Gone Fishing

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Feeding a Squirrel Monkey

We set off early, the morning was cold & the sun was trying hard to push through the clouds. Our team travelled upstream to see how the wildlife behaved in the morning. We had soon spotted black collared hawk, falcons, a toco toucan, orrinoco geese, caimen & capybaras along the river bank. The river then opened up into a large pool where several pink river dolphins were playing. Some were grey but some were a startling pink & flashes of their powerful tails & long heads could be seen as they fished. Further upstream there was a darter who had caught a huge piranha & was having difficulty working out how to eat it.
We continued on until we saw yellow shapes in a tree & took the boat close to the shore. The shapes were squirrel monkeys & they soon came down to investigate. Aureliano had half a banana & they were very interested in it. There was one male monkey who made sure he got his fair share of the grub & kept fighting off the others. He was oblivious to the boat drifting away from shore & Aureliano told him to wait while we took the boat back. Unfortunately his monkeyish wasn't great & the monkey ran along the edge of the boat & leapt with all limbs splayed until he landed in a bush. It would have been £250 of You've Been Framed money if we had videoed it, but we didn't.
On the way back we saw tanagers & red crested cardinals to add to the list. We stopped off at the the pool again for a swim but the dolphins were no longer there, a large caiman had just entered the water & it was still pretty cool so we declined & headed back for lunch.
In the evening we headed out for some piranha fishing. We took cubes of steak, lines & hooks & moored next to the bank. The knack to it was to put the bait just below the surface & then flick the line when you think you have a bite. The hook has little to do with it as the fish are more likely to attach themselves to the steak. I managed to flick some piranhas out of the water on one side & straight into the water on the other side of the boat. We were catching red, white & yellow piranhas & sardines which we were using for bait to catch catfish. The sizeable piranhas we kept & the tiny ones were put back & some were really small but still had vicious teeth. The blood from the steak would dry on your hands but we didn't want to wash them in the river as the surface would boil with activity as soon as the bait went in. Not only that but a large caiman flicked its tail just below the water covering us in a shower & giving Sam a fright. Whilst fishing three pampas macaws flew over making graceful silhouettes against the darkening sky.
We soon had four sizeable piranhas & four large catfish for dinner & it was time to head back. Alan's last cast landed a tiny catfish which he wanted to keep but we told him it was too small. He insisted it was huge & it did look quite big in his five year old hands, but when we showed him the others which were nearly as big as him, he put the fish back in the water.
We had the motor on low & cruised back shining our torches over the surface of the water & reflecting off the retinas of caimen lying low in the water. Night herons & night hawks were now the only birds out & fireflies twinkled as we passed flashing our torches trying to mimic them.
Back at the lodge the cook hadn't held much hope for us catching anything & had cooked spaghetti bolognese. We ate this along with the fried fish & a bottle of chilled red wine which was delicious. The fish didn't have much flesh.

Drink of the Day: Abel Michel Torino Red Wine

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