Another Fishing Year E-Book

John Wilson

• Herausgeber: G2 Rights
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 368

Beschreibung

The popular annual fishing diary Another Fishing Year by bestselling fishing presenter and author, John Wilson, is now available as an eBook. Another Fishing Year, the follow up to John's first book, A Specimen Fishing Year, tracks a year in the life of this renowned fisherman, following him around Britain and the world.

Leseprobe

Another Fishing Year

John Wilson’sFishing Diary

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

EPILOGUE

INTRODUCTION

When I wrote my very first hardback book, A Specimen Fishing Year, published by A&C Black, way back in the heatwave year of 1976, little did I realise how much would change both in my personal life and in British freshwater fishing over these following three decades. Being then in my early 30s and now in my early 70s, I guess my hair was always going to change from dark brown to a mixture of grey and white. Like most of us however, I never contemplated divorce and remarrying. But eventually everything does settle down again, and becoming a real live ‘granddad’ to my daughter Lisa’s two girls, Alisha and Lana, makes me feel extremely proud, as does watching my son Lee, who is a carpenter-joiner, work creatively with a length of wood.

I certainly hadn’t visualised the amount of travel and exotic sports fishing that I would now be enjoying back in those early years of running a tackle shop in Norwich for six days a week, when the only way of fishing regularly enough to be able to write about it, was to grab ‘dawn starts’ two or sometimes three mornings a week before gunning the car back into Norwich to open the shop for 9am But I guess eventually selling the shop (John’s Tackle Den) after 26 years became inevitable in order for me to concentrate upon angling journalism and TV commitments.

I have in fact during these past 40 years now penned over 30 angling books plus filmed some 130 television programmes and videos. My Go Fishing series made for Anglia Television (and shown on Channel Four for ten years) spanned 18 years and remains the longest running British angling series ever, something of which I am extremely proud. I have also been extremely privileged to have created a piece of natural history, from excavation to landscaping and stocking, in the shape of my own lakeland fishery, which nestles beside the house within sight of my beloved River Wensum. All would have been mere pipe dreams back in the mid 1970s.

Now while my 1976 diary essays mentioned a hidden fear for silver shoal species (although I was catching numerous big roach and dace at that time) not recruiting within the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk in the numbers they should have been, due mostly to cormorant predation, who could ever have predicted the kind of decimation we have since suffered, and continue to do so due to a totally ‘gutless and ineffective’ Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and I might add, so far as the angler is concerned, a succession of ‘head in the sand’ governments, whose statute it is to protect both our salt and freshwater fisheries. When oh when, will the ‘black death’ as this bird is now known, be put where it well and truly belongs, at the head of the ‘vermin list’ along with rabbits, grey squirrels and rats, etc.? This one creature has obliterated the legacy of prolific river fishing that has always been handed down from one generation to another where children learnt to appreciate natural history by first trotting a float downstream for small silver shoal fishes, gudgeon and the like, before moving on to larger goals. And could anyone ever have foreseen back in 1976, that carp would become so prolific to eclipse roach both as Britain’s most common and most popular species?

What about the weird and comparatively recent phenomenon of species like tench, bream, barbel and carp each now being caught at somewhere between 25-40% heavier than their respective record weights back in 1976. In those days 6lbs tench, 8lbs bream, l0lbs barbel and 30lbs carp were truly ‘huge’ fish for specialists like me to aim for. Nowadays, they are everyday catches on many waters up and down the country. Some say that global warming and our now mild winters are partly responsible for these particular species packing on weight, while others attribute the increase to fish being regularly and selectively fed large quantities of high nutritional value boilies and pelleted food. I think in addition, that because these species find themselves in many cases the ‘dominant’ species in rivers and lakes where they once had to share the natural food larder with vast shoals of roach and other silver shoal fish, due to cormorant predation, they no longer need to compete and subsequently grow fat as a consequence. The huge tench I caught back in June, with four of them heavier than the once British record, are a prime example.

Though primarily a book about a calendar year of specimen hunting around my home ground of Norfolk and Suffolk, including the trials and tribulations of endeavouring regularly to catch the whoppers, that 1976 year’s diary also contained a number of side issues, from using the first prototype float rod manufactured entirely from super lightweight, carbon fibre, (which we now take for granted) to my scuba diving in local gravel pits during the ‘then’ close season, (why oh why did we pander to the greed of commercial fisheries and abolish it?) and playing with various ledger rigs on the bottom to find out why a simple fixed paternoster set up worked best. A method I still use incidentally for much of my ledgering.

