Fly Fishing The Mighty

I have had the joy to   experience sleeping    in hammocks tied   between trees along the river banks of the Amazon, hearing the night sounds of a jaguar cry, the monkeys squeal, and the unique sounds of hundreds of varieties of birds as the morning began to break through the trees.

At night we place a small can full of fuel from the float plane with a cloth hanging out for a wick, light it to keep the jaguars away. The heat of a one hundred and thirty degree day, with 100 percent humidity has sapped my strength as I tried to swing the nine foot fly rod with #9 line one more time to reach a cove where some monster peacock bass might be.  The picture to the right is one of the world's finest jungle pilots and fly fisherman of all time, Bennie DeMerchant.  He flew me into the jungle and fished alone side me each trip.

My life has had more joys than any one life should have, and I am thankful for them. We'll not discuss the sadness. There were the smiling toothless faces of China, the beautiful people of Rio, the appreciative faces of people desperately reaching out for the basic necessities of life I brought into a third world prison so many times, the poor people in the huts I have eaten with, the beautiful golf courses I have played (like Sawgrass), the views from the Andes mountains that are forever unforgettable, the smell of smoke from a jungle campfire where a fresh caught fish was being cooked as the sun sank behind the trees and darkness covered the jungle, the lean-to tin building in Jordan desert near Petra where I ate freshly cooked goat with old Arab men, the ancient buildings of Rome, the antiquity of London, the leaning tower in Italy, the beauty of Paris, and a thousand more memories. From this day on—my first day to fly fish the Amazon, towering above the other memories, would be the memories of the days spent during the next ten years roaming the rivers of this great jungle with a fly rod in my hand.

I was not prepared for what was about to happen! I was working a fly made from brightly colored buck hair, when the whole river seemed to explode in front of me! The Abel fly reel whined and trembled in my hand as line was being stripped away by the second. The Orvis rod was arched as I had never seen it arch before as the fish dove, leaped, tail-walked on the water, dove again, and it felt as if I had hooked a freight train on some back cast! I knew I was addicted!  It took ten years and over thirty trips into that “green canopy of tormenting heat” before I had caught enough peacock bass to finally began to loose the thrill.

Now that some years have past I am certain it would be just like the first time I felt that powerful strike - but it is a long ways from here, I am getting older now, and it may not ever happen. I look up from my working desk in my office “at home” and see the largest of the hundreds I caught—over 15 pounds, beautifully colored, thick shoulders, powerful tail, and remember the jungle odors, the steaming heat, and the towering trees that line the rivers.   Most of my bass were caught on sinking tip, or slow sinking line, with a large bushy bucktail (more small perch shape) about 2 inches long, tied on 3/0 hooks.  I use just enough weight around the shank to make sure the fly sinks.  The colors are usually yellow with red in the center, or red, yellow and some green like a perch.  The best retrieve is about a one inch jerk, pause, jerk, pause.

There he hangs, and each time I look at him—no matter how often– the smells come back, the music of the villages, the wonderfully simple people, and the nights my jungle float plane pilot and I spent exploring the expanse of the mystic Amazon jungle.

Happy Traveling

Pictures are: Peacock Bass Taken On Orvis Fly Rods From Interior

Amazon Jungle in Brazil.