Early Season Fishing Report

​The Peacock Bass fishing season began in late July with our first group scheduled to fish our exclusive fisher on the Marmelos River in the Tineray Indian Reservation in Dry Zone #1 located about 400 miles south of Manaus.  Water levels are at a historic low in Dry Zone #1 not allowing us to access the river with our floating Safari Camps that only draw 4” of water!  This necessitated us to move our operations to our exclusive fishery in Dry Zone #2 about 250 miles south of Manaus, encompassing the Rio Matupiri and Rio Igapo in the Muhura Indian Reservation.  Water levels were still a little higher than ideal in late July but anglers were able to average 20 – 30 Peacock Bass per day each thru the first week of September.  Groups of 6 – 8 anglers/week have averaged catching around 1,000 Peacocks Bass during their 6 ½ days of fishing.  One group of 4 anglers fishing  the 2nd week of August, boated 995 Peacocks up to 16 lbs, for an average of 38 fish/day/person!   The number of Peacocks in the 8 – 20 lb class being caught has increased each week as water levels continue to drop.
 
Water levels in Dry Zone #3 on the upper Rio Negro around Barcelos and in Dry Zone #4 on the Rio Branco are still high enough that the water is out of the rivers banks and is not really fishable.  Water levels are descending at a normal pace and are slightly higher than they were last year at this time, which is good as last year Dry Zones #3 & #4 experienced historic low water levels with mother boats on the upper Rio Negro being stranded in the extremely low Rio Negro for weeks at a time.  NOAA is predicting that La Nina conditions should have little effect on the Amazon this winter, hopefully allowing water levels to return to normal.