It is the night before we begin fishing. This is a time we have all anxiously awaited. We have been checking our tackle to make sure everything is ready to go in the morning. It has been long trip down the river and we are restless to wet a line.

     Saturday, October 23, 2004
     Morning comes with an early wake up call from Earl. We’ve loaded the motor boats, lathered up with sunscreen and sprayed ourselves with insecticide. The dawn breaks early on the equator. It is 5:30 a.m. and the sun is already in the sky. Our guides have scouted the area for hot spots and we set out in three motor boats to try our hand at catching the world famous peacock bass.
     The area we are fishing is known as Lake Little Leo. Because the water level on the Amazon and its tributaries is dropping, the lake has many islands, isthmuses, inlets and points. Our strategy is to find a point where the fish are feeding.
     The team split up to increase the chances of finding the fish. Earl, Barney, Rob, and Griff stopped first at a promising spot while Ed and some of the Brazilian team checked out another point. Splitting the group to find the fish proved unnecessary as the fish seemed to be everywhere! The action started slowly, but then it took off as everybody was catching fish. The majority of the fish was in the range of 16”-18” and weighing in the 3-4 pound range. Some weighed in a little bit larger. Earl seemed to be the one who attracted the larger fish. On several occasions he hooked some lunkers that managed to free themselves before they could be landed.
At the end of the morning we had a great stringer of fish. Everybody had caught 5 or 6 fish. When we returned to the mother boat there was a lot of talk about the quantity and quality of the catch. With this type of success we will be eating peacock bass for the remainder of the trip. As we ate our lunch, conversation turned to the afternoon outing and how it would compare to what we had already experienced. Would it be as good, or would the fish retreat to where all fish go when they didn’t want to be found?
     It was mid-afternoon by the time we were fishing. Once again, the fishing was red hot! What an impressive fish! The variety of color in these fish is amazing. The smaller ones are the most vibrant in their color. Bright yellow and green make up the body with a wide splash of red on the throat and gills. The pectoral and ventricle fins are tinged with red, while the dorsal is an iridescent blue. As they increase in size, they take on a shade of gray that is covered with white speckles. It is definitely a much darker fish. The much larger variety begins to take on a bullish shape to the head and acquires that yellow and green coloring. Of course, the trademark vertical bars and the peacock spot on the tail are on each of them.
     As impressive as the beauty is the way these fish fight. They are ferocious fighters. Regardless of size, each fish fought like a much larger fish. Smaller fish fought to take the rod out of our hands! They would often take a long run for some cover, but when directed away from underwater obstacles they took to the air and tried their best to become flying fish, jumping as many as three to four times before being landed. It was an awesome sight to see the acrobatics of these fish.
     Returning to the boat at dusk revealed that we had matched our morning catch. A few of the fish were larger than the morning catch. They measured 21” and weighed in at just over four pounds. Each angler caught upwards of 10 fish today. It was a great day!

     Sunday, October 24, 2004
     We were all over the map today. The places we caught fish yesterday were not as productive today. There were fish to be caught there, but rather than have a slow day, we opted to try different locations. If a point was not showing promise within a short period of time, we pulled the anchor and headed to another spot. There were too many places to fish to stay in one area all day long. As it turned out, the fish would feed in spurts. The fish would bite for a while and then slack off until the notion struck them to start feeding again. All in all, we had to work a little bit harder to catch the fish, but when we stopped for lunch the proof of the catch was seen in the size of the stringer. We were almost as productive as we were yesterday. It is hard for us to believe how many fish this area produces. There is no reason not to catch fish.
     After stopping for a delicious fish lunch, we took to the water again about mid-afternoon. The sun is extremely hot here. Living in Florida year round we have become accustomed to the heat, but near the equator, the sun beats on you all day long. The only relief is an occasional rain shower. The upside of it is that the peacock bass seems to love the sun. The fishing always seemed to be best when the sun was at its brightest. If a cloud or rainstorm shielded it, the fish were not biting. When the sun returned, the fish began to bite once more.
     In addition to the fine fishing we experienced today there were a few treats for all of us to enjoy. Two piranhas were caught today. There are different varieties of piranha, but they all have the telltale teeth we have all heard about. They have an impressive set of razor sharp teeth. It was easy to tell when piranha was in the area. They would take the bait differently. They were more difficult to catch due to the shape of their mouths and the size of the hooks we were using. Often, we ended up with our baitfish bitten in half.
     A very large crocodile/alligator was seen by one of our team. It was seen from a distance in a cove where the water was very calm. It seemed to be floating on the top of the water. From a distance it was described as huge.
     We began to hear monkeys deep in the jungle. They would go into extended periods of screaming. The jungle would erupt with the sounds of monkeys yelling at the top of their voices. They sounded as though they were irritated about something. The sounds did not always come from the same place. At times they sounded quite far away and at other times they sounded as if they were getting closer.

