Vagabonds in Brazil Episode Two

[Vagabond]

Not all our time on the Xingu was spent casting lures for Peacock Bass, we also did some bait fishing, as well as waving a fly-rod about. I was particularly interested in having a look at the catfish – pictures on Fish-Base having whetted my appetite. Some of these pimelid (aka long-whiskered) catfish looked more like caricatures of catfish than real fish if you get my drift, and I wanted to see a few in the flesh.

 

Each evening saw us moored in a catfish hole, fishing large chunks of cut fish bait, and enduring the sand flies and black flies that became active as the sun set. The Xingu is remarkably free of insects during the daylight hours, but at dusk the “friends of man” come on the feed. So do the catfish ! More importantly the piranha tend to go off feed at dusk, so your bait stands more chance of lasting long enough for a catfish to find it. Having said that, there is always SOME piranha activity, so a good supply of bait is essential.

 

A word about lines suitable for the deep holes of the Xingu. By deep I mean but DEEP – over 100 feet in places. You bung the bait out past the middle of the river, and as it sinks, the line follows the eddies round, until it is leading almost straight down. Added to the depth is the fact that the bottom seems to consist of deep gullies and intervening high spots. Once a catfish is hooked, it dives into one of the gullies and your line is suddenly leading over the edge of an underwater cliff. That is just part of the problem – the rocks consist of granite which cooled at depth many millions of years ago. If you are lucky, your line is over a granite ledge. However, at a much later date, dykes and sills of lava were injected into the granite, some of these are like pumice and some like volcanic glass with razor sharp edges……..

 

You can see where this is leading – to a major abrasion hazard. Not gravel-pit type abrasion, but abrasion in spades. Forget about braid (even PowerPro) unless you attach a 20 yard leader of thick mono to the end. Even the mono will most probably need replacement after each fish is hooked. We used 30 lb mono leaders and still had them sawn through on occasion. For future visits I would use either Trilene XT or Maxima of 40lb BS – and expect to replace it frequently.

 

The catfish we hooked behaved just like catfish anywhere – a stubborn continuous pull without much in the way of fireworks. We fished from a moored boat, which was launched in order to get above the fish whenever a catfish was hooked. We hooked several cats, but all those landed from the Xingu were of the same species – Pirarara or Redtailed catfish. Norma hooked one monster, which surged out into the deep centre channel and got over a ledge. Before we could get above the fish the line sawed through. It was obvious from the bend in the rod it was a very big fish indeed - another good reason for returning !

 

Here are a couple of red-tailed cats we did get into the boat.

 

Part of the interest in catfish was the need to catch the bait for it. There were plenty of small fish to chose from. The commonest were Lambari – a name applied indiscriminately to a large variety of small Characins. They were fairly easily caught on scraps of meat, cheese or bread. Having caught them, precise identification was far from easy! We took close-up photos of them and I am still plodding through Fish Base and other sites, looking for matching photos or detailed descriptions.

 

There were other bait-fish of a larger size. The most interesting and colourful of these was the Piau (rhymes with a cat’s mee-ow) . We caught plenty on “boozoos” a sort of freshwater limpet that Arara dived in and gathered from the river bed. Incidentally, Arara would also dive in and rescue snagged lures – in up to 12 feet of water. As underwater snags and rocks abounded, he must have saved us a considerable sum during the week – a fact duly acknowledged in the size of his tip…..

 

The “boozoos” were fished on a light link ledger cast downstream at the edge of the current – a bit like ledgering cheese for chub. Bites were plentiful, with most fish around the half-pound mark and a few over twice that size. Half-pound Piau were earmarked for catfish bait, but one or two of the larger ones were fried for lunch. Very muscular fish, they fought a bit like grayling, and were quite difficult to hold when unhooking. Like all the fish we ate in Brazil, they were of excellent flavour. These particular Piau were called Piau Flamengo

 

Here are a couple of Piau pictures

 

 

 

The Pacu was a fish I had hoped to catch on fly, but like the Trahira, the rising river had dispersed them and I was advised it was not worthwhile looking for them. However, one did turn up whilst we were catching Piau and was a welcome addition to my species list.

 

This particular one was called Pacu Camana by our guide.

 

 

 

Now, the Piranhas. We caught two sorts in the Xingu. The common Red-eyed or Black Piranha (Piranha Preta in Portuguese) Serrasalmus rhombeus presented no problems of identification.

