February 12, 2013
Somehow I slept poorly again last night yet when I rolled out of bed at 5:30 the first thing I noticed was that the rain stopped and immediately felt better than yesterday. I popped our cabin door and to my delight saw patches of blue sky. Today would be a better day.
There was a concern however. The water level of the Xeurini had come up about 6 inches. But as the sun rose I could see that the water remained crystal clear. As for my fishing partner – I planned to be back with Milkfish today, however the way it worked I had Hymundo take Milkfish and another group member, Steve Fitzsimons to focus all day on big fish. Hymundo has proven good at that this week and as you can see with this photo, the move paid off well for Milkfish with this 13.5lb!
The partner switch put me back with Warpath and Antonio which was fine because we were interested in whacking some odd species and taking numerous pictures while it wasn’t raining for a change. I’ll give you the short because I’m still not feeling so great and after a fun night around the dinner table I’m about to collapse. Warpath and I smeared the exotics. We caught a jumbo picua, numerous of the beautiful jacunda, traira and even a species of piranha I’ve not caught before and need to identify when I get home.
The piranha fell for a purple Chernobyl ant while I was screwing around trying to catch some crazy looking cichlids. There were a lot around so Warpath grabbed the Chernobyland caught one also. Funny thing, when WP was holding his for my photos I noticed his finger looked to be not only be bleeding but potentially missing a chunk. I lifted up in horror and asked WP if his finger was ok. He dropped the piranha and almost fainted when he saw it. He thought his finger tip was gone. You never saw a set of finger socks and sun gloves come off so fast. He rinsed his hand and luckily all was intact. The piranha was bleeding!
The biggest (literally) news today was that Dawes landed an incredible 17lb peacock! It was a great day. We caught two more big fish, caught numerous species and best of all not a drop of rain. I’m by no means feeling great but I think I’m on the mend. I can only hope I never feel as bad as yesterday on a fishing trip again.
Ha ha ha ha, when messing with those fish, I bet the thought of loosing a finger isn’t so far fetched