The Amazon basin, located mostly in Northern Brazil, but extending into
parts of Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Surinam, is essentially
a gigantic, shallow bowl ranging no more than 500 feet above sea level.
This low-lying region is almost completely surrounded; by higher ground
to the south (the Brazilian Shield), the mighty Andes to the west and bluffs,
plains and mountainous regions to the north (the Guyana Shield).
Water flows into the basin from all three directions, and then east, to
the Atlantic ocean. The huge, uninterrupted jungle canopy returns
tremendous amounts of water to the air through transpiration (release of
water vapor through plant pores), creating its own internal weather systems.
The mountain barriers serve to trap additional moisture from trade winds
and high altitude clouds, adding even more water to the vast rainforest
ecosystem. The result is rain. Lots and lots of rain.
Daily downpours occur during rainy seasons extending for more than half
a year throughout Amazonia. Rivers can rise and fall as much as forty
feet during the course of a normal year as a result of the Amazon basin's
prodigious production of rain
Note the high banks and the log suspended in the
branches 30 feet above the water.
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Amazon Seasons - The Amazon river system is bisected by the equator.
The earth's axial tilt and coriolis forces are reversed on opposite
sides of the equator. In temperate zones, while one hemisphere is
enjoying it's summer season, the other is in the midst of winter.
In the equatorial tropics, temperatures don't vary greatly and seasons
are more clearly differentiated by rainfall amounts. North of the
equator, the dry season corresponds most closely with the north temperate
zone's winter and the reverse holds true in the south. The result
is that parts of the Amazon are in the midst of their rainy season, while
other areas are in the dry, low-water part of their cycle. The timing
of seasonal cycles varies additionally with the river system's distance
from the equator. The entire Amazon basin goes through a complex
series of seasonal and regional water level changes, allowing anglers to
pursue peacock bass in the Amazon for almost six months of the year.
Every aspect of the trophy peacock bass fishery is
governed by this cycle of moisture. At the start of the rainy season,
the rivers rise and begin to overflow their banks and the waters spread
into low-lying regions of jungle. These cyclically flooded areas,
called varzea and igapo in Brazil, gradually form a vast
floodplain surrounding the river channel. As the waters rise, the
baitfish head off into the jungle to feed on the rich forage available
there. The peacocks follow right behind them, the entire population
of the rivers leaving for greener pastures. The water level
can rise as much as forty feet above dry season levels. Even if anglers
could tolerate the torrential rains and the discomforts associated with
them, finding the fish in the middle of the flooded jungle is next to impossible.
Furthermore, if you managed to hook-up, picture the difficulty of threading
a fishing line (with a big, extremely uncooperative fish on the end) through
a thicket of trunks and leaves and branches. The rainy season is
not the time to go peacock bass fishing.
When to Fish - As the rains come to an end in the areas feeding
a river, water levels begin to drop, typically first in the headwaters
and then further downstream. The waters recede from the flooded jungles
and once again become confined in the lagoons and river channels.
The baitfish, and of course their consumers, the peacock bass, return as
well. During the early part of the dry season, the peacocks feed
voraciously on the fattened and concentrated baitfish. This is prime
time for peacock anglers. After a month of heavy feeding, they begin
to spawn. Unlike largemouth bass, who become aggressive and pugnacious
when on the spawning beds, peacocks simply gather their young and retreat
from fishermen presenting lures. Fishing gets slow for a while after
the spawn, then sometimes picks up again when the peacocks send their babies
off and begin to fatten up again in preparation for the onset of the rainy
season. The optimal time to fish for peacocks is the pre-spawn period,
those four weeks or so after the rivers drop and before the fish get on
the spawning beds.
Luckily for fishermen, different rivers reach low
water levels at different times. Even within a single river, the
spawn may work its way downstream over several weeks. Anglers can
fish in the Amazon from July through November in the south and December
through March in the north and, with adequate mobility, be able to access
good fishing throughout.
The rivers of Amazonia are typically described in
three different categories. The soil and geological characteristics of
the river's drainage basin typically are the primary determining factors
of the water type of the river. Although rivers in the same region
of Amazonia are quite often of the same water type, it is not uncommon
for neighboring rivers draining into the same system to be of entirely
different categories.
Black Water - The rivers of northwestern Amazonia
are unique in many respects. Most of them are extremely acidic and
very low in biomass. Fed by tributaries draining the austere soils
of regions bordering Columbia and Venezuela, the Rio Negro is the center
of the Amazon's blackwater fishery. The water literally appears black
because of staining by dissolved tannins. Tannin is the same pigmented
chemical that gives tea its color. In fact, if you look at a cupful
of Rio Negro water, it would look very much like a cup of weak tea.
