn out to my final big fish of the trip, and was a pretty nice way to finish up.

                                                                   16.5 lbs

                                                        Greysons giant butterfly
We worked our way through the rest of the lagoon, and had a pretty steady bite of very large butterfly peacocks.  We caught numerous fish in 5-6 pound range, and Greyson then hooked a fish that dug for the bottom, didn't want to give up, and when we got it boatside, I knew it was one of the biggest butterflies I had ever seen.  On the boga, 8 pounds!  Which is enormous!  By the time we worked our way back to the lagoon entrance, we had landed around 60 to 70 fish, which is enough!  More than enough actually, because about half way through the day what I was hoping was simply fatigue, bloomed into full grown sickness.  I was feverish, weak, and making terrible decisions with my casting.  We were 60 feet out from shore and I kept mis judging and launching 80 feet of line, I put my fly in the trees more in the last couple of hours than I did the entire week combined.  So, when Booyah called it, maybe because he was tired of poling over to the trees to retrieve flies, I was a bit relieved.

                                                           Typical five pound butterfly
It has been a memorable week here.  We battled high water, but also battled lots of large fish.  I finished with 20 over 10 pounds, and five fish over 16, including my all time best, a 17.5 pounder.  I've hooked a hundred plus pound arapaima, almost patted an anaconda, and got up close interaction with pink dolphins.  Good food, good company, at one of the most enchanted places on earth.  I'll be back!

Striking markings on this fish

Rumble in the Jungle, Amazon Day 6, The Plague of the Pink Dolphins

 It's fair to say, I haven't been looking forward to this day much.  We are fishing Beat 1, the farthest beat down river, with our guide Val.  The guide isn't the problem on this one.  The water is very high, and when you get downriver, where things flatten out, it's been very tough fishing.  There's a lot of water, and on this particular beat, it really spreads out.  Everyone has been having difficult fishing.  Now, the worst day I've ever had here still meant 15 or 20 fish coming to the boat.  And that worst day was last year, on this same beat with Val.

Greyson and I both brought light rods, a five and a six to the boat, rigged with foam terrestial patterns.  Val looked at us questioningly, and I told him we wanted to look for arawana.  He nodded, and off we went.  After a one hour haul downstream, we slowed, and Val handed us the light rods, and eventually, we figured out he wanted us to pound the banks.  Early, we found a few fish.  Greyson caught a pacu, and I caught a matrinxa, a species which looks like an oversized shiner minnow, but jump and pull like crazy.  Then suddenly there was a big school of arawanas laid up tight to the bank, up under the brush.  We sidearmed casts, the cooperative arawanas sucked in the topwaters, and then put on a show, pulling and jumping.  We lost few, and each landed one.  A new species for Greyson and an old favorite for me.

I'm glad we did this, because the rest of this going to be brief.  We cast like maniacs for hours and hours, and between the two of us landed 3 peacocks.  I did land a tough 12.5 pound fish, that provided our story of the day.  All the Amazon tributaries are blessed (or cursed) with the presence of a very unique animal, the Amazon River Dolphin, or boto, as the guides call them.  They are fascinating creatures, bubble gum pink, and like dolphins everywhere, smart.  Real smart.  They have certainly made the connection between boats and tired, catchable peacock bass.  So, it wasn't a surprise to have several begin shadowing us.  As I was fighting this peacock, a river dolphin suddenly took a crack at it, right beside the boat.  I grabbed the leader, and got the fish in the boat, and the guide literally threw the push pole at the dolphin to scare it away, in fact, he actually hit it.  We removed the fly, took a quick picture, but Val told us we needed to take the fish into the flooded jungle to release it, or the botos would get it.  So, we put the fish on a boga grip, and I leaned over the side of the boat with the boga  grip in hand, as we slowly motored to the rivers edge.  And it was pretty startling when a huge dolphin, weighing several hundred pounds, rose up and tried to take the fish right out of my hand and off the boga grip.  I quickly heaved the fish out of the water and into my lap, and we weaved the boat back into the trees where we finally released the fish.  I noted on the release he went further back into the jungle instead of heading to open water, so hopefully he made it.  That was the last fish of the day, we fished a couple more hours without a hit, and then went back to the arawana spot to see if could finish up the day with some action, but they were also absent.  Tough day.  But still memorable.  And still grateful to be here.

Dolphin bait

                                                           Matrinxa