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.
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