Yes, those early years certainly provided a wonderful training ground and a platform for thinking, innovative anglers to voice their experiences. Sadly however, many fellow angling writers and friends like Doug Allen, Peter Stone, John Darling, Ivan Marks, Len Head, Colin Dyson, Trevor Housby, Bernard Venables and Dick Walker, who all contributed immensely to that period, have all passed on. Although we are all considerably more informed from their respective inputs, and freshwater angling today would just not be the same.

What you are about to read actually came about following a pike fishing session out afloat on the Norfolk Broads with good friend Nick Beardmore who informed me that a mate of his had just bid over £150 on eBay, to secure one of my 1976 A Specimen Fishing Year books, which originally retailed at just £4.75. I could not believe it. I was of course both flattered and flabbergasted, but then got to thinking about the unique comparisons that could be made from writing a sequel. So here it is. As in 1976, an open, honest account of each and every fishing trip both at home and abroad, with warts and all, including those inevitable ‘blanks’ that I made during the year of 2005.

But I doubt that I’ll be around in another 30 years to see if ‘this book’ ever fetches over 30 times its original published price. Now there’s a thought!

John Wilson

Sunday, 2nd January

Gusting, bitterly cold westerly wind. Bright sunshine all day.

It’s certainly no coincidence that I chose to start this diary by boat fishing for pike with my dearest and oldest friend John (Jinx) Davey from Bungay in Suffolk, (we met when teenagers over 45 years ago, fishing the River Waveney for roach) on a lake near Norwich which I call ‘The Conifers’. Because this exceptionally prolific pike water provided the very first entry in my first diary book back all those years ago in 1976, when my boat partner for the day was another old friend, the late Doug Allen.

Averaging between 10 and 14 feet deep, this lovely ‘natural’ lake is decidedly ‘round’ in shape and completely surrounded by tall, ivy covered fir trees, hence my nickname for it.

It is also quite unique in that of all the locations it has been my good fortune to fish within the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk over these past three decades, ‘The Conifers’ simply hasn’t changed one iota, either in appearance or the fish it contains. And I cannot truthfully say that of anywhere else I fish, particularly the rivers. Its coloured water for instance, still produces a mountain of roach, perch, rudd and bream upon which preys a healthy stock of nicely proportioned double figure pike plus the occasional specimen over 20lbs. Even the old boat house is still there (though ‘leaning’ somewhat) despite gales having toppled huge trees all around it, and inside is the very same, ancient wooden boat (lovingly re-varnished and re-painted every so often) that I first fished from 30 years ago.

OK, enough nostalgia for this essay. How did Jinx and I fare in such appalling conditions with my estate car’s thermometer showing an outside temperature of just 2°C on our 8am arrival? Wind chill alone from the force 6 westerly, gusting every now and then up to 7 and 8, actually gave us second thoughts about even taking the boat out, despite the forecast of a bright and sunny day ahead. But within half an hour we had rowed (well Jinx had) half way across the lake to a favourite spot 80 yards upwind from a thick line of tall reeds along the eastern, willow-clad shoreline and put the mud weights down, bows into the teeth of the wind.

Using three rods apiece our selection of smelt, mackerel and herring dead baits were fanned 30-50 yards out all around the boat, presented ‘static’ on the bottom. Both our downwind baits had floats set well over depth, while the others were free lined, with 3x2SSG shots pinched onto the traces below the swivel to hold them in position against the ‘yawing’ of the boat, and to provide a little resistance to a pike, in order that it moves off away from the rod and gives a positive indication. This is most important to alleviate possible unintentional deep hooking.

I was just about on the point of regaining feeling in the fingers of my left hand (why on earth don’t I remove dead baits from the freezer earlier on the day before a trip?) and enjoying a cup of coffee, when the sensitively set free-spool ratchet on my Baitmaster reel started to sing. The float on the ‘downwind’ end rig must have shot away quickly because I didn’t see it go, so I wound down instantly and heaved the rod back into a full bend. There then followed a spirited fight from a nicely marked and proportioned pike of around l0lbs which I chinned just clear of the surface with a gloved hand to remove the trebles, both of which were lodged in the scissors, before allowing it to crash-dive down to the bottom. Incidentally, when possible I always prefer to unhook pike without bringing them into the boat and especially without using the net, which is taken along ‘only’ in case a whopper turns up. Then I’ll get the scales out, and weigh it in the landing net, deducting the weight of the net afterwards. For yours truly, those days of moving each and every fish from the landing net into a specialised sling have long gone. I simply cannot be doing with all the hassle of slime and cold fingers. I am perfectly happy ‘guestimating’ its size and I’m sure the fish would agree. In fact I don’t use a weigh sling for any of my fishing in Britain. I do own a giant, reinforced weigh sling for the likes of Nile perch, Weis catfish and mahseer however. Besides, if the fish is already in a landing net, then it is already lying in the perfect receptacle for hoisting onto the scales.