When viewed in the gigantic quantities present in this massive river, it
simply appears black. Surprisingly, however, visibility is good in
these waters. That means that fish are strongly visually stimulated.
The look and color of lures becomes important in these conditions.
The tributaries of the Rio Negro provide access to the world's biggest
peacock bass. Black water fisheries are found mostly north of the
Amazon river and typically experience their dry season during the Northern
hemisphere's fall and winter, November through March. These rivers
are strikingly beautiful with their austere surroundings and white sand
beaches, set off by richly colored, tannin stained water. The low
biomass in these rivers means lower numbers of microscopic animals, lower
numbers of baitfish, and consequently lower numbers of peacock bass.
But they're big! The world's record 27-pound peacock bass came from
blackwater as does the great preponderance of 20-pound plus fish.
Anglers fishing in these rivers can typically expect to catch fewer than
20 fish per day but they have a very good chance for a huge trophy fish.
Blackwater peacocks are readily caught on topwater
lures. Subsurface lures such as Redfins and Rapalas and of course,
the highly effective peacock bass jigs are also very productive.
Fish can be found and caught in the lagoons and cuts adjoining these rivers.
The lagoons are often quite large with a variety of structure, depths and
configurations, offering a wide range of productive possibilities for fishermen.
Blue Water - Blue water is really better described
as simply clear and colorless. These rivers often empty into muddy
or stained waters and can often be isolated tributaries in an otherwise
different system. Blue water rivers occur both above and below the
equator and so can be fished from July to November in the south and December
through March in the north. Various tributaries of both the Rio Branco
and the Rio Madeira provide great fishing in some of the lushest and most
beautiful surroundings in Amazonia.
During the dry season, when these rivers are at
their lowest, the water can become absolutely crystal clear. Visibility
becomes extremely good in these waters. The strong impact of visual
stimulation on the fish makes these rivers very productive with a wide
variety of lures. The big surface lures provide exciting fishing
with a high preponderance of lunkers. The entire range of subsurface
lures is also productive in this fishery. But these rivers are truly
fantastic for the rapidly fished peacock bass jig. Fish are readily
caught here in lagoons as well as in the river itself and it's tributaries.
A day's worth of probing the structure filled lagoons or fast water near
rocky structure can produce 40 or 50, up to 100 fish per day for a busy
angler. The right combination of colors on these jigs becomes very
important in these conditions. A little bit of experimentation for
the first day or two will allow anglers who bring or tie a variety of patterns,
to find the optimal combination and to have an absolute blast in this type
of fishery.
White (Muddy) Water - The term white water
conjures up visions of fast, wild rivers with treacherous rapids.
Nothing could be farther from the truth in Amazonia. A better description
for these slow moving, languid rivers might be muddy or cloudy water.
True white water systems, such as the Rio Solimoes are fed by sources from
the mountainous Andes west of the Amazon basin. As the waters cascade
from the heights they churn through eroding fissures and loess fields,
picking up suspended particles throughout their descent. Upon reaching
the low lying Amazon basin, these particle laden waters form the white
water rivers of Amazonia.
The Rio Solimoes flows into Manaus, Brazil, where
it meets the Rio Negro to form the main body of the Amazon River.
The black water of the Rio Negro flows next to the white water of the Solimoes
for several miles before mixing. (This amazing sight, strikingly
visible from the air, is called the meeting of the waters.) Although
peacocks can be present in true white water, such as the Rio Branco, it
doesn't generally lend itself to high concentrations of readily accessed
fish and is rarely exploited.
Cloudy, silty or muddy conditions can occur in rivers
in other systems, such as the Matupiri and the Caures, typically caused
by daily turnover of relatively shallow lagoons. These rivers, however,
are often very productive and readily yield good numbers and plenty of
large fish. The low visibility conditions in these rivers can make
topwaters the most productive lures. Subsurface lures will still
produce, but not nearly as effectively as in clear conditions and the usually
super-productive jig, hardly raises a strike unless equipped with an internal
rattle. Color is not a major issue in cloudy water, but sound certainly
is. Lures with rattles or noise-making commotion are the angler's
best tools in these rivers. Fishing is most productive in lagoons
and sometimes at the mouths of streams, inlets and tributaries.
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