The Better To Eat You With:  Amazon 2025 Day 7

Well, the dreaded last day has finally come.  But with it, a sense of anticipation.  It's not a rule, but very often I find out last days can offer very special fishing.  At least, today, I got a very special sunrise.

Our guide today is Val, and we are on the very lowest beat on the river, beat one.  This beat contains some of the most picturesque water on the river.  White sand, clear water, mile after mile of main river channel offering classic flats fishing.  With that in mind, we asked Val if we could skip the lagoons today.  No arapaima, no blind casting for big peacocks.  It would be an all sight fishing game today.  With three targets in mind.  Big peacocks.  Arawana, Steve still hasn't landed one of these elusive creatures, and black piranha.  Black piranha are the largest peacocks in the Rio Negro Basin.  They are commonly four to five pounds, and their teeth are a sight to behold.  I have never landed one on fly, and the lower river is the only place to see them.  So, it was a bit of an unusual request, but I made it.

We gradually worked our way down the river, casting to tree lined banks, and drifting back to the main river channel.  We experienced a steady pick of nice fish like this one from Steve, showing off it's spawning hump.

I was fishing a six weight, with a small trace of wire, and a tiny wooly bugger, and actually had some arawana opportunities and landed the two I hooked.   Steve and I even landed a double, him with a good peacock and myself with the second arawana of the day.  

And then it happened.  My time to shine.  (Spoiler alert, I didn't).  We pulled up, just upstream from a large tree in the water, and there were literally a hundred black piranha.  The first fly I threw in was greeted with frenzied enthusiasm, by a truly oversized fish, it pulled crazy hard and then eventually the fly came out.  I then proceed to lose two more, before I looked at the fly, and saw that the hook was completely bent out.  I re-tied, and next cast, a fish bit through the wire trace.  I re-tied again, set up, and landed a fish, but it was foul hooked.  I took a picture, because I really wanted to get a good shot of the teeth on a large black piranha (this one was about four pounds), but it doesn't count for my species list.  By the time I released this fish, the others had taken off.  Looks like I may be waiting until next year to knock this one off.

We stopped for lunch, pulling into the shade, just downstream from where a large tree was downed in the creek mouth.  This looked like a classic small fish spot!  It turned out to be much more than that.  A peek into the branches revealed a school of no less than 100 large Oscars, several species of pacus and piranha, including blacks, and a look at the other side of the tree revealed a ten pound peacock posted up near the bank, and a small group of arawana.  I'll keep it brief.  I caught as many Oscar as I wanted.  I caught yet another arawana.  And I caught a new species for my list, the spotted severum.  

After lunch, we started on a slightly deeper section, near a side channel, and I think Val knew what was coming.  First cast, fish.  Second cast, fish.  Third cast, fish.  These peacocks were a less commonly caught species the guides call, Tawa, common English name, the firebelly peacock.  They are smaller, and averaged about two pounds here, I got one that may have been a little over three, which is the largest I have seen.  We probably landed 20 fish, in fewer minutes than that, and have to say, it was fun.  We haven't had many of those "fish a cast moments" this trip.  A large fish in the 12 pound range chased our fish to the boat a couple of times, but we were unable to get it to hit a fly.

Two memorable moments from the afternoon.  Fishing the flats again, we saw a pod of large arawana.  Steve dropped a perfect cast, an arawana ate, and he stripset so hard, I thought he was going to break  the forty pound tippet.  The fish took off jumping and rolling but it was pinned!  After 30 seconds, I said, "I think I'm safe to turn on the video" and the fish immediately fell off.  It's definitely me.  I'm the problem.  Then another group of arawana immediately swam by the bow!  Steve dropped another good cast, another good strip set, and stuck another one.  He played this one a long time, I said, "This time, I'm not saying anything", and you guessed it, it immediately came off.  Steve will never catch an arawana, at least with me in the boat.

Our day is nearing an end.  It's 3:30, and we have a ninety minute run back to the lodge.  I spot a fish.  A big one.  Before Val has noticed it.  Which basically never happens.  It was a long cast, 85 to 90 feet, and amazingly enough, I put it exactly where I wanted to, a couple of feet in front of the fish that no one else has yet noticed.  One strip, two strips, and the fish ate.  For a moment, it sat, just shaking its head a couple of times, Val actually asked if I had hooked a log.  Nope!  The fish promptly ran hard, from left to right out into the middle of the river.  Great battle, and ended up close enough to the bank where I jumped out of the boat, and got to fight the fish from the beach.  14.5 pounds, not a scale missing, a perfect Amazon giant in every way, and this turned out to be my last cast of the trip!  Kind of.

Back to the lodge, where everyone had a wonderful day.  I couldn't resist having one last session on the dock, and absolutely beat up the pacu and aracu, landing close to twenty.  Ryan and his girlfriend Ty has a memorable day in the far upriver beat, and shot this wonderful pic of a double figure double.  And then, when he got back he asked Ty to marry him, and she said yes, so good day for them!

Our entire group of 14 had an epic time!  In our boat, Steve and I landed 15 fish of ten pounds or more, between the two of us.  Plus hundreds of other bycatch fish on the light rods.  Agua Boa is the best.  I will be taking another team of 14 in January 2026.  If you are interested, message me on Instagram, at @randypescadorrichter.  See you in the jungle.