 

 

The other piranha was more difficult to identify. It’s Gold-cheeked with a black mark by the gill opening and called Piranha Camari on the Xingu and Piranha Shibito in Mato Grosso. There are also two very similar species – the Blackspot Piranha of the Orinoco basin, and Serrasalmus humeralis of the Amazon basin, both of which have the same black mark and golden cheeks. It has beeen suggested that the Xingu fish might be Serrasalmus serrulatus.

 

Whatever their taxonomy, both species certainly make their presence felt. As already indicated, during the daytime piranhas make fishing for cats with fish bait very difficult – you can feel the bump-bump-bump of piranha bites as soon as the bait hits bottom. You have two choices – strike and retrieve a half-eaten piece of bait (or perhaps a foul-hooked piranha) or leave it until the bites cease, after which you can retrieve an empty hook at your leisure…..

 

Piranhas are less active at dusk – which does not mean to say they are not active at all, but at least your bait lasts a bit longer when the light levels drop.

 

Another facet of piranha behaviour is that some have a habit of nipping off bits of other fishes’ tails, so you can imagine what they do to Snatcher’s excellent streamer flies. In fact, not just flies suffered cropping – here is what a piranha did to an ABU plug.

 

Bit clean through the plug and escaped with the rear treble! I hope the reproductive detail is good enough to show the serrated teethmarks.

 

Piranhas are extremely easy to catch, and the novelty value soon wears off. I had black piranha to over 4 lb and Arara indicated they went to over twice that size. We also had the gold cheeked job to over 2 lb.

 

Before leaving the subject of piranha, its worth recording that they are of excellent flavour, somewhat reminiscent of turbot. A 2 lb piranha, scaled and with the skin slashed with parallel cuts about a quarter-inch apart, grills, bakes or barbecues extremely well. Smaller fish make excellent soup. Every cook in Brazil has their own special recipe for Piranha Soup. The proportions of herbs, vegetables and spices that go with the fish may vary with individual cooks, but the end results are always superb. As Kipling said “There are four and sixty ways of constructing tribal leys, and every single one of them is right".

 

It was now time to leave Xingu after a week of fantastic fishing . Arara had been an excellent guide, despite casting the two top joints of Norma’s catfish rod into the Xingu. He had offered to cast for her as I was fishing for bait at the time, and his vigorous effort backlashed the ABU6500, snapped the line, and sent the top two joints into a graceful arc ending in the Xingu over very deep water. No chance of diving for that! Very crestfallen – he apologised profusely, but we said these things happen to anyone – and perhaps we should have checked the rod for loose joints at intervals during our fishing. One of the few weaknesses of travel rods – more joints to work loose.

 

Last year in Scotland, we saw a charter boat skipper do even better. He cast, let go the rod and lost the lot, reel and all, into the ‘oggin. The only good thing about that was that it was his own gear. LOL Just to show it was not a fluke, he dropped his cap in the drink ten minutes later.

 

For the bird watchers amongst you, we saw one or two of the Amazon rarities whilst fishing. In fact we got Arara very interested in the riverside birds. We had some good views of the rare Hyacinth Macaw as groups flew over the river. Plus the usual riverside birds – several sorts of kingfishers, herons, river terns and the graceful Black Skimmer. When we spotted a pair of the rare Barefaced Curassow (a turkey-sized bird of dense riverside undergrowth), Arara was as excited as we were.

 

Later in our trip we turned the concept on its head and took our birding guide fishing for the first time in his life.

 

So ended our time at Xingu. Arara’s parting advice was to come back in July, when the chances of payara are at their best. Advice we hope to take in some future year. Then, farewells said, it was back two hours along the dusty road to Altameira airport, a short flight back to Belem, to relax at the Hilton and prepare for the next leg – and that’s tomorrow’s bedtime story.

Edited November 25, 2006 by Vagabond

[Newt]

Another excellent account Vagabond. Great fish and sounds like you two had a whale of a time.

[dogstick]

Amazing story and pictures,thanks for sharing.

DS

[Tony U]

Vagabond

A great tale and I am glad to find out I am not the only one whose gear ends up in the "oggin"

 

Tony

[Andrew Boyd]

Excellent thank you . . another destination to add to my list !!

[Snatcher]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us Dave. Pure magic

[Dick Dastardly]

Gets better each time!

[Guest tigger]

Great post and really well written! This is something I would love to do.

Looking forward to the next episode.

[Anderoo]

Fantastic stuff! The bitten-off plug is great! I have a mate travelling somewhere around there at the moment, I hope he's managed to share some of the action.

[Steve Walker]

Fantastic! I'd love to fish there. One day, perhaps, though Mrs Walker has so far shown no interest in fishing and is terrified of bugs, so an Amazonian fishing trip might be a bit hard to get approval for. Might have to do it alone.