Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Amazon fly fishing is closer to saltwater than to trout fishing. Rigs run a 30 to 40 pound wire bite section about 18 inches long behind a 40 to 60 pound leader, on an eight weight with a short heavy weight-forward line built for heat. Takes are answered with a strip set, and roughly one fish in five gets landed.
John Childress is a marine biologist turned business consultant based in the UK, an author of nine books, and an angler who has fished the Amazon five times.
Also on Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube
What can you catch fly fishing in the Amazon?
One stretch of river in southern Brazil held seven sport species reachable in a single area, which is rare anywhere in the world. The list included golden dorado, peacock bass, pacu, wolf fish and a large aggressive catfish that looks prehistoric and jumps. Each species occupies a different water type: golden dorado stay in the swift river sections, pacu sit in pools, and wolf fish lie in the black water sloughs and backwaters waiting to ambush anything that swims by. The river itself was not the muddy tropical water most anglers picture, but gin-clear because it flows over granite, which makes the fishing a sight game.
How do you catch pacu on a fly?
Pacu are not predators in the usual sense; they eat fruit and flowers that drop from overhanging trees. The fly is tied to look like a berry, and the cast has to make it plop the way real fruit falling from a tree does, because it is the plop that brings the pacu to the surface. That means stopping the cast high and letting the fly drop rather than driving it in, which is an unfamiliar looping delivery for anglers used to shooting line. A pacu is a heavy, round fish and a cousin of the piranha.
What tackle do you need for Amazon fly fishing?
The standard setup is an eight weight with a short, heavy weight-forward taper designed both to turn over big flies and to resist heat, so the line does not soften or deform in the tropics. The business end is roughly 18 inches of 30 to 40 pound wire bite tippet behind a 40 to 60 pound leader section, because these fish have teeth and the water is full of structure to rub against. Every take is answered with a strip set, exactly as it would be for tarpon or bonefish. Expect to make something in the range of 800 casts a day, which is why line design matters more here than it does on a trout river.
Why is a golden dorado so hard to land?
The golden dorado has a hard, bony head, so it takes a genuinely sharp hook and a firm strip set to get steel into the fish at all. Once hooked, a golden dorado behaves like a tarpon: it jumps repeatedly and it runs straight for structure, which means the angler cannot let it run and has to pull it out of the timber. Across the toothy Amazon species generally, landing one fish in five is a good day. The name is a redundancy in Spanish, since dorado already means gold, but the fish justifies it once it comes out of the water.
How is deforestation changing Amazon fishing?
The same lodge area that was pristine jungle on a flight in ten years earlier was scarred with logging, burning and forest fires on the return trip. The consequence for fishing is direct: with the vegetation gone, rain washes silt into the river, the river silts up, spawning habitat is damaged and migratory fish runs suffer. A lodge owner in the region put a ten-year horizon on the fishery as it currently exists. Because the Amazon also drives weather patterns well beyond South America, the case for anglers taking a position on it extends past their own fishing.
Are travel rods strong enough for big fish?
The standing objection to travel rods is that a six or seven piece blank is fragile and breaks at the ferrules, and two seasons of Amazon and Africa fishing on a six-piece eight weight produced no breakages while landing big toothy fish. The practical argument is money and logistics: most international carriers will not allow a rod tube as carry-on, and a four-piece nine or ten foot rod does not fit in a bag with boots and waders, so a second checked bag runs 100 to 150 dollars each way. A travel rod also breaks down small enough to be easy in a boat and easy to hike with, instead of catching on branches strapped to a pack. The genuine limitation is action: most travel rods are medium action, and larger fish and wind call for a stiffer blank than manufacturers currently offer.
What does fly fishing have to do with leadership?
Interviews with roughly 75 guides, lodge owners and industry figures, plus a set of executives, turned up the same parallels repeatedly. Slowing down a cast maps onto slowing down decision-making so the decision comes out better; problem solving on the water maps onto problem solving in an organization; and the guides in particular articulated the leadership point most clearly, that the job is to listen to what the client actually needs and lead them into the experience rather than to take over and fish the day the guide wants. The same systems thinking runs underneath both, since a business is an ecosystem in which everything is connected, exactly as a river is.
Key takeaways
- Rig an eight weight with about 18 inches of 30 to 40 pound wire bite tippet behind a 40 to 60 pound leader for toothy Amazon species.
- Use a short, heavy weight-forward line rated for hot climates so it does not deform in tropical heat over 800 casts a day.
- Strip set on every take, as you would for tarpon or bonefish, and expect to land roughly one fish in five.
- Fish a berry-imitating fly for pacu and stop the cast high so the fly plops on landing, which is what draws them up.
- Consider a six or seven piece eight weight for international travel; it fits one checked bag and saves 100 to 150 dollars each way in oversize fees.
- Choose the stiffest travel rod you can find, since most are medium action and give up distance and wind performance on big fish.