After around an hour, with no further pick-ups, we decided to up with the mud weights and move around 80 yards across the lake in order to grid search as much of the bottom as possible. But as Jinx was about to reel in his last rod, a pike snuffed up the joey mackerel and fair sizzled line from the reel upon feeling the hooks. This particular fish put up an incredible scrap for such cold conditions and I rather think Jinx was expecting to see something larger than a long, lean machine of around 17lbs when it finally hit the surface in a shower of spray. Still, two doubles on a bitingly cold day in little more than an hour’s fishing was perhaps more than we had expected.

We moved immediately afterwards, but had to wait a good hour and a half for the next piece of action, which strangely also happened just prior to our moving position again, when my float suddenly started zooming across the waves before sneaking beneath the surface and line peeling from the reel. Again an instant strike, (I’m always of the opinion that if the pike is any size at all, the hooks will be inside the jaws, which is why I only ever use comparatively small, whole or half-dead baits of between four and seven inches long) and my rod arched over to what felt a nice fish. Following much head shaking and several long, powerful runs, the 15lbs test line ‘whistling’ in the wind, alongside the boat came a superbly shaped and spotted pike of fully 15lbs. I gently eased out the duo of size 8 semi barb less trebles, and off she went.

Incidentally it may be interesting to note that throughout this winter I have been using pike traces made from a revolutionary new material, 30lbs test, titanium wire, which though noticeably thicker than the 30lbs test, easy twist ‘stranded’ wire that I would normally use for pike, but is still relatively supple, simply does not fray or kink, even after catching dozens and dozens of fish. These matt-black 18 inch long traces cost £5 and come fitted with two size 8, super strong and sharp Owner trebles, with a power swivel at the opposite end, and are available direct from Dunstable tackle manufacturer Mick Willis (tel. [phone]) whose customers have literally used the same trace all winter. And they say there’s nothing new in fishing. But back to ‘The Conifers’ lake and those pike.

The session was now hotting up despite the cold westerly, and we moved once more, another 80 or so yards across the lake, always keeping within around the same distance upwind from the easterly shoreline. This time it was a run for Jinx, whose small roach was gobbled up by an equally small pike of around 5lbs.

The time by now was around 1pm and we decided to make one last move and due to the cold, settle for a 2pm finish. These days I’m pleased to say, and I don’t care if it is to do with age (well, we are both over 60 after all) both Jinx and I know when we have had our fill. Reminds me of that famous Fred J. Taylor saying which goes, “I’ll be glad when I’ve had enough of this.” And it’s so true.

Lo and behold at around three minutes to 2pm (I swear) the ratchet on one of my multipliers presenting a free lined herring’s head suddenly screeched into life, and from the moment of connecting, I suspected a big fish, because it felt really heavy and kept low to the bottom whilst I pumped it gently towards the boat. It then must have seen the dinghy’s outline directly above and power-dived with incredible speed before turning around and zooming straight up to the surface beside the boat, performing a simply marvellous ‘tail-walking’ sequence. Jinx and I looked at each other totally flabbergasted. The last thing we expected from any of the pike in such cold water conditions (the lake had been frozen over only three days before) was an aerial display. And what an incredibly long fish it was too. Well over 20lbs ‘long’ but noticeably lean in the body. I just couldn’t be bothered with net and scales, and so called her 19lbs, after chinning her beside the boat to remove the hooks and watching her disappear into the murky depths. What a great day’s pike fishing against difficult odds and a wonderful start to 2005.

Tuesday, 4th January

Blustery south westerly wind, heavily overcast, mild.

Following Sunday’s pike action despite the cold, I was really looking forward to today. The wind had swung more southerly bringing in a decidedly mild air stream. Absolutely perfect conditions for pike fishing on a small private broad off the River Bure near Wroxham, which had been dredged several years back, but according to my boat partner Nick Beardmore, had not been fished since. A wonderful opportunity for Nick to show me the effectiveness of his ‘special’ homemade pike dead baits, which he calls ‘mackreels’. These unique baits consist of several inches of pig’s intestine packed full of minced mackerel and other oily fishes, plus various fish oils, tied off at both ends to resemble a sausage, or section of a thickish eel, hence their name.

