This is my maiden trip to Brazil - Manaus to be exact... This is a dream come true for me as I had always wanted to come here for a long time now... Thanks to my friend Teru who had made this trip possible... Manaus as Heart of the Amazon and a City of the Forest is populated by about 2.5 million Brazilians and it is located far about 1,600km away from the nearest estuary.....
This is the busy local ferry hub serving the local communities....
A visit to the local fish market more or less revealed to us the type of fish we could expect to catch from the Rio Negro.... There seem to be a vast array of fish found here in this busy wet market....
Interestingly,.. Arapaima's are made into fish rolls for food preservation.....
From the local produce shown below, one can imagine for themselves the local's living lifestyle - more or less....
A variety of freshwater fish can be found here,... you name it, Pacu, Arowana, Peacock Bass, Sucker Fish and all kinds of others.....
There are many small outlets selling the captured fish from the wet market.....
Care to try some?!~....
The Manaus Iranduba Bridge (called Ponte Rio Negro) is a bridge over the Rio Negro with a length of 3,595M stretching between Manaus and Iranduba..... now we are passing through and heading North where we are going to start our fishing journey ahead.....
Having rested a few days in Manaus, we bought our tickets for Barcelos which is about 612km away... Even on board a high speed ferry travelling at a fast speed, the whole journey took no less than 12hrs to reach the town of Barcelos....
Reaching Barcelos at dawn, what a magnificent view greeted us....
The small port of Barcelos - the well known Mecca of Peacock Bass fishing....
After having gathered our food ration, fuel and equipment, our real journey starts here......
Moving out in a 13-footer small aluminium boats, going up to small rivers to find our trophies....
Even a small river branch of Rio Negro River is not small at all,.. it took 3 hours to reach our first point where we will start fishing....
Some of the black water lagoons.... This calm, peaceful and pristine looking water seems to culminate in some very prospective fish species awaiting us.....
There seems to be many predatory canine fish lurking on the water surface here..... The locals called this Bicuda, a toothy freshwater baracuda (Acestrorhynchus falcirostris).... and it can be found every where in this water body....
Trahira (Hoplias malabaricus) a voracious Erythrinidae family are plentifully found here too, but the locals claimed it's hard to get a 4kg specimen here.....
And the Trahira is very much a top water lure supporter, and it strikes ferociously every time the pencil bait passes through it's attacking zones.....
First night fall out in the open waters......
With the gently breeze blowing, we resided into our hammocks with countless blood hungry mosquitoes having a feast on us..... fortunately it was not as many as we thought...
Next morning at 4:00am, the boatmen were getting ready for us while we had our breakfast.....
Simple breakfast of Farofa (a kind of hard and dry crushed tapioca root) with fish and turtle meat....
This toasted manioc flour mixture was painfully hard to chew and it felt like eating chicken feed.... Ouuchhh!!
Day breaks at 5:30am.....
We headed deeper into the small branches of the rivers, hiding some of our fuel reserves in bushes along the way to be used when we returned a few days later down river.... During our expedition up river, we just make camp along the way when the sun sets so that we can travel farther and deeper up river.....
Here are some catches along the way up into the deeper part of the forest.... Peacock Bass (Cichla temensis), Silver Arowana (Osteoglossum bicirrhosum),...
Black Piranha (Serrasalmus rhombeus ) has the most powerful bites,... look at my chewed severed lure and imagined if that was your finger...... scary!!
To keep it short,... Let's take a look at our over all catches.....
My friend Ng Yam Pin's gorgeous catches..... Wooow! Giant Peacock Bass....
Even caught himself a rare Apapá Fish (Pellona castelnaeana ).....
Wooow! Even Arrraia Freshwater Stingray caught on lure too.....
Well, our camp life during the trip was not perfect choice, but it sure was a very good experience for us..... Look! We had only one single pot for boiling, frying, and rice cooking.... unbelievable but we did it and this is what makes it an adventure trip for us....
There were no lack of food what with all the fish catches we had... But, the locals especially love to eat turtles, there were turtle feast everyday.... Finally, I can eat a bit more when I cooked it my way...
They even eat the Peacock Bass Sashimi style,... not with Wasabi but with just spicy chili.... I can eat this but I was worried about parasites.....
Turtle again for lunch....
Yummy! Yummy! Ex-claimed the boatman....
Even the turtle egg....
Random sights and photos from our trip there....
Continuation of our catches....
A beautiful Butterfly Peacock Bass (Cichla orinocensis).....
Oscar Fish or Apaiari (Astronotus ocellatus)....
A Golden Trahira (Hoplerythrinus unitaeniatus) as the locals claimed....
Jacundá Fish and Black Piranha....
The local fishermen....
Some of our catches....
Our cameraman Hoe also did a little fishing himself after work done....
Cheers! And thanks for reading.....
Look at what the carnivorous fishes of Amazon had done to my lures.... I will take revenge some day!!!
The grand view of the Rio Negro river - it is just super freaking magnificent. It is arguably the world's greatest river system ever... We are now overlooking a jetty and beyond it the land you see is not the other side of the river BUT just an island. The width of this river stretches much further beyond the island......... UNBELIEVABLE!!!
From the local produce shown below, one can imagine for themselves the local's living lifestyle - more or less....
