This one is a doozy, without a doubt the greatest fishing trip of my life. Five lifelisting friends (including Ken T) and I stayed at a remote lodge along the Amazon River near Iquitos, Peru. I'm not 100% certain yet, but I think I caught exactly 50 new species! Most of the people in the group did some traveling around Peru, but my itinerary was pretty short to minimize vacation days.
Day 1 - travel from home to Lima
Day 2 - travel from Lima to Iquitos, microfish in local streams
Day 3 - meet group, travel to lodge by boat, fish close to the lodge
Day 4 - travel to peac*ck bass lakes, fish larger lake, camp overnight
Day 5 - fish smaller peac*ck bass lake, travel back to lodge
Day 6 - fish tributary of the Amazon for cichlids and piranhas
Day 7 - fish mainstem Amazon for catfish
Day 8 - fish isolated lagoon for cichlids and micros
Day 9 - miscellaneous fishing, return to Iquitos by boat
Day 10 - microfish in local streams, travel to Lima from Iquitos
Day 11 - travel from Lima to home
Here are my photos. My computer shows 3 pages, but it might be more or less on yours.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/64436841@N04/albums/72157672915839866The highlights for me were (1) knowing that I was fishing the actual Amazon River, (2) piranhas, (3) the crazy variety of catfish, (4) the local food, and (5) falling out of my canoe in the middle of the night and getting stabbed in the leg by the catfish I was kung foo gripping at the time. I can post some really gross photos of my infected leg if anyone is interested.
The biggest catch from my first day microfishing around Iquitos, a species of pike cichlid.
Our boat ride from Iquitos to the jungle lodge.
My first catch at the lodge, a Serrasalmus rhombeus piranha (black, white, redeye... has a bunch of different common names).
Piranhas for dinner. We pretty much kept anything eating size, and they showed up on our plates a meal or two later.
A peac*ck bass from one of the lakes. My best lure was an orange, yellow, and green rattle trap.
A trahira, or wolf fish. We didn't catch any big ones, but the little ones were still fun.
A spotted pike-characin. Half way between a needlefish and a gar but without the teeth.
An armored catfish viewed from above.
The catfish that I somehow impaled into my calf when I fell out of the canoe. It's a long story...
The business end of a piranha in the Serrasalmus genus. You wouldn't want to get bit by one, but I don't think they have the bone crunching power that their red-bellied cousins have.
The business end of a red-bellied piranha in the Pygocentrus genus. Their teeth are pretty well hidden, but if you pulled back their gums you'd know why you didn't want to get bit by one. I think they have much better mechanical advantage for biting.
A vampirefish which I unfortunately did not catch. It turned up in the cast net when we were collecting bait.
A blue whale catfish (yes that's really the name). These guys bore their way into carcasses and eat them from the inside out.
My largest fish of the trip, a barred tiger shovelnose catfish (same species as the one that stabbed me).
The MASSIVE freshwater stingray that one of the guys caught.
We brought it back to the lodge, and it fed everyone including the other guests and the staff.
A leopard catfish from the same spot other people were catching stingrays. I wanted a stingray pretty badly, but this was a good consolation.
Another catfish species from the same spot. We called them derp cats because of their overbite.
A big oscar from the landlocked lagoon we fished.
The group after hiking through the jungle a bit.
My last fish from the mainstem Amazon, a zebra catfish.
One of the many tetras caught microfishing.
I'm way behind on my blog posts, but once I get caught up I'll post the links up on here so there's a story to go with the photos.
