Tucunare

Solta

Fishing Info

On the 20th of November Marcus, Mark, Osvaldo, Luciano, Fred, Luis, Marcelo, Jorge, Francisco, Marshall, Joao, Rolando, Paulo, and I set off to Manaus for the beginning of our fishing trip on the Foresti I houseboat which we were to meet at Barcelos on the Rio Negro.

The look of the check in staff at Congolhas was one that was to be repeated often on our trip to the Amazonas and back; and the long green tube containing all of our fishing rods, most of which had been purchased by Marcus and our guide Edson the week before, provided them and us a logistical problem or two. Having just arrived from London that morning and spent a few hours at the Hilton Morumbi relaxing I had no idea where we would find ourselves after midnight in Manaus that very evening. When we arrived in Barcelos from via Trip airways the following morning there was great euphoria despite little to no sleep. Arriving at the airport of this fishing town at 35 C and 100% humidity we soon realized we were going to be rather hot. We expected an airconditioned houseboat at the end of the jetty and a welcoming committee headed by a certain Edson. There was no Edson so we figured we'd find him looking for us at the jetty by the Rio Negro..

Too tired from lack of sleep (and perhaps some Manaus overindulgence), some of us took a hotel room (with airconditioning amazingly!) while others looked for Edson. Marshall, Luis, Jorge and Rolando however couldn't wait a minute to fish and collared a local fisherman to take them on a tucunaré hunt.

Eventually a short dapper Edson appeared in town looking for Marcus (also wisely asleep in the hotel), to explain that the houseboat engine was losing oil but had been fixed and would be in port in acouple of hours. The anxiety of getting fishing that same afternoon left us wondering whether this indeed would be the case, but we soon found ourselves on board with a caipirinha in hand. It was auspicious when we found Rolando embracing Luis and a three kilo tucunaré that they had caught on their DIY fishing expedition.

A few more caipirinhas, and caipiroscas appeared in conjunction with a wonderful hot lunch prepared by two great cooks and served by the ever attentive waiter.Edson's fishing expedition was going to be anything but spartan! Marcus had lectured us incessantly about the serious problems that would occur if we were overweight. Then I found out it was because we wer each obliged to carry at least one bottle of fine wine each for our evening meals in our 15 kilo weight limit. Some of us litterally had the two pairs of shorts and t shirts (plus a pair of tennis shoes, but "no socks" and definitely "no raincoats- it never rains this time of year in the Rio Negro" ) that Marcus had stipulated in his email (with the notable exception of my "black box" which I had entrusted to Marcus and which was the cause of certain irresistible curiousity in Manaus, and my camera bag).

Although we never expected it we were fishing in the Rio Negro that afternoon for at most two hours before dark. We were split into pairs through a clever lottery system devised around a deck of cards which Marcus came up with. People pulling the same card fished together for the day. Each pair had one piloto or local fishing guide. The first day already demonstrated the punishment that even new gear would get with the tucunaré. One broken bail. Fingers were saved by what is known in the fishing trade as a "boga grip", a spring loaded set of clamps that could hold the toothy monsters by the lip at a safe distance while retrieving the trebble hooks from the fish. Speaking of hooks, Fred managed to lodge one into his bare foot. Luckily the piloto had seen this before and with dextrous hands drew the hook through the flesh and cut the barb off with a pair of pliers.

Our pilots were not recreational fishermen, but indiginous people from the rivers with a great deal of local and practical knowledge. Judging by the ability to keep dying outboards running, they were mechanics, as well as surgeons. Paulo explained the background of our guides: "the piloteiros were all ex-professional fishermen (killing sleeping fish near the shore, at night, using flashlights), for survival, they now enjoy most when we release the fish we catch. In fact, usually the fish were "too small" to bring to the boat, or "too big - let it procreate." In fact, they never asked us to release the fish, but we knew they were pleased to release the fish. They have seen a reduction in the amount of fish, and their hope in the releasing of the fish is not an altruistic feeling which they nurture, but a belief that eco-tourism and sport-fishing will end up giving them and their communities a better way of life. Some have been taking sport-fishermen for such trips for 7 years. (Dadá for example was in the past a rubber tapper, and castanha-do-pará harvester, staying for months in the forest, hunting and collecting.)". I'm sure our piloteiros also had an aquarium fishing background like so many of the inhabitants of Barcelos.. Paulo again had found out at the Barcelos aquarium that : "for simple fish, they get R$8 (eight) per thousand fish, ...the middleman then sells them for R$20 (twenty) per thousand. Many fish die along the way, for lack of oxygen. The most sought fish is the cardinal fish, which turns red and has blue hues, even though it is a river fish."

