Pirarucu: The Ghost of the Amazon Jungle

Pirarucu:

The Ghost of the Amazon Jungle

Pirarucú is the Guarani and Portuguese name for the Arapaima. Arapaima can grow to over 400 pounds and most closely resemble a freshwater tarpon. When hooked, they explode in aerial displays, take off on long runs, and surrender only after lengthy battles. The fish are often seen gulping air from the surface thus offering sight-casting opportunities to singles, pairs, or even schools of fish.

By: HELMUT ZADERER Photos by: HELMUT ZADERER and VAIDAS USELIS

Juggernaut monster fish have always exerted a special magnetism and attraction on us fly fishermen. One of the largest freshwater fish is the arapaima. It can weigh up to 400 pounds, and it is a brutal force to be reckoned with. The ancient-looking fish lives in the Amazon Jungle, far from Europe where I reside. Far from anything really.

The meandering and intricate nerve tracts, that provide the mighty Amazon rivershed with nutrient-rich water – from the thousands of tributaries to vast marshlands and flood plains – used to teem with arapaima. Nowadays, the species – like too many others in the Amazon rainforest biosphere - have become threatened.

There are no longer seemingly endless places to fish for arapaima, and to succeed in catching one with a fly rod leaves very few places to be seriously considered.

There is, however, an area in Brazil in which arapaima are still prolific and where they can be targeted with a fly rod. And probably the best place to flyfish for large arapaima is inside the Mamirauá Reserve in Brazil.

In search of a Leviathan

Having minutely planned and prepared to fish and shoot a film at Untamed Angling’s Pirarucu Lodge inside the Mamirauá Reserve for what felt like forever, the time had finally arrived.

In October 2021, I went to Pirarucu with Jako Lukas, Vaidas Uselis, Rodrigo Salles, and Pamela Wendhausen to fish and film there for a few days, hoping to catch a few fully grown specimens. Knowing that arapaima are particular and finicky feeders with rock-hard jaw bones that make them even more challenging to hook than to induce an initial strike from, we anticipated the task ahead with nervous excitement.

What makes Pirarucu so special, is the natural feature of its geographic location and its legal protection. When we finally arrived, we found ourselves inside an area of more than 1 million hectares, where the Solimoes River (the name of the medium Amazon River in Brazil) meets the Japura River.

Arapaima are particular and finicky feeders with rock-hard jaw bones

Mamirauá was the first Brazilian Sustainable Development Reserve created by the Amazonas’ state by governmental decree. Sustainable Development Reserves aim to reconcile biodiversity conservation with sustainable development in areas inhabited by traditional peoples. The Mamirauá reserve is located about 600 km west of Manaus in the middle Solimões region, Amazonas state, Brazil. This area is formed by a complex of lakes, lagoons, and rivers, all interconnected, forming a huge clean water wetland, where the gigantic Amazon Forest becomes flooded in the rainy season (Jan-Jun).

It’s a very unique ecosystem where the arapaima finds the perfect place to feed and spawn. These gigantic fish migrate from the flooded jungle back to the rivers and the marshlands where they feed during the dry season (Aug-Nov) only to return to the flooded jungle, where they spawn in December and January.

Fish all around

I found it really fascinating how many fish we constantly saw around us. We felt as if we had been transported back in time and that we were fishing in the middle of Jurassic Park.

We felt as if we had been transported back in time”

We were using big streamers with lots of water displacement-capabilities to – not only make our flies more visible – but also more audible. Streamers in excess of 25 centimeters were used in order to offer the potentially huge fish a solid meal.

I personally found that the colour of the streamers didn’t matter all that much. We all had our own theories and ideas, and despite using- and experimenting with different flies, we all caught fish. While Jako and the others caught most of their fish on black flies, I caught mine on lightly-coloured flies. It seemed the most hook-ups came as a result of dragging flies along the bottom, so we ended up fishing almost exclusively with sinking lines.

As you can imagine, it’s not fun to throw heavy, wind-resistant flies on sinking lines all day long. But the fact that we were constantly surrounded by rolling arapaima increased our stamina, motivation, and ambition. And once we started hooking up, the heavy duty of casting the flies suddenly seemed like a walk in the park.

Getting stuck (on the bottom)?

Sometimes we had to cast A LOT before anything happened. The fish just seemed totally unresponsive, but then, suddenly - completely out of the blue – everything would just come tight.

