Just got back from 6 days of fishing on the Amazon with my fishing buddy of over 50 years, Bruce Slaven. The outfitter was Ron Speed Jr Adventures who is headquartered in Texas. We stayed on a large houseboat known as the “Otter” and went out every day with a different guide in 17′ bass boats. There were 14 anglers on the trip and our total catch was over 700 peacock bass.
To get there we had to fly from DFW to Miami, then Miami to Manaus Brazil. We arrived about 1am and checked into a hotel for a few hours of sleep before going back to the airport and catching a 16 passenger turboprop for a 2 hour flight to Barcelos. The Otter was anchored in the river and we rode the bass boats to it.
Once everybody was on board, and our gear stowed, the boat headed upstream for about another 12 hours. Every day the houseboat would relocate so that we were always fishing a new section of the river. They served three hot meals a day on the houseboat so you stayed pretty full the whole trip. During the welcome speech, they warned us about the risk of sunburn. We were right on the equator and they recommended we rely of coverups more than sunscreen. In all the pictures you will see that everyone wore buffs, hats, gloves, long sleeve shirts, and long pants. The operation actually used two houseboats, one for the guests and one for the crew. The bass boats were tied in a long daisy chain behind the crew boat when we relocated.
Our room was good size, with its own A/C unit and a full bath with walk in shower. The water for the shower, sink, and commode was water pumped straight from the river. The river water is the color of very dark tea, so it was easy to spot in the sink. One of the guests washed his teeth in the sink with the river water and ended up on an immodium diet for the next several days. Water for drinking came from 5 gallon bottles.
They told us to strip all the line from our reels before we came, so one of the first things we did was have the guides respool our reels with 65 and 80lb braid. They had a wide assortment of rods for us to fish with, many of them brand new. They also laid out all their lures and let us pick whatever we wanted. Many of those were brand new as well. I was concerned about being able to cast Curado’s and Chronarchs using heavy braid, but it was no problem at all, except that sometimes when casting with the wind, your cast would take you all the way down to the knot on the spool
The primary lures used were a woodchopper and a jig. The woodchopper was 8″ long and weighed 2 ounces. The jig had a long bucktail and weighed only 1/2 oz. The big fish usually came on the woodchopper, but if you had a strike that missed, casting back with the jig would often result in a hookup. Piranhas were a problem when fishing the jigs. The would strip the skirts completely off, 1/2 inch at a time. Only one of the group manage to hook one.
We got up at 5:15 every morning, came back for a 1 1/2 hour lunch, then went back out till 5pm, about 9 solid hours of fishing. Casting the woodchoppers was work, but the process of working them back was even more work. You had to zip them through the water as had as you could, and to do that you had to put your whole body into the motion.
The group caught 726 Peacocks, with 50 over 10 lbs, 22 over 15, and 9 over 20. Despite all our hard work neither Bruce or I caught one over 15 lbs. My biggest was 12.5, and Bruce had an 11. We did catch several 10 pounders. We had a couple of days where we caught over 20 fish. One of the anglers in the group had a 20 pounder on his second cast of the trip. Another caught 3 over 20, including a 24 lb fish.
The guides were very impressive, but they didn’t speak english. Their ability to navigate the thousands of channels and find a specific lagoon to fish without any GPS defied logic. This was not random fishing, they knew exactly where they were going and which tree had produced a big fish on previous trips. I think most of the guides have been doing this for over 20 years. They really hated losing either a fish or a lure. Once I had a fish snag on an underwater log so deep is was out of sight below the boat. The guide didn’t hesitate to strip down and go over the side to retrieve the fish. Another time I hung the lure in a branch about 20′ above the water. The guide pulled the boat up to the bank, took his machete, cut down a small tree about 15 feet long, hacked off its branches and made a pole he could use to snag the lure and retrieve it.
One surprising problem we had were the porpoises. We were over 1000 miles from the coast, and these porpoises were a freshwater species commonly found only in the Amazon. Nearly every fish we caught and released was immediately chased and eaten by a porpoise. The were following guide boats knowing that we would provide them a free lunch. Some of the fishermen had been on this trip 3 times and said this was the worst they had ever seen. Sometimes the guide would pull the boat next to the bank among tree roots and release fish to try and give them a chance. We also caught a few “freshwater” barracuda, which looked a lot like the saltwater version only shorter.
On the last afternoon of fishing, the guide took us to a really good area. We spotted a big fish tearing up the water next to the bank and Bruce threw his woodchopper right on target. The water exploded and Bruce was hooked up. The fish jumped one time and we could all tell it was one of the big boys. The net was in the water and Bruce was close to leading it in when it turned its head just right and the hooks pulled.
Such it is with fishing. This was definitely the hardest fishing I have ever done because of the amount of effort to cast and work the woodchoppers. We didn’t get the big one but the thrill of a once in a lifetime trip in an exotic location with a good friend made it all worthwhile.