Rumble in the Jungle 2025   Day Two

Pirapitinga translated means, "A lot of fun on a six weight"

Another glorious day in the jungle!  The last time I fished here, we had cloud cover and some rain every day.  Not this week!  Set the alarm for 5:30, and was out on the dock in time to see a beautiful sunrise.  Pacu were rising by the hundreds.  Fortunately, I planned for this, had a three weight with a foam beetle pattern, and the fish were more than happy to hammer this on nearly every cast.  I understand we are here for the big peacocks.  But I may never understand why none of the other 13 people on this trip aren't taking more advantage of this.  Amazon panfishing is the best.

We left the dock at seven, today we are fishing with Lucas.  Lucas has beat 2, the second longest run down the river.  Mist rose off the water.  Birds, including the massive jabiru storks, cruised the sandbars.  Black caiman were everywhere, trying to catch the first of the suns rays.

We started the morning by hiking into a lagoon, where the lodge had a boat stashed, as they do in dozens of lagoons up and down the river.  Fishing was somewhat slow, or maybe I should say, fishing was somewhat slow for me.  Steve was finding some truly big fish.  In several hours of slowly cruising the lagoon, he landed fish of 10, 12, and 15 pounds!  The nice thing about all these fish is that they all got some air.  This isn't always the case, the bigger fish sometimes are happy to slug it out deep, but even the fifteen pound fish went airborne a couple of times.  Here is a happy Iowan with the biggest two bass of his life.

I did land one fish in the ten pound range that I did not take a picture of, but Day 2 was mostly Steves show. 

Following lunch, we did some fishing in the main river channel.  This is my favorite style of fishing here when the water is low.  The main channel looks like bonefish water right now, shallow flats interspersed with occasional deep cuts.  The boat slowly drifted, the guide mostly used the push pole to keep the boat positioned properly.  The biggest challenge this year is the low water.  The fish were very aware of the boat, even though we were being stealthy, fish were blowing out a hundred feet in front of the boat.  Occasionally, we would find one that was less wary, and a good cast would pick it off.

We also found sections where there was deeper water along the banks, still clear, full of fallen trees.  In these sections, the person on the bow would throw big flies for sighted peacocks.  If I was in the middle, I had a six weight, rigged with wire, and I threw small flies at the trees and sunken logs.  There were two fish that we had eyes on.  Steve was looking for his first arawana, an eel like fish with a beautiful scale pattern, that has been known to leap out of the water and eat birds.  I was looking for a black piranha, the largest of the piranha species, it can hit eight pounds and has the most impressive set of teeth you will see this side of a tiger shark.  While I managed to pick away at numerous other panfish type species, matrinxa, bicuda, Gouldings piranha, the black piranha eluded me.  I hooked several, but just wasn't getting the hook into a spot where it didn't bounce off teeth.  Here is one of bicuda species that came out from a sunken tree and ate a bone fish fly.

We also saw decent numbers of arawana, Steve had four grab the fly, and briefly hooked two.  Arawana have a very, very hard mouth.  They require a strong strip set, and some luck.  Today we weren't lucky.  Or maybe we were!

As most people know, I love to catch new species on fly.  And here on the Agua Boa, one exists that I have heard of, but never actually seen, despite fishing here for five weeks, accumulated over the previous years.  The pirapitinga, or red bellied pacu.  Most of the pacu species in the Agua Boa are small, a couple of pounds is a nice one.  The pirapitinga is much larger fish, but again, I have never really encountered them.  Suddenly, Lucas left the shoreline and began poling us out to the middle of deep channel in the river.  He had seen something.  I was in the bow, and I was told I was now fishing for pirapitinga.  I was using a large, 3/0 EP baitfish, which didn't seem like the right fly.  But, we didn't have time to change out, and always listen to your guide.  I made a long cast where he told me, let the fly settle, and made long, slow strips.  I got a grab, set up, and it seemed that I had hooked a pickup truck.  The fish made long, deliberate runs along the bottom, and Lucas confirmed this was definitely a pirapitinga.  Then it was suddenly off, and when I stripped in, I found my #40 tippet had been cleanly cut.  Steve jumped into the bow, and I decided to blindcast from the middle, with my six weight and a small Clouser.  Perhaps I would find that black piranha!  But as Lucas was giving Steve instructions, I came tight again!  Same fight, same implacable power, but on a six weight this time, with #16 instead of an eight with #40.  Nothing spectacular about the fight, but I put as much pressure on as I could, and even more once the black piranha showed up.  This time, they were there for my pirapitinga.  I got his head up as quickly as I could, we grabbed the leader, and had him the boat, but not before one of the piranha took a small chunk out of his side.  I couldn't stop looking at this fish.  So amazing!  

After this, we made the long run back to camp.  The staff met us with drinks at the dock.  (Suffering in the Amazon).  I wandered back with the three weight for a few traditional evening pacus off the dock, under the watchful eye of Rex, the fifteen foot black caiman who oversees the dock fishing.  At dinner, got to listen as everyone shared about their day, plenty of great fish, but most noticeable was a rarely caught on fly redtail catfish, caught by Ryan Krager when he was actually targeting arapaima. Congratulations Ryan!  Can't wait for tomorrow!