Fishing the Teles Pires

October 9-15; On the Teles Pires River, Brazil --

Our guide with one of the many "small" Catfish we caught. 

Our guide was a good-looking, dark-skinned Brazilian named Mora; I'm pretty sure that he caught more fish than Uncle Bob and I combined. He was very skillful in maneuvering a special clamp onto the lower jaw of each fish, as it was brought alongside the boat, to bring it up for view and photos. He met us each morning at about 0600 after our breakfast at the main resort.

Mora prepared our fish lines with appropriate hooks (monster #00's I think!), and bait. The bait was sometimes a cross-section of a 2-3 pound fish body, or a live bait fish resembling a dark-colored Candle-fish. The former was used when we were seeking Catfish and the latter when we were fishing for the faster fish, such as the Corvina or what I called the Wolf-fish. Usually I used my 8 1/2 foot Salmon "mooching" rod to fish for the large fish, preferring its lively action to the stiff spin-casting rods that the "natives" seemed to prefer. The stiff rods were able to bring the big ones "to bay" more quickly,  but weren't as much fun in the process.

A batch of Corvina that we had for supper on this day.

Corvina were a fairly lively fish to catch, weighing about 4-8 pounds; fighting more like salmon than the sluggish but powerful Catfish. The Corvina were the only fish that we kept to eat later; all others were "catch and release", although I thought one Catfish would make a pretty good meal for a large family gathering!

The most unusual fish we caught was what I call the Wolf-fish. Its distinctively long lower canine teeth made it look fearsome! [I didn't take the chance to be bitten by one!] It was also fairly active to hook, jumping and cavorting for a bit like a trout or salmon. The Wolf-fish that we caught weighed about 6-10 pounds.

The most unusual and unexpected catch was some kind of freshwater ray. We hooked two of them during our time fishing; each of them were hooked near their tail, presumably because they swam over our bait that was resting on the bottom where we were fishing for the Catfish.

But the grand-prize game fish that I anticipated having the most fun catching was the ledgendary Peacock Bass -- the Tucanare, in the native language. This fish was noted for going after noisy surface lures, "tearing up tackle", biting through leader, etc. -- according to the information I gleaned from Google before I left Seattle. I had made a special trip down to "Linc's Bait and Tackle Shop" on Rainier Avenue near Jackson street to get steel leader material and surface lures for my 8 1/2 foot Carbon-fiber flyrod that I was sure would gain the attention of these wily game fish. I was "loaded for bear" -- or so I thought.

The first day of fishing down-river in a prime bass-fishing spot, the Tucanare slammed viciously into my surface lures, but either refused at the last moment to take a bite, or were clever at being able to spit it out when they found it had no nutrition. Well, I did hook one; he made an impressive leap and tore up the surface of the water heading "out to sea" -- before taking that lure with him. Darn!! [The end of my leader indicated that my knot tying on the lure had failed.] All subsequent casts with more-carefully tied-on lures failed to attract the slightest attention from this wily species.

Uncle Bob's monster 10 lb Tucanare on an artificial lure

Grumpy's one, lone Tucanare on flyrod

I may have caught one Tucanare on my flyrod, but basically I got skunked!! [I look forward to telling Linc about my experiences when I return to Seattle.] I was proud of mine -- until Uncle Bob caught this one (about an 8-10 pounder!), using a spin-cast underwater lure! And he was getting a strike or catching a fish on just about every cast! So much for the "noisy surface lure" myth! Our guide added insult to injury by catching one after another on a lure that he concocted on the spot, using red and white yarn tied to one of those great big hooks. [Reminded me of some of the lures Great Great Grandpa Z used to catch large-mouth bass, back in Haakon County. Sometimes he would snip a tuft of long black hair from his Cocker Spaniel to add to the mix!] 

I made a major mistake when I caught my lone Tucunare on the flyrod: Being the proud, self-reliant guy that I am, I stuck my index finger in his mouth, intending to lift him out of the water in the manner I usually picked up large-mouth bass and medium-size trout. As soon as my finger and thumb clamped down on his lower jaw, he bit down and proceeded to wiggle vigorously, thereby severely lacerating my finger.

More real big fish stories in my  next post.