Within an hour of dawn breaking we had the boat anchored up in the middle of the five acre broad, which is completely fringed by an impenetrable jungle of alder carr, willow and tall reeds, and, fishing three rods apiece, employed our most effective technique for Broadland pike, of fanning a selection of free lined dead baits all around the boat - smelt, herrings, and of course Nick’s mackreels.

Now I’d love to say that during the following six hours before returning to the boathouse in mid-afternoon, those pike went crazy, but I would be lying. The plain, inexplicable truth was that we just couldn’t buy a run on anything. Not even on Nick’s smelly ‘mackreels,’ which benefit from a good stabbing with a sharp knife immediately prior to casting out, in order for the oils and juices to permeate through the water. They certainly leave an attractive ‘slick’ on the surface, and I shall definitely be trying them again, where on hard fished lakes, rivers and broads, I fancy they will have a real edge on all the more popular and regularly used dead baits.

So I have to chalk up the first ‘blank’ (you didn’t assume I always catch, did you?) of the New Year. There is an inevitable ‘high spot’ to most fishing trips however, and ours was experiencing the rare sight, while walking back to the car, of a bittern getting up from a narrow, reedy dyke not ten yards away and flying over the marshes. And mere minutes later, a marsh harrier quartering the marshes beyond.

Unfortunately Norfolk pike fishing will have to take a back seat for the next couple of weeks. On Friday I’m off to fish in South America along Brazil’s famous Rio Negro (part of the Amazon system) for the most colourful freshwater predator of them all, the peacock bass. And I can’t wait.

Saturday, 8th January

Overcast with drizzle, followed by baking hot sunshine. Very humid.

Mention Brazil, and what comes to mind? Coffee? Pele? Anacondas? Well, hopefully, for Christine Slater of Tailor Made Holidays and me, plus our five British guests, it’s going to be the totally unique sports fishing, with magnificently coloured peacock bass and huge catfish heading the long list of hard battling predatory adversaries.

Brazil is in fact the planet’s fifth largest country behind Russia, Canada, China and the U.S.A. It is even bigger than Australia and covers almost half the continent of South America, bordering ten other countries plus the Atlantic Ocean. To the east and south are rugged mountains, fertile valleys and narrow, coastal plains, while the northeast consists mostly of semi- arid plateaux. The centre west is largely a vast plateau of savannah and rock escarpments, and the fabulous northwest contains the famous hot, humid and wet, rainforest-fed, basin of the Amazon, the world’s second longest river, behind Africa’s River Nile.

I previously visited this fascinating country back in 1993 to fish for the high-leaping golden dourado of the Parana River near Foz just below breathtaking Iguacu Falls, the borderline of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. And I not only became mesmerised by the sheer magnitude and beauty of it all, but also totally fascinated by a whole host of weird and colourful species from armoured catfish to the fearsome piranha. But I have to admit, by comparison with the Amazon system, in South America, the Parana is simply just another river.

Extending also into Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela, this massive Amazon watershed is the largest on earth, dumping into the Atlantic Ocean one quarter of the world’s fresh water in which live some 4000 species of fish, from the enigmatic arapaima to giant catfish, not forgetting the myriad of miniature and attractively coloured fishes kept by tropical aquarium enthusiasts. This is more species even than in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans combined.

During its 4000 mile journey across South America the Amazon is fed by over 1000 tributaries, the largest being our chosen destination, the mysterious Rio Negro, which is up to 12 miles wide in parts, and itself containing a staggering 2000 different species, some of them more representative of saltwater tropicals, like garfish, barracuda and poisonous stingrays etc., to the hard hitting peacock bass and unusual fruit-eaters.

Following long hauls from Heathrow to Miami and then onto Manaus, our final 200 mile flight deposited us at Barcelos, followed by an hour’s speedboat ride to the famous Rio Negro Lodge, which nestles amongst dense tropical jungle literally within spitting distance of the river. What a place! But were we knackered after such a lengthy journey.

Incidentally, fishing out from here and from both the Rio Area Lodge and the Amazon Queen, an 85 foot long purpose-built houseboat (two alternative angling options], in fact the whole unique Amazon fishing experience, is the brainchild of owner and founder of Amazon Tours, ex-helicopter pilot Phil Marsteller, who originates from Ohio. Phil opened the Rio Negro Lodge in 1998, and its comfortable, air-conditioned accommodation provides immediate access to the vast maze of waterways and lagoons draining this upper Amazon rainforest, via fibreglass, shallow draft Nitro bass boats sporting 90hp outboards, zipping guests quickly along (two to a boat) at 50mph into the very heart of the Amazonas.

