Searching for Peacock Bass on the Amazon River
Wild Fish Wild Places 04.19.12
During the filming of Wild Fish Wild Places, we’ve travelled extensively to remote parts of the world chasing great stories and big fish. In the last two years the crew has seen 55 flights and 7 different countries in pursuit of legendary fishing. It has been a lifelong goal for Alan and I to chase the legendary peacock bass of the Amazon River system so when the opportunity arose last spring we wasted no time making the decision to go. Little did we know this trip would turn out to be the most brutal of all the travel to date.
The destination for our “jumping off point” was Manaus, Brazil, located at the confluence of the mighty Amazon and Rio Negro rivers. After travelling for nearly 30 hours we met up with our Irish mate, Alan, on the last leg of our journey to Manaus. When we arrived we were supposed to find someone from the camp, but after half an hour we still couldn’t find our guy. There is a serious language barrier for us in Brazil, not being able to speak Portuguese or “good” Spanish. With 1.71 million people and a reputation for being a dangerous place, this was not somewhere we wanted to be wandering around without a local guide. Greg, our producer, finally puked up some decent Spanglish and hand gestures that worked enough to get us with the correct guy.
The next morning we were crammed into a small float plane with a couple of other Brazilians on our way the middle of the jungle. It wasn’t long until we were truly “in the middle of nowhere,” jungle and water, nothing else. The excitement started to build with the whole crew as this is what we have dreamt of for years as well as everything that encompasses Wild Fish Wild Places. The float plane made its approach, landing between two big stands of dead cypress trees, splashing chocolate milk colored water over both pontoons. The crew was shuttled to a three story live-aboard boat that would be our base for the next eight days as we were to explore different areas of this mighty river system in search of some of the most remote waters on earth.
The next few days turned out to be a mind blowing experience as the huge peacock bass were exploding on our 8″ top water baits with reckless abandonment. This was unlike anything Alan and I have ever experienced, with seemingly endless water to fish and bass acting like they haven’t seen a meal in weeks, this is what we came for. Alan and I both landed double figure peacock bass, with a 17 pounder being the biggest of the trip. The fishing was not the only thing we were here to film and as we made a trip up river to visit a traditional Amazonian fishing village we witnessed life on the Amazon. Makeshift shanties, wandering livestock, slashing and burning of the rainforest and homemade dugout canoes were just a few of the things that made this visit so surreal. As we made our way up the muddy banks of the river we were met by the village elder but what happened next we were not prepared for…
Check out Wild Fish Wild Places on the Sportsman Channel this weekend for the conclusion to our Amazon River fishing expedition!
AIR TIMES- EST:
Sunday 1:30 AM
Monday 12:00 PM
Thursday 5:00 PM
Saturday 10:30 PM
FISH AND FISHING. TWO WORDS HAVING A MYRIAD OF MEANINGS TO A MYRIAD OF PEOPLES. TO FISH FOR FOOD, FOR LIFE, FOR SURVIVAL; OR TO FISH FOR FUN, FOR SPORT, FOR MONEY.
When, almost 5,000 years ago in China, man first attached a hook and line to a bamboo rod to catch carp a little further from the river’s edge, little did he know that this creation would evolve into an industry which at the early part of this, the twenty-first century, is worth over $108 billion annually to the US economy in terms of sport fishing alone!
The variety of fish species is infinite. From cold water inhabitants such as members of the Salmonidae family, to warm water, tropical dwellers like the Cichlids. From the gigantic Tarpon of the Florida Keys to the gentler Arctic Charr spectacularly attired in their vivid courtship colors in the frigid rivers and streams of the arctic tundra. Take the celebrated Coelacanth, over three hundred million years old and still found today in the warm seas of the Indian Ocean around Madagascar, or the seemingly ubiquitous Golden Orfe, or the goldfish, which completes endless circuits in so many glass bowls in family homes in every corner of the world.
In this series, we will seek out great predatory fish. Fish that are much revered, fish that strike terror at the very mention of their name and fish that are the staple diet of many peoples subsisting along the shorelines and riverbanks of the great waters we will visit during our odyssey. Positioned at the very top of the food chain, these apex predators reign supreme in their own domain, be it mighty river, great lake or ocean.
Our quest will take us across cultures and continents to exotic locations of immense beauty and wealth as well as lands poleaxed by poverty. We will explore not just these wild and wonderful places, but the significance of our target species to the different groupings of peoples in terms of social, economic and cultural values.
Our travels in search of extraordinary predators will take us from the cold, unforgiving waters of the West of Ireland to the steaming jungle swamps of India. From the frozen, pristine wilderness of the Canadian subarctic to the sun-baked backwaters of Northern Australia. This will be a series of contrasts and comparisons where we will meet people who live to fish and people who fish to live.
