| If you're
the type that likes fishing, the wild life and adventure try the Pantanal.
What is the Pantanal? You might access the alanet.com br and
see the beauty first hand. The Pantanal is 3000 (yes mother) 3000
square miles of wet lands. Somewhat like the Florida everglades but
as yet, not destroyed. Less than an hour from Campo Grande
the area changes. The rivers begin to widen and you'll come across
a town called Aquidauana.
The citiy is
on the banks of the river of the same name. 40,000 sleepy inhabitants to
the west of Campo Grande. On the other side of the river lays
a city of 10,000. What's so different about this river?
Good fishing and no piranha fish. Even though the river empties into
the Miranda river, before doing so there is a rapids area, quite a lot
of rock structure lines the rivers bottom and sides and creates a rapids
area. The piranhas, (there are two principal types in the miranda
river waters,) don't even want to think about crossing these; or
any other rapids. They like calm water with a minimum of current. |
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So they don't
cross the rapids and the Aquidauana river has no piranha. Excellent fishing
though, even though the government doesn't stop the overload of commercial
fishing. We had a 50 acre fishing hole 5 mile south of town.
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This was a
few years ago. It was called the Panthers Nook or something like
that. Went there once a month to fish on the weekends with another
attorney called Erone Chaves. Erone is one of those big fat overgrown
patient guys that drinks as much as he fishes. But he cooks
darn well. |
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| Great company
for fishing. Better yet he doesn't talk much, like me. Anyway we
got there about an hour after sun down and saw that the locks on the gate
had be violated. And when we got to the the banks we found out that
we been invaded by a big family of people from the south of Brazil.
They'd taken
over, brought in two big trucks and had caught a half a dozen 10 or 12
lb. cat fish called surubim. (also called pintado which means
spotted). Things got hot and I got l hotter but Erone calmed
us all down pointing that the river had enough fish for everyone and we
all had enough beer for a couple of days.
I wasn't irritated
with the fishing but with the blatant invasion of property and privacy,
but Brazil is Brazil and so we let it ride. They got drunker and drunker
and I started fishing, to cool off. Till 11:30 p.m. the only thing I caught
were 3 fish called armal. |
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Offshore
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| Of course
they were going out in their 2 boats and I was bank fishing. Armal
are a cat fish. I should know the scientific name but right now it slips
me. They are the funniest cat fish you've ever seen. Their
head is bigger than a normal cat fish about twice the size and their body
is covered with an alligator skin. they'll eat anything alive or dead an
some people call them the garbage collector of the river. I don't
know just how big they go but I myself have caught them up to 25 lbs. They
don't fight much, but their size makes for a good fight. To eat
them you have to cut off their head and so you lose half the weight.
After you gut and skin them you've got two filets of good white boneless
meat which the locals fry and gobble down. When you take them out
of the water they open up the fin that are kind of winged and bark at you
like a croaking frog.
I caught three
10 pounders just before midnight. Was a good night for fishing. The mosquitos
go to sleep at 7:30 p. m. and there was a slight breeze. No moon
and I was getting over being pissed at the invaders. Where I fished
I was just beyond the swirls of water deepened and the river levels out.
Not any snags to speak of. You can fish in the dark with only the light
of a gas lantern and be pretty comfortable. I put on my last piece
of cut meat for bait and was going to call it a night. |
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| Erone had
already drank his share of the beer and was now snoring blissfully in the
car. So few insects that he'd left the window half open and you could
hear him snoring. The invaders had calmed down and their stories
were about the gringo fisherman that could only catch armal, instead of
pintados.
Now occasionally
the trees break off branches and also big logs come down the river to screw
things up for the fishermen. They'll break your line after dragging
it out fully. You normally lose all your rig and have to put everything
back together. Just as I was getting ready to call it a night,
it happened. The line got dragged down about 10 yards and stopped
dead. I thought the branch had slid into the bank from the lines
tension, but anyway I considered just breaking it and calling it
a night. But, I tried reeling it in a bit and got back about 5 yards.
Something didn't feel right. Fisherman senses. Who knows?
But I thought I'd try to get some more back and started working my line
and rod. |
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| You know
these French molinetes are great inventions. I remember when
we used other tackle. After getting all of my line back I thought I felt
a felt a wiggle and started hoping that I had caught something and that
I'd get unhooked from the branch. But there was no branch. Just weight
that started pulling the other way and out into the live current.
That's when I screamed at Erone to wake up and give me a hand. You
see where I fish there's a 20 foot drop off.
The declining
bank drops right off and its slick as you know what. No real light
and if you catch something big you have to haul it up 20 feet and it weighs
a lot more out of the water. Erone woke up irritated like any half
drunk and I told him I had something big. He asked me if I was drunk
or having a dream but started moving. I keep working the big thing
that was now feeling more and more like the big one. As it headed
out to the moving current I saw a flash of light reflected off his back
from my night lantern and it WAS a FISH. Now he started really
fighting, and I was the happiest guy on the river bank. And a half
an hour of Erones bitching and my making my way down the darken bank and
handing the rod up to him so that I could get a hold of the leader, I finally
got it in my hand, the leader. We use a 2 foot long flexible leader.
And I started trying to haul what ever it was in. Took me 10 minutes
to realize that I caught a 30 lb. PACU. Pacu is a fish that
looks like our croppie. Runs in schools too and when you catch one,
if you are quiet you can catch 20. One bit of noise and they're off.
You catch
one and the others run away at any sign of noise. Normally they
bite on a fruit called genipapo. Funny latin-american smell to the
fruit. You wouldn't eat it. But the pacu love it. Can smell
in the water 500 yards down stream. But they also eat meat.
No real teeth to speak of. They really good eating up to 10 lbs.
After that they full of fat. Well, after struggling with him up the
slick bank we saw his real size. I hadn't ever, ever seen one bigger
that 20 lbs. Oh, there are some but you don't see or catch them,
you only hear about them around the bar tables or at the fire sides. but,
there he was and all ours. That fish even cleaned the invaders plow
and shut everybody up. Except me or course and I'm still talking
about that fish till today. Why not? But don't be satisfied
with other peoples fish stories, come on down to the Pantanal and catch
your own. There are plenty left. |
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Article
Index ~ Brazil
Index ~ |
