Monday, September 7, 2015

Another day in Paradise and relocation to Paradise II.




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.