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report: amazon peacock bass trip

2K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  Kimosabe 
#1 ·
i just got back from a two week trip on the passimoni river deep in the venezuelan amazon. the passimoni is just off of the cassaqueri which is a tributary of the rio ***** that runs into the amazon. the area (rio *****) borders columbia.

while any trip to the amazon is a true adventure, this area is is even more so. first, the area (rio *****) borders venezuela and columbia. because of the difficult relations between them, the border is very tense and heavily militarised by each. consequently we were stopped regularly by soldiers from each and inspected and questioned-very disconcerting. secondly, there is no electricity and thus no radio nor land line phone contact, and the satellite phone was not working.

our guides come from the handful of extremely remote and small indigenous tribal villages in the area. none of them speak a lick of english and their spannish is very limited to non existent. but, they know the river and where and how to find fish. they took us for a visit to one of the most remote/stoneage tribes in the world-the yanomami, where the women are topless and wear bones in their noses. the men are likewise naked for the most part and all adorned themselves with "war" paint upon our arrival. they still hunt with bows and arrows and blow guns. i saw a young man shoot a monkey out of a tree using the blow gun. i traded him a small knife for the blow gun which i took home along with a bow and two 7' arrows and a bunch of other stuff which i also traded for.

as for the fishing, we had high water which is generally a problem because the peacocks chase the bait into the flooded jungle. the passimoni and its tributaries, (the baria the yatoui) and the emoni which are renowned for big fish, did not dissapoint. though we caught less fish than normal, we had a very high percentage of big ones. (10lbs or more). additionally we caught many piranha and bicuna(fresh water barracuda) both of which the peacocks prey on. i caught a 5-6'cayman which the guide "hog tied" by using a vine from a tree and brought back to his village to eat. there were six fish caught which were over 20 lbs, the largest being 23 lbs. my largest was 18lbs, and i had a couple of them. all in all i had 24 fish over 10lbs for 8 days of fishing-about average for the 9 guys on the trip. however i was the only one fly fishing which makes catching peacocks more challanging because the retrieve must be very fast and the flies huge 7"-10". i had 10 fish on the fly over 10lbs including one at 16 lbs.

while there were a number of draw backs- long running times-up to 2.5 hours and horrible food which we ran out ofand therefor were forced to eat lots of the fish we cought and trade for game, including a lacma, which is a large (@25lb) jungle rodent (and actually quite delicious). hopefully the outfitter will do what it can to make it right.

i hope to post some pictures later today when my son can give me a hand.
 
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#6 ·
Great report! Must have been quite an adventure. Good job sticking with the fly rod too, although it sounds like you held your own vs the non-fly guys anyway :cool: .

What were you using for gear, line & flies? Any topwater action :Eyecrazy: ?

Q
 
#7 ·
i got the pics over to juro who says they need to be adjusted in order to post, but he should have it done in a day or two.

quentin,i used 2 different 9 wts. an 8' crosscurrent and an xi2. rio tropical clouser 11wt intermediate for the crosscurrent and a rio tropical clousre10wt floating for the xi2 which i used for poppers. good top water action but tough getting big fish on top. i've had better luck on top water when the water levels are low. i tied up some long flat wings and long deciever type flies using synthetics and lots of flash. the synthetics were less difficult to cast but the flash attracted lots of piranha. all the flies were quite heavy. i need to tie more sparsely next time or go to a 10 or 11 wt rod which i don't want to do.
 
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