To begin with, an arapaima take feels like you’ve hooked a tree trunk, but then then a violent pull starts to propagate through the line and everything starts to move. Once it does, your overly vivid imagination starts to wander, and you’re left shaking and guessing at the size of what you’ve just hooked – that is, if you succeed in jabbing and yanking the hook firmly into the bony mouth of the fish and get proper purchase.

What happens next is up in the air. A hooked arapaima will sometimes run extremely fast taking you into your backing in a matter of seconds. It might simply stay put while shaking its head violently to throw off the hook and relieve the invisible pull exerted on it. Or it may jump clear out of the water while flaring its gills and thrashing its head from side to side.

Every fish – a new adventure The four of us had a very successful four days at the Pirarucu Lodge. With 22 arapaimas caught including 7 over 2 meters, there was never a boring or dull moment. Quite the contrary, the tension was always very

high – and if either of us ever needed any repose from the arapaima fishing, there were arowana, pacu, peacock bass, and other species of fish to target as well.

To begin with, an arapaima take feels like you’ve hooked a tree trunk

My friend Vaidas, who was always busy with his camera, had a lot to do. In the 4 days, we spent at Pirarucu, he captured enough material to make a great film. Not only does he do an incredible job filming, he is also very good when it comes to postproduction.

A unique experience

I find that Pirarucu is the total package. Not only because arapaima are such a fascinating species, but also because everything surrounding the fishery is so spectacular. Untamed Angling have built a lodge on pontoons and the service offered is perfect.

With guides Rafael Costa, Rubens Filho, and Guilherme Manzione you are also in the best of hands when it comes to catching a trophy fish. They truly are top guides, and besides knowing a lot about fly fishing, they are guaranteed to ensure a good time and plenty of laughs. The Pirarucu project uses the local Uacari site as its home. The lodge itself is a wood-built floating lodge right in the middle of the area that has the very best fishing. The fishing grounds are close enough for a morning session, then a lunch break and siesta back at the lodge, and then another session in the afternoon.

The logistics are surprisingly easy for a remote Amazonian jungle destination with commercial jet flights three times a week out of Manaus-Brazil to Tefé Airport, a small town located just 1 hour by (a fast) boat ride from the reserve and the lodge.

The season runs from early September to late November with a minimal 12 weeks of resulting fishing pressure. The project is designed and operated by Untamed Angling. For more information, please visit: www.pirarucuflyfishing.com

FACT FILE – Arapaima

Arapaima is an extremely tough fish that can take up to 70% of the oxygen needed to survive from the air. As a result, they are often seen surfacing and taking in air. They can grow to 20 kilos in their first year inside the Mamirauá area.

They become adult at about 150 centimeters in length weighing some 35 - 40 kilos. A fish of 2 meters is only about 6 years old.

The population of arapaima in Mamirauá is simply incredible. Fish of different sizes occupy the whole complex during the low water months of August to December. The largest Arapaima registered by biologists at the reserve was a fish of 290 cm that weighted 173 kilos.

Since the beginnings of the Pirarucu Project in 2015, more fish over 2 meters (approximately 100 kilos) have been landed – more than anyone could have ever imagined. The largest fish landed on a fly rod inside the project area was 249 centimeters. It was landed by American angler, John Sherman.

FACT FILE – Mamirauá Reserve

Mamirauá was the first Sustainable Development Reserve in Brazil, legislated by the Government of Amazonas in 1996, and remains the largest arapaima reserve in the world. The Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve is a state protected area with an extension of 1.124.000 ha, located between Solimões, Japurá and Auti-Paraná rivers. It’s the biggest protected flooded forest in the world.

Only 4% of the Brazilian Amazon consists of freshwater swamp forest and Mamirauá Reserve plays an important role to protect this ecosystem. It’s inserted in the Central Amazon Corridor and it’s part of the Amazon Biosphere Reserve. Besides, it’s a recognized Brazilian reserve by Ramsar Convention, that protects wetlands of great importance.

Every year the reserve goes through high and low water levels. The variation among the crest of these two stages is about 10 to 12 meters. The flood variation, the geological history and geography of the place give Mamirauá high levels of endemism and particular species.

The water in the core of the reserve is called “black water” in the Amazon, which, despite dark tinting from jungle leaves, is actually quite clear, allowing for sight-casting opportunities for a variety of different species.