I got up nice and early this morning but wasn’t in the mood for writing a blog. Instead the artistic blood was flowing. I brought a set of Sharpies and grabbed them and went to work.
Outside the backdoor of our mothership the Untamed Amazon where we hang the rods and board the fishing boats every morning is some perfect wall space for art. Rodrigo gave me the go-ahead to have some fun. I got some elevation from a Yeti Cooler and started up a big beautiful peacock bass that I aim to finish by the end of the week.
Rodrigo and I split up today so we could fish with some of the other guys from Mike Michalak’s group. I fished with Mike’s buddy John from California. John has been on this trip before and has several peacocks over 20lbs on his resume.
John and I fished with guide Martin and we took a short boat ride to a creek mouth where they normally load up on butterflies and nice sized pacas. Today the beautiful little spot was occupied by a family of giant Amazon River otters. The curious fish eating assembly undoubtedly had the peacocks of the area on high alert.
From there we hit at least three other spots through the morning and fish were hard to come by. I thought it was perhaps because we were hitting all big fish areas but Martin assured us that he was simply trying to get us a tug. We were getting skunked in some of his butterfly places which is highly unusual.
There are a few fish species that always seem active when the peacocks have lockjaw. Perhaps its because they feel safe when the peacocks aren’t hungry. It’s the dogfish and the bicudas. At shows during the winter folks often give me flies and ask me to catch something weird on them. Rich Pilatzke gave me some badass mice. The slick fly pops beautifully and I landed this bicuda and yes, it also got us our first butterfly of the day!
It was lunch time before we knew it and the guides and chef had another beach barbeque waiting. They spread us out on a spectacular place with overhanging trees and shade. They dragged the coolers to the tables and we sat around with chairs in the water and drank a few beers while telling stories.
Not far from us chef Fabrizio was cooking a delicacy. Not only was the fire heating up pork and sausages, but he had several tambaquis grilling as well. Let’s just say, the morning fishing wasn’t great for anyone but this lunch feast more than made up for it!
We enjoyed our refreshing after lunch swim then it was back to work in search of some nice peacocks. But once again fishing for them was slow and once again I had fun with the bicudas and dogfish. This dogfish got hit by a peacock on his way in and John got the peacock on his next cast.
This would be one of the best peacocks of today from the entire group. I’m pretty sure it’s the one that tried to eat my dogfish. Folks often reel in when their friend hooks up but in the Amazon you cast your fly right next to your buddies fish!
When big fish of any species don’t feel like eating there’s not much you can do. With or without their cooperation its always a great time when fly fishing in the Amazon. Untamed Angling puts on an incredible program. We kicked back and enjoyed another great evening on the Untamed Amazon.
If this is a trip you want to do (and you are crazy if you don’t!) you can Contact me, Yellow Dog Flyfishing Adventures or Untamed Angling.
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