Having spotted vultures, giant terns and kingfishers, night herons, plovers, egrets and darters during our upriver journey, following a light lunch, we were all mega keen to get out there and explore more of this veritable paradise, so after sorting out tackle we made directly for the boat dock where I was assigned an experienced local guide for the week’s fishing, named Jim. Everything looked perfect except for the pair of tame, giant river otters playing amongst the boats. The male actually followed us up to the lodge and into the restaurant on our return, where everyone patted it as though it were a dog.

Now in recent years I have for good reason become, shall we say, rather disenchanted with otters. Due to faceless, ‘do-gooders’, who obviously haven’t a clue about the current balance of nature, introducing them along beats of my local River Wensum where cormorants have ravaged the once-prolific shoals of roach and dace, and where runs of eels (once a large part of the otter’s natural diet) are now pathetically low, you do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand why in the coldest part of our winter, especially should the river be in spate for week upon week, otters choose an easier option. They leave the river and chew their way through jumbo-sized carp in all the adjacent gravel pit fisheries. Mine in particular.

During the past few years I have lost dozens and dozens of double figure carp, grass carp and Weis catfish to otters. Resulting last summer in my spending exactly what my first family bungalow cost (30 years ago mind, but the figure rang a bell) on erecting a 235 yard long, six foot high chain-link fence in an effort to keep them out of my two- lake fishery. With two feet buried in the ground to alleviate their burrowing and an 18 inch ‘angled’ top, till now the fence seems to have done its job. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

But I have digressed. Back to the Rio Negro which translates to ‘Black River’. It does look very dark, decidedly ‘peaty’ in fact and the colour of strong tea due apparently to the amount of tannin it constantly receives (from the hardwood trees), in which it is said, that mosquitoes cannot live. Strangely however, visibility is quite good, between two to four feet.

With just a few hours of the day remaining, guide Jim zipped Dave Nevatt and me several miles upstream from the lodge at 50mph (he drives flat out continually) into an off-river lagoon completely overhung around the margins by dense tropical vegetation, consisting mostly of tall trees and vines. Here we used Luhr Jensen, eight inch long, floating ‘wood chopper’ plugs to good effect for our first encounter with peacock bass. The technique was to work the structure- rich shorelines of fallen trees where the bass hide up, while Jim guided the boat silently along 60-70 yards out using the electric motor. This enabled Dave and I, each at opposite ends of the 17 foot boat, to cover the fringe of the fallen hardwood trees with 50 yard casts. ‘Wood chopping,’ as this technique is called, is however extremely tiring on wrists and forearms, slamming the rod tip sharply downwards before every successive crank of the reel handle in order to ‘churn’ the surface with the plugs rear propeller and bring a bass up to attack.

My first bass, a real beauty of around 13lbs was the most colourful freshwater fish I have ever seen, let alone caught, and it fought unbelievably hard, making run after run despite the 80lbs test Cortland braided reel line on my ABU 7001c multiplier and a tightly wound-down clutch.

Distinctly perch-like in shape and fin placement with two spotted dorsals, the first characteristically spiked and the second with soft rays, its mouth was huge and like all perch and bass, without canines. The back was olive-green, fusing down the flanks into spectacular golden-yellow, overlaid along the belly line with deep scarlet. The gill rakers, pelvic and anal fins and the lower half of its tail were also painted in scarlet. In the middle of the tail root a most distinct black ‘eye’ spot, fringed in yellow, immediately identifies the species. The top of the gill plate was overlaid with irregular patches of black, also fringed in yellow, while along the deep flanks, three wide, vertical bars of black finished the paint job. It’s as though an artist has been given a commission to create the most breathtaking, outrageously coloured fish of all time.

In addition to peacocks, we caught paca (a spotted version) and butterfly bass, which instead of vertical bars have four large ‘eye’ spots evenly spaced along the lateral line, and turquoise-blue dorsal fins. These apparently are rarely caught into double figures whereas the peacock bass record, caught here from the Rio Negro weighed 27lbs. The peacock bass is in fact a member of the cichlid family and not a bass at all. We also caught bicuda, a tooth-laden version of the saltwater barracuda, and dogfish, a fully scaled, chub-like critter averaging 3lbs, possessing the most horrendous set of large canines. And they all hit our lures with real venom. The bass especially, rushing to the surface in a kaleidoscope of spray and making a distinct ‘boff’ sound on impact before crash-diving and ripping line away at real speed.