     Monday, October 25, 2004
     Once again, we all caught a mess of fish today. But the prize for putting on a fishing clinic has to go to Barney and Rob. The day started slowly with our team split up on opposite sides of an inlet. Earl, Griff, and Ed were fishing one side while Barney and Rob were fishing the other side. Feeling frustration at the slow start, Barney and Rob moved down the bank from the inlet to a more wooded area to try their luck. What they found was a convention of peacock bass that were waiting for them to arrive to start the party. When the fish started biting, they just wouldn’t stop. In a period of about 30 minutes they must have caught 10 fish apiece. We were watching from across the bank and could not believe what we were seeing. As soon as they took a fish off the line, they had hooked another. At one point, Barney was fighting two fish at the same time, one on each pole! Incredible is the only way to describe it. In honor of the event, this spot was named “Peacock Beach”. We all caught some nice fish today, but we never caught the number of fish Barney and Rob did. There was no way we were ever going to catch up to them in the fish count.

     Tuesday, October 26, 2004
     Today was big fish day! Earl and some of the Brazilians opted to stay at Peacock Beach to try their luck while Barney and Rob took a boat and headed in one direction while Griff and Ed took another off in another direction. The plan was to fish the shoreline and coves with top water plugs in hopes of experiencing the excitement of a big peacock bass bursting through the surface of the water.
     It was mid-morning when Griff hooked into a sizeable bass while fishing a wooded cove. It was everything he dreamed it would be. The fish tried to wrap him around submerged debris, but he was able to keep it in the open waters. It measured in at 25” and weighed a bit over 7 pounds. At almost the same time Rob was landing a fish that matched Griff’s in size and weight. It was a lot of fun to watch the two of them try to get the upper hand when comparing the size of the fish. Each one wanted to lay claim to the bragging rights of the largest fish. As it turned out it was a tie for third place.
     Just before lunch Earl hooked another lunker. He had not had much success landing these big boys the past few days so he was going to need some luck to get this one on the stringer. That’s exactly what he got. When the fish took his line, it went straight out to deep water rather than going for the underbrush and debris that was to Earl’s left and right. That gave him the opportunity to get command of the situation and keep the fish more or less under some control. He fought it for some time before landing it. It was a beautiful fish. It had that bullish head and yellow green color. It was 29” and 13.5 pounds. What a monster! Only 4” longer that the two caught previously, but it was twice a heavy. He knew he had first place sewn up.
     On the return trip to the mother boat we met up with some of the Brazilians who wanted to know how we did. Earl did his best to conceal his excitement, but let it be known that he had caught a big one. They listened politely and were happy for his catch. It was only when he asked how they did that they let on that they had caught a big fish also. Earl knew he was in a contest when they held up the fish for him to see. At the boat it measured 30” and weighed 13.5 pounds. Earl had slipped to second place. It was a treat to see all of those trophy-sized fish on the boat deck. Among all the fish we caught in four days these stood out as the biggest and best.
     In their excursion around the area Barney and Rob spotted a little red monkey. It stood approximately thigh high. It wanted nothing to do with either of them, taking off on a fast monkey run for the jungle as soon as it saw them.

     Wednesday, October 27, 2004
     Last morning to fish before heading back to civilization at noontime. We decided to take to boats and look for fish using our top water plugs. We all agreed that today was catch and release unless it was a real trophy. WE had already caught hundreds of fish weighing 500-600 pounds.
     We met the day with mild success. We all caught some fish, but they were in the 12” and 1-1 ½ pound category. It was great getting them to hit the plugs. It is the way most of us fish at home so it brought a feeling of real satisfaction.
     Fishing this way left us all with the vivid memory of the great natural beauty of this place. It is quiet, untouched, pristine beauty. God’s creation is marvelous. The Amazon and its people have changed our lives forever. We will never be the same because of this experience.