Third day fishing...
Can not remember well anymore. It’s the same with counting fish caught, after
the first hand (five) I usually louse count. Think we went upriver towards more
structure and had a good day, as all of the days at Iriri River were good.
Above the main camp (as of 2015 exploration season) the river shows more
structure. In the lower part that is fished, long slow runs dominate and
interesting rapids are much further apart.
Some thoughts about
tossing poppers all day: Personally, that is kind of boring after a while
especially if action is low. To maximize your hook up rate make your fly fish
the most time by casting it quickly and efficiently as close to the structure
as possible. One meter away is not close, 10cm are good. Avoid false casting,
one or two hauls/false casts and then let the line shoot. No need to strip all
the way back to the boat, watch if a fish follows and if not recast quickly
when there is still enough line on the water to load your rod quickly. Casting
nicely is good for the person watching you, but you want to catch fish. Over
gun your rod by one number heavier line, which will transport even sailfish
popper kind of efficient.
To cover more water
and to give the fished water a rest, the fourth day meant to move downstream in
an out-camp. Normally moving is related to work and effort, in that case it is
related to fishing as we fished the way downstream to the out-camp. As
mentioned, further downriver the river shows less structure, but that offers
for a change and still provides good fishing. Depending on the water level it
might be related to more drift fishing and less wading. It is pretty obvious
that the wading stile is comparable to saltwater flats: wet wading in very warm
water but combined with big Granit rocks, thus decent wading boots and neoprene
socks are the way to go. Actually wading is a good change after a hot drift in
the sun. The sting rays can usually be spotted easily, still care should be
taken to avoid them.
Iriri River is the
garden of the Kayapó, it is even more, it is their main road and supply of
food. So we shared their resource of food. We ate their fish and we shared
their turtle eggs. Right. As it was turtle egg season, they went to sandy
beaches to test the hardness of the sand with their feet and started to dig at
some kind of soft patches, digging more than a dozen turtle eggs per nest. The
eggs pretty much consisted only of egg yellow. They liked to beat them up with
(lots of) sugar, add some rather hard manioc and eat it. The taste was good,
only the very junky manioc was irritating. Another day we asked for turtle scrambled
eggs. Their texture and taste was bewildering as it was more similar to polenta
than to scrambled eggs. Not bad but just unfamiliar.
On our late last
kilometers downriver towards the out-camp, the sun already very low, we
discovered a Tapir crossing the river. We followed it and came very close
providing us up close contact and shots of that characteristic South American
animal. Our boat, so Breno and my boat (we were changing guides and boats every
day back and force) was very lucky as we saw around four Tapir during that
week. Later on the last Tapir would cross our way as we went back to Kendjam,
thus the "other boat" had their first Tapir sighting at the very last
call as well.
The out-camp is
beautifully situated on an island tucked in the trees, smaller single sleeping
tents but no compromise on comfort such as camp shower, outhouse and eating
tent.
That night Guiermo
with some support from the Kayapó tried to hand-line some catfish. The whole
camp was sitting on the beach and watching with big loughs. Piranha after piranha
came to the beach some were feed right to the Cayman that patrolled around
attracted by the action. Some of these Caymans came very close to the beach
waiting for their share. After close to a dozen fish finally a small redtail
catfish came to the beach. Making funny noises that small catfish went back to
the water after a big hello from the spectators.
A new morning in
paradise dawned. Beautiful early morning light over the steaming river. The
night before I removed the fly of my tent and was using only the inner layer of
the tent allowing for a well-tempered sleep under the trees and the southern
sky with its thousand stars.
Based on the island of
the out-camp we fished the fifth day from there downriver. Long glides with low
structure are typical for the lower section below the out-camp. Still there
could be some action found from Peacocks or Matrinxas with fruit flies or popper flies fished from the drifting boat close to the banks, structure and
trees.
After lunch, that as
usual consisted of a couple of freshly caught Bass, Pacu and Matrinxa, with
rice and some vegetables (carrots aka “yellow wood”) and water (you might
probably imagine that I was sick of fish after that week and was looking
forward to some decent beef!), one of the Kayapó guides, his name was Kokoti showed
us a special natural source of good taste. A walk of around 10 minutes
following a path through the jungle lead us to a giant tree that produced a
very special fruit: Brazilian nuts or more commonly known sometimes as Para
nuts. A large solitary tree under which we found big hard balls around 12cm in
diameter that could only be opened by a machete or other powerful means. The
big fruits/nuts contained around 15-20 seeds/nuts that again where within a
hard shell hiding a big peace of junky nut protein. To keep the natural process
of seeding going, there is one mammal that opens these super hard big balls and
allows the single seeds to do their job. Absolutely fascinating. These nuts are
one of the few trading goods of the Kayapó.
During the
lunch break, Kokoti was carving a club out of a piece of very heavy wood (Brazilwood)
that would turn read within days. These clubs in various forms are used to hunt
pigs. A very strenuous hunt as the Kayapó pretty much search for the pigs and
then hunt them down and club them.
These clubs later on
get a handle cover made of woven strings adding some kind of "decorative
touch" to them.
Brazilwood gave Brazil
it’s name. When Portuguese ships discovered these trees on the coast of South
America they called the trees “pau brasil” as they produced red dye, ‘pau’
means wood and ‘brazil’ red/ember-like. These trees are on dangerously low
levels as their wood was highly regarded due to their dye wood in the past and
today because no other wood is better suited for violin bows.
Back at the camp on
"our island" the huge spinner fall under the camp lamp repeated again,
the ground beneath the lamp was covered with thousands of dead mayflies, so
much that even the Cayman took a mouthful of them. And the catfish session was
continued. This evening with higher success as Ramiro caught a decent sized
redtail catfish of around 30-40lbs with its hand-line and bait.