We also saw several beautifully spotted stingrays swimming over shallow, sandy flats, and caught a crocodile - well our guide did anyway. It was a small caiman of around four feet long, which made a grab for Jim’s surface plug and became entangled in the braided line. This had obviously happened before because Jim purposefully drew it alongside the boat after a hectic scrap, and using the rod tip most deftly, wound the line several times around the croc’s jaws before attempting to lift it into the boat, where it was carefully unhooked and released. What a start to day one. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Sunday, 9th January

Hot and humid. Bright sunshine all day.

There are exactly 40 guests staying at the lodge, all Yanks apart from our seven Brits, so grabbing breakfast for a 6am start and getting down to the boat dock is a hectic affair. Christine decided to accompany me today, and we were soon on our way at 50mph heading upstream to one of Jim’s favourite lagoons, complete with packed lunches. After an hour’s run, seeing macaws overhead and several pods of porpoises en route, Jim suddenly cut the motor and drifted silently into a shallow off-river channel which lead into a huge lagoon of around 200 acres. The amount of water here is simply mind-boggling and due to water levels being low at present a wide strip of sand several hundred yards long (once the river bed) separated river from our destination. This necessitated us leaving our 17 foot speed boat and carrying the icebox, rods, lures and a 5hp motor etc. across the dunes to where Jim kept a 14 foot, lightweight aluminium boat hidden amongst the dense jungle of vines and palms along the margins of the lagoon. What a pristine, wilderness setting if ever I saw one. That’s what I like most about the Amazonas, total solitude where you don’t see or hear another human being other than your guide and boat partner for the entire day’s adventure. The guides at the lodge obviously go out of their way to explore different areas all week. Then at around 5pm it’s all back to the dock at 50mph.

Strangely for three hours absolutely nothing came to our surface lures worked between the fallen trees along the shallow margins. So we started trolling at around three knots through the deeper centre channel with smaller sub-surface artificials fished 50 yards behind the boat.

Chris had on a four inch spoon and I, a five inch diving plug. Bingo! That’s where the fish wanted to hit, three to four feet down, and throughout the remainder of the day we must have accounted for 30 or more fish (I simply lost count) of seven different species. Peacock bass, pacas, butterfly bass, bicudas, dogfish, piranhas and a weird, long and deep bodied but thin species, large scales and huge jaws called an arauana. No monsters however, our biggest being a 7lbs peacock bass for Christine.

A fabulous but extremely warm day in paradise. The temperature at 40°C with 90% humidity, this was by far the most uncomfortably hot place I have ever wet a line. Ice cold vodka and tonics with slices of fresh limes at the bar on our return, were more than welcome, as was the news that Dave Nevatt had taken a 19lbs peacock bass and Ian Jackson a 15 pounder. At least two of our party had struck gold. Well done the Brits!

Monday, 10th January

Hot, humid, bright sunshine, flat calm.

Today my boat partner was Dave Johnson from Hertfordshire, who has been on previous fishing safaris with me to the Zambezi River, the Florida Keys and to Canada. He particularly likes banging into big fish and so we decided to specifically target catfish, for which guide Jim had procured a large bag of fresh chicken heads - apparently ‘the’ local bait for big pussies. But before we headed off, I just couldn’t resist photographing a pair of giant river otters that had shown keen interest in our bag of chicken heads. These creatures have become so incredibly tame, one actually jumped up onto the boat.

Two rolls of film later Dave and I were on our way upriver. After about 30 miles Jim suddenly cut the motor and selected a particular tree which hung well out over the river from the tropical jungle upon which to tie our bows’ rope. Anchors are either not used or unavailable locally. To angle the boat out as far as possible, directly over deep water some 30 or so feet from the bank, Jim then untied the long rope from the bows and re-tied it around the steering wheel. Perfecto! This is obviously the local way of doing away with expensive anchors, which only become snagged in the network of sunken hardwood trees lying on the river bed. When in Rome! It’s so very true.

It was only now with the boat actually tied up that I realised how fast the Rio Negro is, with at least five knots of water above a depth of around 20 feet immediately downstream. I made up a couple of three foot, 100lbs test Kevlar traces with size 6/0 Maruto Eagle Wave hooks at the business end and with a two ounce running bomb above the swivel, Dave and I gently flipped our chicken heads (honestly) into the current and feathered them down to the bottom. Due to misinformed restrictions on baggage (I’ll take my own gear next time) we were compelled to use the 80lbs test boat rods and multipliers provided by the lodge, and the reels were pathetically low on 80lbs line, something which cost us dearly later. But then you do live and learn, eh?