Chico one of our guides, left me with an indelible impression. To me he was a metaphor of the impenentrable forest we were in. A bit surly and incomprehensible, and not just because of my lack of Portuguese, he impressed me with his ability with his "facon" (the word for machete there). In order to get into an "undiscovered" set of ponds, we had to hack and pole our way througha very narrow canal full of stumps and low limbs. Chico fashioned a nice pole from a young sappling that wasn't perfectly straight, but had the right thickness and a perfect fork in it for gripping the stumpy bottom.

Following him into the jungle to photograph him in action, I discovered my total inadequacy in this environment. I gripped a sappling to steady myself only to discover that this one was covered in prickly spines. When we had to escape a torrential downpour in a small clearing I discovered Chico's true background as an aquarium fish catcher. He lifted a log or two out of the water very slowly and with care, stuck his hand inside the rotten bark and produced a beautiful small black fish with white tipped fins and with a sucker mouth.

Right from the word go I was determined to set foot on the banks of the Rio Negro for some photography, and I discovered this is far from simple in this mass of tangled flora that is the Amazon. I had to abandon some of the most manic and exciting tucunaré fishing with Chico and Marcus for another tangle with the underbrush in the name of a photograph. Once again I encountered the inconspicuous limbs with the spines on them. This time the achy reminder of the spines in my fingers made me very wary of this particular tree variety. However avoidance of this was particularly difficult. While I was carefully laying out tripod camera and laptop (funny what we have come to in photography, less film, but sometimes it seems like even more to carry), I heard Marcus shouting "Godverdomme" while he missed three out of four fish that hit his Jumping Minnow. I don't think this Dutch word needs translation!

It took me 45 long minutes to take one photo, and I waited impatiently for Marcus and Chico to return to pick me up. Little was I to know what was to occur next when we went back to the tucunaré melee minutes later. We were actually running late for our return to our floating base camp when Marcus and I both had a double hook up (a few minutes earlier in fact Marcus had hooked two fish with on one lure, an event which I have not seen in some 25 years of fishing). Marcus and I had worked up a froth because he was just one kilo behind me in terms of total weight caught in our group's tucunaré fishing tournament. I was determined to try to catch all my fish on a fly (I caught 95% of my fish this way). I have invested absurdly in rods and tackle over the years and was very proud of my Sage 8 weight travel rod with Abel reel. Little did I expect that a two kilo tucunaré would crack my precious graphite wand like a matchstick. Perhaps I had been expecting too much from this rod, day in day out on these violent (not so) little buggers. I had no reserve rod and we were running out of time. Oddly enough, Chico had attempted to mend a bass fishing rod belonging to Edson and that Marcus had been using. This rod had already been mended in the past with epoxy, but after one or two casts it was clear that Marcus found the rod was unusable. After some deliberation with the boys I decided to cut a piece of graphite out of the bass rod to try and mend my Sage. I felt proud of never giving up.... and through several wraps with fine nylon leader material I managed to "fix" it to the extent that I managed to make one or two casts. However Chico was not going to allow the amateurs to continue and run the risk of Edson's wrath for being late back to the houseboat. As luck would have it, the ever resourceful Edson had some slow setting epoxy on board, and I managed a repair that amazed even me. (As there is a lifetime warranty on this expensive rod, I can't wait to get back to the place I purchased it for a new one and a few additional essentials.)

After another wonderful lunch, and paired up with Osvaldo this time now for the afternoon, and with a "repaired" rod we set off again with our lucky guide Chico for the last few hours of fishing. Disconcertingly the weather had grown from rain and thunderstorms that morning (did I fail to mention this in the last two paragraphs?) into a stiffling heat that even had our guides complaining. (Our guides were usually complaining of the cold, anytime the temperature went below 35 degrees C!) However the epoxy on my rod had now gone very solid. After much casting, much of it unsuccessful in terms of fish, I determined that something had changed quite a bit in the character of my rod. It felt stiff, and the line felt like it was chafing on the epoxy and fine nylon repair. And yet Osvaldo and I managed to get a fish each that afternoon and an amazing serenity set in on us on our way back for the last time to the houseboat. We had had some of the most exciting fishing in our lives in a spectacular landscape. However that was only part of the story