Just a reminder of where I am this week. I’m a guest of Rodrigo Salles of Untamed Angling and us along with friends Joe Wolthuis and Ross Purnell are on the Xingu River in the Amazon of Brazil. We are fishing mostly payara, but everything that wants to play is welcome. Its an incredibly wild region located in the heart of the territory of the Kayapo Indigenous people. Occasionally the locals come by to welcome us. This place is truly incredible.
Rodrigo and I hit the payara waters early this morning. We began exactly where I left off last night and caught the machete payara. Strangely, this morning Rodrigo caught another on his first cast. Just like last night, this slender and elongated species is hard to fit in the net. We got him in though and never saw another machete all morning.
The true payaras were around too however and honestly, now that I’ve landed the machete, I’m ready for more of the big boys. While Rodrigo was releasing his machete I brought in the first regular payara of the day. A little guy but his teeth are just as sharp.
It seems that right when you arrive at a new spot there are a few eager fish to catch. Once you weed out the easy one’s fishing gets tough. Or normal I should say. After we each landed a fish we had the occasional bite but it wasn’t for at least 30 minutes before we landed our next.
All in all we had an excellent morning. We each landed three payara. While most were small to average size, I managed this slab. Good times!
At 11:30 we returned to the lodge for lunch and siesta but there was no rest. Instead, after lunch I broke out the sharpies for a little time-lapse video. I drew a payara on Ross’s backpack. Check it out here.
After the backpack art one of the local Kayapo ladies came by and offered to paint us. I had this done in Kendjam and the tattoo type art lasts about two weeks. I’ll have fun showing this off when I get home.
We did something different this afternoon. I fished with Ross and instead of pounding the water with flies, we kicked back and drown piranha heads. Yes, we bait fished for catfish. My advice, you can’t fish the Amazon without at least one catfish session. They may not come by fly but they are worth seeing even though it takes bait. While Ross and I lost our hook ups, Ross lost two, I got broke off in the rocks, Rodrigo got one all the way in from the other boat. This is the highly regarded Jau catfish. And this is a baby!
When we ran out of bait it was payara time. We had a light rain falling. Our guide Christian took us to a famous payara rock. Ross had been here a few times and I could see his excitement. It was a good spot. I fished from the boat and Ross perched on the tip of the rock. Like this morning, as soon as our flies got down in the zone we hooked up.
Ross would have the magic touch tonight. He landed three from the rock and I picked up two from the boat. It was a great session and overall, a great payara day morning and afternoon. Photo by Marcos Hlace
The rain picked up just before 6 causing darkness earlier than normal this week. Then the lightening started so we headed back. We finished our excellent day with the usual fantastic dinner which was topped off with a rich chocolate desert .
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.
For more pics from trips check out my Instagram page @jeffcurrier65
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What a cool place! Thanks for the blog. Hardwater fishing starts here now.
Yeah Howie, its an amazing place. A slight bit different from the season you are about to start!