JAMES BENDELE/Courtesy James Bendele, Zapata, caught this 20-plus-pound peacock on his first trip to the Amazon.

STEVE KNIGHT/TexasAllOutdoors.com

JATAPU RIVER, Brazil – “Once you catch one of the SOBs your hooked,” John Billy Koonsman pronounced in his Texas drawl.

The Snyder rancher ought to know. He has been coming to South America since the 1990s chasing peacock bass. His most recent trip was in late September and he left the Amazon rainforest with the memory of a 23 ﾽ-pounder, his largest peacock in years.

Koonsman was one of 14 fishermen fishing with Texas-based Ron Speed Jr. Adventures, who has been guiding clients on fishing trips both east and northwest of Manus for over two decades. This trip was hall of fame outing, and Speed expected it to get just that much better for the two following groups.

“The water level in the Jatapu is the best I have seen it in years. We have not even been able to fish it the last four years because it has been so high,” Speed said.

With the water level down and dropping in the tributary of the Amazon River, Speed was easily convinced to move the Otter houseboat that serves as home to the fishermen from the Uatama River to the Jatapu after the first afternoon of the trip.

Although situated side by side off the Amazon east of Manaus, the two rivers could not be any different. The Uatama is massive. Think of a lake that is maybe three, but not created by a dam.

The Jatapu is more scaled down, more like the Brazos or Colorado at flooding stage, but still looking like a river.

When it comes to peacock bass the Uatama has big fish, but is probably better known for its numbers. The Jatapu is more of a high-risk/high-reward fishery known for its quality over quantity. That is something that has to be considered by the fishermen going in. On this trip though the fishermen landed 882 peacocks, either the striped, the largest and most commonly thought of peacock bass, spotteds, which can get into the low double-digits, and the butterfly, for the week. The trip was the second in two weeks for some on the trip, so not all fish as hard or every day. Still the count comes out to a 10 ﾽ-fish per day average for a nine-hour fishing day.

And the Jatapu did not disappoint in size. More than 10 percent of the fish caught weighed between 10 and 19 pounds. Five more weighed more than 20, including a trip-best 25-pound monster.

For many freshwater fishermen peacock bass are a bucket list species. Those who have caught them say there is nothing in freshwater in North America to even start to compare their strength to.

The striped peacock bass are the beauty and the beast of the sportfishing world. Their skin color includes orange, blue, yellow red, and different shades of green. Their strength may be best described as being like trying to stop a pickup truck headed the opposite direction with a rod and reel.

Using 65- to 80-pound braided line, fishermen throw 7 ﾽ-inch top water lures with three sets of treble hooks and a propeller. Casting as far as possible so the boat doesn’t spook the fish is the game. Fishermen cast into submerged shoreline brush, across sandy points or isolated trees, chopping them back to the boat in an effort to make as much noise with the lure as possible.

Hanging the brush or even a top of the tree, something the guides call fishing for monkey bass, is inevitable.

“You are going to get hung up. It is going to happen. If you do we just go in and get it,” Speed noted.

There is no such thing as a subtle strike from a peacock bass. It is more like an explosion in the water and an instant pull some have described as tying a freezer onto the line and throwing it in the water. Nine times out of 10 it happens so fast you cannot prepare. Actually, you may not even know it happened until you see the explosion and feel the pull. The only advice seasoned fishermen can offer is to hang on and reel in line when you can.

With nine hooks in the water it would seem like every strike would result in a catch, but that is not the case.

“I think a lot of the time they are territorial strikes. These fish are very territorial. They are just trying to get it out of their area,” Speed said.

On those occasions the peacock will make a run at the bait, maybe even slap it and slip away undetected.

There were stories of 80-pound line being broken, hooks yanked out of the bait or straightened or baits simply snapped in two.

The fish are also especially good at great escapes by making a U-turn underwater to get free from the lure or using brush to somehow get away.

It is impossible to describe how acrobatic the fish can be. They build tremendous speed before pouncing on the lure sometimes from below and sometimes in a surface attack. Two fishermen recalled past experiences when a fish came after the lure so hard they ended up flying across the middle of their boats. This trip a hooked 20-pounder actually jumped into a boat.

While the bigger fish tend to be more isolated, that is not always the case.

Fishing with Dallas’ Rob Carter, owner of Fishin’ World, we caught three peacocks weighing from 10 to 18 pounds in close proximity of one tree stump within a half-hour of each other.

Another morning fishing with Ed Lewis of Lake Fork we had a 12- and a 14-8 in a three-fish span off the same brushing point. Two other larger fish slipped away.

Unlike largemouth bass where the females grow the largest, the male peacock bass can grow larger than the female. It is easily identified by the top knot on its head.

Like largemouth bass, however, the biggest fish may not put up the biggest struggle. A 10-pound spotted will fight like a battleship until it is landed while the bigger fish will at times put up an initial struggle then give up more peacefully.

Just getting to the fish is part of the experience requiring a flight to Miami, then five hours by plane to Manaus. To fish the Uatama or Jatapu fishermen must either take a five-hour bus ride to Itapiranga or an hour plane ride to another town with an airport to meet the Otter and then a four or five hour boat ride to the river. The first pull on the line and all the travel seems insignificant.

And fishing for the peacocks is not just another day on the water. Located about 200 miles south of the equator and in a tropical rainforest it is hot. Making it even hotter the backwater lakes of the Jatapu seldom catch a breeze.

But the reward is worth it whether it is the fishing, the scenery, the wildlife or local people encountered. Newcomers have their head on a swivel watching their bait, while spying macaws or toucans flying overhead and caimans and capybaras swimming in the river.

And it is not hard to come across locals on the river in their dugout canoes or riding water taxis. Roads are non-existent so everyone, even kids going to school, travel on the water.

The Amazon, and that first big pull from a peacock bass, is an amazing experience that draws fishermen back time and again.

For more information of fishing the Amazon, go online to http://www.ronspeedadventures.com or call 1-800-722-0006.

 

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