Literally within five minutes, Dave’s chicken head was taken and he heaved the rod back into a beautifully coloured red tail catfish of about 25lbs, which fought strongly in the fast flow. Before I had time to pack the camera away and actually get my own bait in, he had recast and was fast into another pussy, which started to take line, but then the hook fell out. It was however, seemingly much larger than the first. I was on the point of wondering what the hell was wrong with my chicken head, when the rod top jerked over and line started to evaporate from the reel. I slammed the multiplier into gear, pointed the rod tip at the catfish and whacked it hard once the 80lbs line was starting to ‘hum’, and I have to say I was not ready for the brute force greeting me at the other end. A heavily tightened drag did nothing to stop this fish which after ripping 30 to 40 yards from the spool fortunately turned around and headed upstream directly towards me, and as it neared the boat I could feel the line grating. It had obviously gone beneath one or more of the hardwood trees littering the bottom, and to cut a long, exasperating story short, despite Jim untying from the tree so we could get a different angle on it by pulling from downstream, the result was inevitable. It was not coming out of that tree and so I had to wrap the line around a cleat and use the engine to break off. It is, incidentally, impossible to break 80lbs monofilament line from an anchored or tied up boat. There is far too much stretch.

Having caught more than my fair share of big fish over the years including 100lbs plus catfish, there is no way that lost pussy could have been any smaller. It felt truly awesome. But from this particular lair, for indeed that is what the swim was, there was one more bite to come, and when he struck, with the fish heading off downstream fast on a tight line, Dave was almost pulled off his feet and out of the boat. He did however manage to turn it eventually, though the outcome was the same as mine. It found sanctuary amongst those sunken hardwood trees that I am fast beginning to hate. Yet another monster lost.

Now for some staggering statistics. There are in fact at least five different species of tropical catfish inhabiting the mighty Rio Negro that can top 100lbs, possibly even seven with the Amarillo and dourado. This, in my opinion, is what makes it so unique and a prime, ‘virgin’ location for European catfish enthusiasts who have topped out at between 140-180lbs with Weis in Spain for instance, and want to experience the power of much larger adversaries. Frankly this has got to be the most exciting, untapped river catfishing on this planet.

So consider these three potential 100lbs plus species: the red tail, the surubin, and the striped catfish. Then we have the jau, which tops out at somewhere between 200-300lbs, and the massive and pelagic- like Paraiba that attains weights of up to 400lbs. What a river the Rio Negro is turning out to be, because save for the giant Mekong catfish of Thailand which is now so thin on the ground due to over fishing and actually considered an endangered species in the Mekong itself (it is in fact illegal to purposefully catch them in the river), South American pussies inhabiting the Amazon and its tributaries such as the Negro, offer simply unlimited potential for rod and line sport.

At around midday we gave up on the bank side structure-rich swims having tried several more, only to lose a mountain of terminal tackle amongst the sunken logs, without another run. Besides we were almost out of chicken heads. So we lure fished along a shallow, overgrown, off-river channel in search of fresh bait and in no time at all caught three dogfish. These are rather like a chub of around 3lbs, (that’s their average weight) with the head of a bulldog. Their sculls are so tough it takes more than several clumps behind the head with the blunt edge of the guide’s machete before they will even quieten down. But they make great catfish baits either filleted or used as cutlets.

After preparing these baits I decided we would try drifting with the flow for the catfish, well away from bank side snags, with our terminal rigs bumping gently along the sandy bottom behind the boat, instead of losing yet more gear amongst the trees. And using this technique, which apparently is not practised locally (I’ve used it to good effect for pussies in Africa on both the Zambezi and the Nile below magical Murchison Falls) Dave and I took three silver, spotted catfish of around 5lbs apiece. I am sure it will produce the whoppers here too. A most fascinating and enlightening day’s fishing, made even brighter by the sight of colourful toucans and macaws. Apparently, the macaws, which are usually seen in pairs, mate for life. Phil Marstellers, owner of the lodge, has a most colourful (red, blue and yellow) pet macaw, which I photographed this evening in his garden that overlooks the river.

Tuesday, 11th January

Hot and humid. Bright sunshine. Flat calm.

In the company of my boat partner Ian Jackson from Hertfordshire, Jim sped us to an area some 40 miles due south of the lodge, to a galaxy of mouth-watering lagoons and backwaters. On the way we spotted several rather large caimans, so I wouldn’t recommend wading here, and throughout the day both grey and pink porpoises. The latter are indeed a dirty pink. Quite unusual.

Unfortunately, few peacock bass were in a hitting mood and after several hours of working our top-water lures into dozens of mouth-watering, structure-rich swims in both river and lagoons, we had but one modest-sized bass apiece to show for our efforts, Ian taking a peacock bass of around 6lbs and I, a paca of a pound or so less. It would appear that one day these bass are really having it, and hitting aggressively, and the very next, completely uninterested.

