Just back from Brazil, super fun trip for peacocks, arapaima, arawana, and more....

Randy Richter

Just returned from a trip to Agua Boa Lodge in northern Brazil. I've been hosting trips there, but tested positive for Covid and was unable to join my group, so this was my make-up trip. I fished March 5th through 12th. Water was high this trip, so didn't have the crystal clear main river fishing that Agua Boa is famous for, but the lagoons still allowed plenty of sight fishing. In 7 days, my fishing partner and I landed 400 to 500 fish, and although most were peacocks, we landed 18 species of fish on fly. I landed peacocks of 17,16.5, and 15lbs, and of course dropped the big one of the trip. Hooked and lost an arapaima of over a hundred pounds, and fishing buddy got a small one. Arawana were taking chernoybl ants as were pacu and piranha. One story perfectly illustrates this place. We were fishing a lagoon, and trying to target the arapaima that were rolling. This involved trying to drop your fly right on the roller, letting it sink, and then retrieving it painfully slowly. Peacocks are supposed to love the fly ripped back, but there were so many butterfly peacocks in the 3 to 5 pound range, they would eat the fly on the sink or soon as it moved. Finally had an arapaima roll within casting range, let the fly sink, a peacock grabbed it, shook it off, stripped it a couple times, another peacock grabbed it, shook it off, repeated this two more times, and as I was trying to lift the fly from the water, a TWELVE pound peacock came out from under the boat and smoked it. If you would like a little more detail, I'm blogging the trip day by day at randyrichter.blogspot.com Would love to take someone from the board with me. Enjoy the pics!

sunflower

That looks like a pretty cool trip. Lots of fish and species.
I have never really considered a jungle fly-fishing trip. I mostly go after saltwater flats.
I guess the main attraction is the sheer volume of action, and the big strikes from the peacocks?
How big do South Florida peacocks get?
Thanks.

Randy Richter

Mark,
I think the real attraction is the environment.  A couple hundred miles from the nearest road or village.  No sign of people.  But the fish are pretty amazing.  The state record pea in Florida is nine and change, but I think a five to six pound fish is a nice fish down there.  In the river I fish, they top out at low twenties, but it's not really the size of the peacocks.  Jungle fishing is just very cool, I spend a lot of time in the salt in Florida, Mexico, Louisiana and love it.  But I'll be in Bolivia dorado fishing this fall and I'm afraid I might not come back.

gogittum

There was a series on TV not long ago where a group of 3 friends traveled all over into remote places, targeting exotic species....and they really went after it.  I really enjoyed their episodes.

On one, they went into a remote region, I think, IIRC, into the far up headwaters of the Amazon River to target Dorado - not Dolphinfish.  You may well be headed for a great time.

Tight Loops

Thanks for the post and pictures. Brings back lots of memories. Never fished Brazil but ran a lot of trips to Venezuela back around 1999 - 2004. Peacock Bass and Payara (saber tooth) were awesome. Your right the fishing is off the charts but the coolest part is being there.

Randy Richter

Tight Loops said:

Thanks for the post and pictures. Brings back lots of memories. Never fished Brazil but ran a lot of trips to Venezuela back around 1999 - 2004. Peacock Bass and Payara (saber tooth) were awesome. Your right the fishing is off the charts but the coolest part is being there.

The payara remind me so much of baby tarpon, at least the way they fight.  Tough to stick a hook in and jump like crazy.

Tight Loops

Curious what your best peacock bass fly was? I see the flys in your pictures but wonder what worked best? BTW that was a great peacock you caught!

Randy Richter

Tight Loops said:

Curious what your best peacock bass fly was? I see the flys in your pictures but wonder what worked best? BTW that was a great peacock you caught!

I've been down four times, and most of the time, I think flies don't matter too much.  This time the water was dirtier than normal, it's a clear water fishery normally, so I wanted some flies with bigger profiles.  EP flies from five to seven inches, tied something over white, chartreuse, brown, or pink over white were big producers, as was a solid white fly that I tied to imitate matrinxa, but I ran out of those early in the trip.  If you want, drop me at a text sometime at 319 310 1430 and I can send some pics of the flies.  As you know, they're hyper aggressive, so I think the biggest factor is, they have to see it.    Also hooked a very large arapaima on a simple brown over white ep.