Nonetheless, it was a fascinating day of serene beauty and apart from the occasional burst of chattering from birds and monkeys, a day of total solitude and silence. Great news when we arrived back at the dock at 5 pm from Dave Johnson whom I fished with yesterday. He caught a magnificent 21lbs peacock bass. Was he over the moon or what!

Wednesday, 12th January

Mixture of showers and bright sunshine. Hot and humid, strong southerly wind.

Jim our guide sped Dave Nevatt and me way, way upriver to fish three remote lagoons. Exactly how far we travelled I’m not sure, but we left the dock at 50mph and one and a quarter hours later suddenly stopped. We had a second guide on board to help with the portage, and he pointed to a certain spot along the shoreline, which looked all the same to us. But lo and behold, hidden amongst the palms and vines was a folding ‘porta-bote’. This we helped drag through the jungle for about a 100 yards to a completely secluded lagoon of around 15 acres. At this time of the year when the Negro drops to its lowest levels, large concentrations of bass are virtually imprisoned in these off-river lagoons, till the heavy rains come and it rises again.

As we were preparing the boat however I could see an ominous disturbance over on the opposite side of the lagoon in the form of four giant river otters. Suffice to say that for all the hard work, we caught nought. So back to our 17 foot Nitro speedboat upon which was tied the porta-bote and off we sped to another lagoon, which produced just one small peacock bass for Dave on a woodchopper.

Fortunately, our third and final lagoon of the day did contain fair numbers of bass and dogfish, though all of modest size. Working both woodchoppers and zara spooks, 20 or so beautifully coloured bass, of all three species, came our way with the largest at around 7lbs. I was fascinated to see through the clear, shallow water of the lagoon several dozen plecostomus.

Had a real fright this evening when I put on my desert boots to go along for dinner. No sooner had I tied the laces on my right boot when I could feel something inside moving against my toes. Well! I couldn’t get the boot off fast enough, and when I banged it against the inside of the sink, out fell one enormous, furry spider, the size of a tangerine. Phew! Half way through dinner my room partner Dave Nevatt went back to the room for some tablets. Apparently I had killed the spider knocking the boot so hard against the sink, so he eased it onto a leaf and deposited it outside. It left a brown residue in the sink, which Dave touched, and it burnt his finger. Guess I had one lucky escape.

Thursday 13th January

Hot and humid. Bright sunshine interspersed with torrential rain.

The multiplier spool beneath my thumb suddenly came to life as an unseen force ripped off the 80lbs monofilament at alarming speed. Yes, I was catfishing again, my boat partner being Terry Ashtin from Poole in Dorset, and we could not have been waiting for more than ten minutes, tied up to the overhanging branches of a bank side tree, before the action began. Sadly, as most of the guests staying at the lodge are Yanks and interested only in hooking up with trophy-sized peacock bass, little attention is paid to the amount of line on the four 80lbs class catfish outfits available. My Penn boat multiplier had probably less than 80 yards on the spool (how I wished I’d brought my own gear along) and when it was all gone I yelled at guide Jim to untie the boat. This he did, but as we hurtled downstream in the fast current I was unable to recover line fast enough with a near-empty spool, and so one brute of a monstrous catfish managed to find sanctuary in a log on the river bed. Without question, another 100lbs plus monster lost through inadequate tackle. Boy, was I gutted.

Half an hour later we had moved to another spot, and again my chicken head hook bait was greedily gobbled up. Fortunately this particular fish motored across the flow directly away from the entanglement of sunken hardwood trees littering the bottom along the margins, but after 30 seconds or so the hook inexplicably pulled free. Again we moved as we did every 20 minutes or so throughout the day, because if a run was to materialise it did so quickly or not at all, or the swim was full of piranhas, which picked the bait to bits in no time at all.

The next run came bang in the middle of a tropical deluge and was from a piraiba catfish (the largest species of all) of around 20lbs which felt absolutely tiny compared to those I’d lost. But it fought doggedly nonetheless. Terry then had a powerful run but the hook pulled after 30 seconds or so. And that was it really, although upon arriving back at the boat dock it was heartening to hear that one of our group had hit the jackpot, and it was Dave Johnson again, who experienced a monumental three quarters of an hour battle with a superb piraiba catfish weighing 125lbs. What’s more, he lost an even bigger one. Well done indeed. The catfishing potential here is mind blowing to say the least.

Friday, 14th January

Hot and humid. Bright, intense sunshine all day.